Sunrise Point

new salve mornings and evenings. Take the pills every four hours—your muscles will recover.”
    Then he put a little cream from the tube on his fingertips and slid them under the back collar of her shirt. Without the least hint of embarrassment, he slid her thin bra strap down over her shoulder and began to massage the cream into her shoulder and scapula.
    “Oh, that’s going to help you so much,” Maxie said. “When my hands get bad, I use that liniment—it’s miraculous.”
    His big, callused hands on her shoulder and upper back were so firm, so gentle, so wonderful. Slow, circular strokes with the tips of his fingers—pure luxury. It only took him a few minutes to rub it in. After he pulled out his hand, he went to the freezer to withdraw a cold pack, placing it gently over her shoulder.
    “And now ice. You’ll be good as new,” he said. “And when you come back to work on Monday, wear work gloves. I’ll give you a pair.” A glass of water appeared for her to take her pills. “How are your feet? Blisters?”
    “My feet are fine.” They were sore and there were blisters, but she wasn’t going to have him touching her feet. Although the thought had merit—his roughened hands gently smoothing salve on her sore feet could be heaven.
    When he had a small brown bag stocked with everything from salve to gloves, he handed it to her. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”
    She stood up. “I can walk just fine.”
    He gave a smirk. “I’m headed for town, Nora. I’ll give you a lift. And it might be a good idea to ask around if anyone is going your way, hitch a ride. You could meet Buddy—he’d be more than happy to—”
    “We shouldn’t encourage Buddy. And I don’t mind walking,” she insisted. “I make good time.”
    He held the back door open for her. “If you run into a mountain lion, you’ll make even better time, too.”
    She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. “Funny.”
    He just lifted one brow and smiled.
    “See you Monday, Maxie,” she said.
    “Have a nice weekend, Nora,” the woman returned.
     

Chapter Three
    Nora hated to part with overtime pay by taking the weekend off. Overtime sounded delicious—her budget was beyond tight. But she took her girls to the gym set at the elementary school, pushed Fay in the baby swing while Berry played on the slide and rings. She consoled herself that there would be more overtime coming her way when she was healed enough to take it without crippling herself for life.
    It was so early that she was surprised to see Noah Kincaid coming her way. “Hey,” she said. “Out for a morning walk?”
    “Kind of,” he answered, flashing her that handsome grin. “I was looking for you.”
    “Me?”
    “Maxie called me this morning—she’s an early riser. She said they were picking this weekend and you’d been refused overtime because of job related injuries. She suggested I might check on you, see how you’re doing.”
    She sat on a swing next to the baby swing. She stopped pushing the baby and gave a little laugh and held out her gloved hands. “It’s true. And as much as I hate to admit this, Tom Cavanaugh probably did the right thing. My hands are sore. I’m nursing some blisters from doing work I’ve never done before, not to mention sore muscles from picking for hours. My right shoulder was on fire. Don’t you dare tell him this, but the blisters on my feet were probably even worse than on my hands, but that stuff he gave me for my hands, that goop, wow. I’m almost as good as new.” She turned her hands over a couple of times so he could see the latex over gauze. “This is a pretty amazing cure.”
    “The shoulder?”
    “Better. Ice packs, anti-inflammatory and a little downtime does the trick.” She tsked. “It killed me to give up the money.”
    Noah leaned against the side of the jungle gym next to Fay, belted in and safe between them. Berry ran around crazily, up the stairs on the slide, down the slide, a swing on the ropes, singing and talking to herself the whole time. But Berry was not the least bit interested in Noah. She was a little on the antisocial side, Nora feared.
    “We started to talk about this a couple of times before,” Noah said. “Do you have family who would be available to help you get over this rough patch? I mean any family at all?”
    “We didn’t get far on that subject because there were too many immediate issues, like the fact that a few months ago my drug-crazed