Sanctuary

before you break ground.”
    “You’ll work with me on it?”
    “Sure.” Without thinking, Nathan picked up Jo’s coffee mug and drank. “I’d like to.”
    Revved, Giff gathered up the drawings. “I think I’ll just swing by and drop these off for Miss Kate now. Give her some time to mull it over. I’m really obliged, Nathan.” He tugged on the brim of his cap. “See you, Jo.”
    Jo leaned against the counter and watched as Nathan got another sheet of drawing paper. Finishing off her coffee, he started another sketch.
    “You don’t even know what you just did,” she murmured.
    “Hmm. How far is that perennial bed with the tall blue flowers, the spiky ones? How far is that from the corner here?”
    “Nope.” She got herself another mug. “You don’t have a clue what you’ve done.”
    “About what? Oh.” He looked down at the mug. “Sorry. I drank your coffee.”
    “Besides that—which I found both annoying and endearing.” She slid her arms around his waist. “You’re a good man, Nathan. A really good man.”
    “Thanks.” Normality, he promised himself. Just for an hour, they would take normality. “Is that because I didn’t give you a little swat on the bottom when you strolled out here in my shirt—even though I wanted to?”
    “No, that just makes you a smart man. But you’re a good one. You didn’t see his face.” She lifted her hands to his cheeks. “You didn’t even notice.”
    At sea, he shook his head. “Apparently I didn’t. Are you talking about Giff ?”
    “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Giff, and I don’t know many who think of him as anything more than an affable and reliable handyman. Nathan—” She touched her lips to his. “You just told him he was more, and could be more yet. And you did it so casually, so matter-of-factly, he can’t help but believe you.”
    She rose up on her toes to press her cheek to his. “I really like you right now, Nathan. I really like who you are.”
    “I like you, too.” He closed his arms around her and swayed. “And I’m really starting to like who we are.”
     
     
    KIRBY had a firm grip on her pride as she walked into Sanctuary. If Jo was there, she would find a way to speak to her privately. Her strict code of ethics wouldn’t permit her to tell any of the Hathaways what she’d learned the night before. If Jo had come home after speaking with Nathan again, Kirby imagined the house would be in an uproar.
    If nothing else, she could stand as family doctor.
    But that wasn’t why she’d been summoned.
    She had planned her visit to avoid Brian, using that window of time between breakfast and the midday meal. And she’d used the visitors’ front door rather than the friends’ entrance through the kitchen.
    Since they had managed to avoid each other for a week, she thought, they could do so for another day. She wouldn’t have come at all if Kate hadn’t hailed her with an SOS after one of the guests slipped on the stairs. Even as she turned toward them, Kate came hurrying down.
    “Kirby, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. It’s a turned ankle, no more than that, I swear. But the woman is setting up such a to-do you’d think she’d broken every bone in her body in six places at once.”
    One glance at Kate’s distracted face and Kirby knew that Jo had yet to speak of Annabelle. “It’s all right, Kate.”
    “I know it’s your afternoon off, and I hated to drag you over here, but she won’t budge out of bed.”
    “It’s no problem, really.” Kirby followed her up the stairs. “It’s better to have a look. If I think it’s more than a strain, we’ll x-ray and ship her off to the mainland.”
    “One way to get her out of my hair,” Kate muttered. She knocked briskly on a door. “Mrs. Tores, the doctor’s here to see you. Bill the inn,” Kate added to Kirby in an undertone, “and add whatever you like for a nuisance fee.”
    Thirty minutes later, and more than a little frazzled, Kirby closed the bedroom door behind her. Her head was aching from the litany of complaints Mrs. Tores had regaled her with. As she paused to rub her temples, Kate peeked around the corner.
    “Safe?”
    “I was tempted to sedate her, but I resisted. She’s perfectly fine, Kate. Believe me, I know. I had to give her what amounts to a complete physical before she was satisfied. Her ankle is barely strained, her heart is as strong as a team of oxen, her lungs even stronger. For your sake, I hope