Noah snapped up from me, his head tilting to the side as we listened for the knocking again.

  His eyes met mine, and we both seemed to silently ask each other who it could be.

  One of his brothers, maybe? They had terrible timing, whoever it was.

  With a frown, Noah removed himself and then me from the pool table. He adjusted the situation in his jeans, and we headed up the stairs to the front door.

  When Noah opened it, a woman was standing there, her hands on her hips. Who the hell was that?

  “CJ. What are you doing here?”

  His tone was calm, but it didn’t help my stomach feel any less sick. After all, it was almost nine at night, and a strange woman was at his front door.

  “I thought you were coming out tonight,” she said as she tapped her toe. “But I can see you were entertaining.” She leaned around Noah to look at me.

  I stood with my arms folded protectively over my chest, feeling completely out of place and a little shell-shocked.

  “And you didn’t think to text me?” he asked.

  “I tried, but you didn’t respond.”

  “Then I guess that means I’m not coming out tonight,” he said with a certain finality.

  Just then, my phone rang, and I was grateful for the distraction. My purse was nearby, and I grabbed my phone.

  I was surprised to see Mr. Davis’s number pop up. It seemed odd he’d be calling me so late. The only reason he’d called in the past was to make arrangements for Grandpa’s ashes—but that was all done now.

  “Hello?” I said as I headed toward the kitchen to get away from the surprise visitor.

  “Rachel. Thank God. I didn’t know who else to call.”

  My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What . . . can I do for you?”

  “It’s Tahlia,” he said with no other greeting. I knew that was the name of his granddaughter, but I didn’t know much else about her.

  “Is she okay?” I asked, immediately going into nurse mode at the panicked tone of his voice.

  “She’s in labor.”

  It seemed like it took all his effort to communicate this much to me. I understood, though, from my years in the hospital. When people were worried about their loved ones, all the pleasantries went out the window, and sentences either grew really short or really long.

  “How far apart are the contractions?” I asked.

  At that question, I noticed Noah look back at me with an eyebrow arched. He seemed to still be addressing the woman called CJ, who was giving me quite the death glare.

  “She’s an old friend,” I heard Noah say as Mr. Davis said, “About five minutes.”

  I don’t know why it should bother me that Noah called me an old friend. I was, after all.

  But I couldn’t worry about that right now. I knew why Mr. Davis had called. The nearest hospital was forty-five minutes away, and contractions five minutes apart meant the baby was coming now. Since I was five minutes away, ten at most, it would be best if I rushed over to help however I could while we waited for help.

  Confirming that he’d already called for an ambulance and that Tahlia was at his house, I told him I’d be over in five minutes.

  I probably should have said good-bye to Noah, but there was no time. “I’m borrowing your truck,” I shouted instead before bounding down the front steps two at a time. I sensed both he and CJ were staring at me, but I couldn’t worry about that now.

  After flying down the winding dirt road, I screeched to a stop in Mr. Davis’s driveway and sprinted from the truck. I wasn’t even sure I turned the engine off.

  Mr. Davis greeted me at the door. His face held a worried expression. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Have you ever delivered a baby before?” he asked, leading the way inside.

  “Once or twice,” I said. He didn’t need to know that one of those times was a goat. I smiled at the memory for a second before I heard the sound of a woman groaning in pain.

  Things just got very real.

  Was I really up for a home birth right now? Ten minutes ago, I was making out with Noah. There was never a dull moment out here in the mountains, it seemed.

  “Come on. Tahlia’s back here,” he said, leading me further into the house.

  In a back bedroom, Tahlia was lying in bed. Sweat droplets covered her forehead, and her face was red and strained. She looked young, maybe eighteen or nineteen.

  “Tahlia, I’m Nurse Rachel. I’m here to help you. Everything is going to be okay,” I told her, then turned to Mr. Davis. “Bring me towels, any gloves if you have them, a bowl of warm water, and a sharp clean pair of scissors.”

  Tahlia’s eyes popped wide then.

  “Just for the umbilical cord,” I said gently to her. “If it comes to that. How far apart are you now?”

  “Four minutes,” she said, breathing out the words.

  I gave her my most reassuring smile. “Very good. I’m going to wash my hands and then examine you, if that’s okay?”

  The fear in her eyes was apparent, but she seemed to be holding it together. She gave me a tight nod.

  Once my hands were clean, Mr. Davis had returned with the supplies. I examined Tahlia, aware that more people were coming into the room.

  I turned to a young man around her age. “Are you the dad?”

  He nodded, his expressions swinging between looks of panic and excitement.

  “She’s dilated to about ten centimeters now. That means you’re going to be a daddy very soon.”

  Turning back to Tahlia, I gave her a steady but serious expression.

  “Do you feel like you need to push?” Part of me was hoping to delay this a bit. Maybe give the EMTs time to get here. If her body was amendable to that plan.

  She nodded and let out a piercing groan.

  “That’s what I thought. It’s time to start pushing. Next contraction, okay? You and me, and . . . Daddy.” I looked back to the man in question.

  “Lincoln,” he told me.

  “Lincoln.” I repeated his name, and that’s when I noticed that for some reason, Noah was standing in the doorway. The sight of him caught me off guard.

  “They’re right in here,” he was telling someone in the hallway as he stepped aside, revealing two paramedics.

  “She’s four minutes apart, ten centimeters,” I told them.

  “Make some room, please,” the female paramedic told everyone. “Except you. Are you a doctor?” she asked me.

  I shook my head. “RN.”

  “Good. You stay.”

  I didn’t have time to tell her that I had no idea what I was doing. She and her partner worked fast, taking Tahlia’s blood pressure and pulse. All her vitals were good, but the contractions were now clearly just three minutes apart. There was no time for them to load her into an ambulance now. It would be too dangerous to be flying down a freeway at seventy miles an hour.

  Working together, the three of us readied ourselves, coaching Tahlia while Lincoln held her hand tightly.

  Luckily for her, the delivery went quickly. It didn’t take her more than five rounds of pushing before the baby slid out easily and began wailing.

  “It’s a girl!” the paramedic announced, placing the baby on Tahlia’s chest.

  She and her partner wiped the baby down while Tahlia and Lincoln gazed at their daughter in wonder, both of them now crying. It was the most miraculous thing in the world to witness. My heart was so full, I was almost crying right along with them.

  Instead, I switched into professional mode and watched how they cut the umbilical cord and tended to Tahlia. I took mental notes on how they swaddled the baby and checked her blood pressure again, just in case I was part of any more deliveries out here. It was all so fascinating.

  Since the birth had been so smooth, they waited for a bit before loading her into the ambulance, baby in her arms, to take them both in for monitoring.

  As the stretcher left the living room and I watched them load her up, I turned to Noah, who’d been sitting in the living room keeping Mr. Davis calm.

  “She going to be okay?” Mr. Davis asked, his brow still worried into a knot.

  I patted his shoulder. “She did great. Congratulations, Grandpa.”

  He smiled big. “I’m so glad you’re home now, Rachel. We need more good people like you around here.”

  An unexpected wave of emotion at his words flooded through me. My throat tightened, and I nodded at him.

  We said our good-byes after that, and Noah drove me the short distance home.

  “How did you find me?” I asked curiously.

  “I tracked my truck on my phone and got Logan to drive me over.”

  Huh. I didn’t even know that was a thing. Then again, I’d only ever driven an ancient car.

  “So, was CJ okay?” I asked, cocking a brow at him. “She seemed mad.”

  “She’s just a friend,” he said defensively.

  “Like how we’re friends?” I asked.

  He let out a long, slow breath. “So, here’s the thing about me, and you may already know this . . . but I tend to speak first and think later. So, when I answer your questions honestly, just be sure you’re ready to hear the answer.”

  “I’m ready,” I told him. As far as I was concerned, honesty was always the best policy. I didn’t want him censoring the truth to spare my feelings. I would rather know.

  “She and I used to hook up once in a while, but no, she and I aren’t friends like you and I are.”

  It stung a little to hear about their history, but I did appreciate his honesty. I also noted that he spoke in past tense. They used to hookup. “What do you mean?”

  We’d pulled into my driveway then and Noah cut off the engine, turning to me. “We have a deep friendship. Hell, Rachel, you were my first love. I’m not sure that’s even something a person ever gets over. CJ’s a casual acquaintance. That’s it.”

  His words crashed into me like a tidal wave. I felt like the wind had been knocked from my lungs.

  I guess I’d known as much. Not that either of us had said it, but I’d known I loved him back then, and I’d thought he’d loved me too. To hear him say it, though . . . it was overwhelming.

  Instead, I went for humor, because that’s what I tended to fall back on in awkward situations. “You usually sleep with your casual acquaintances?”

  Noah chuckled and shook his head. “When I said there wasn’t very many available females in this town, I wasn’t kidding. CJ and I used each other. Believe me, we were on the same page.”

  “Were?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “I told her I needed space. Whatever I might have shared with her is in the past now.”

  I couldn’t help the smile tugging at my mouth. It felt like a small victory hearing him say this, even if it shouldn’t matter to me. Noah wasn’t mine. I didn’t have some type of claim on him.

  I buried my face in my hands.

  “You okay?” he asked, bringing an arm around my shoulders.

  I let my head fall into him as he held me.

  “Today was a lot,” I murmured, exasperated.

  “You delivered five babies today,” he said with a laugh. “Isn’t that a normal day for a nurse?”

  I looked up at him, a deranged smile on my face. “Maybe for a labor and delivery nurse, which I was not. And are you really lumping together four goat babies and one human baby?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. How different is it, really?”

  A high-pitched squeak bubbled from my throat. “Very.”

  “You were great in both. So calm and steady.”

  Realizing the full weight of it all . . . was a lot. But Noah was right. I did well, and I let the feeling of pride burst through me. I’d felt more fulfilled today than I had, well, ever in my life.

  Being with the Harts, they were like my second family, even if I was still mad at Austen. Being in my childhood home again. Being needed by my neighbors. Having a good man like Noah . . . if I had him, I wasn’t entirely sure.

  Maybe if I stayed here, I wouldn’t be so lost and alone in the world.

  14

  * * *

  EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK

  Rachel

  “You will never guess what I did this week,” I said to Megan, taunting her as I set my phone against a stack of books on the counter so I could have a good video chat with my friend.

  “You robbed a liquor store?”

  “Ha. No. Good guess, though. Nope. I delivered four goats and one human baby this week.”

  Megan’s face twisted in disbelief. “Robbing a liquor store sounds more likely.”

  “I’m as serious as an arrhythmia,” I said proudly.

  She shook her head. “Things in the sticks sure are different.”

  I nodded. “Very. The goats were Noah’s, and my down-the-street neighbor’s granddaughter was delivering at home, by accident.”

  “I don’t even know my neighbor’s first name,” Megan said with wide eyes. “I can’t imagine delivering babies for them.”

  “That’s what’s so different about Kodiak Canyon. That’s like a normal Tuesday here. I missed this.”

  She pursed her lips and bobbed her head. “Selfishly, I want you back.” She paused to smile big. “But I’m so happy for you. This is what you needed.”

  “There was just something about helping out Tahlia—it was meaningful, you know?”

  Megan waited, sensing I wanted to continue my rant.

  “That was why I got into nursing in the first place, not to battle hospital politics. It had started to make the job feel pointless and even combative.”

  “What are you saying?” Megan asked. “You want to be a small-town nurse who does house calls now?”

  “Is that even a thing?” I laughed, but the idea intrigued me.

  “I have no idea, but maybe you could make it a thing,” Megan said with all the conviction I needed to believe her.

  “Well, I have no idea what I’m saying. I’m just sort of figuring things out as I go.”

  I didn’t mean to backtrack, but that’s how I’d always been. Wondering if every decision I made was the right one, or whether I’d later regret it. That’s probably why I stayed with Roger for so long.

  “You deserve happiness,” Megan said. “Which means, I think, that you need to stop overanalyzing everything and just have some fun. Hell, have a fling with Noah. He’s hot!”

  I laughed at the assessment of Noah. “I’m not here to have a fling, but being kissed did feel pretty amazing.”

  “You kissed him?” she practically screamed into the phone as she rocked around in her seat, her hair bouncing wildly.

  I nodded with a laugh at her over-the-top reaction. “Settle, lady. Yes, I kissed him. Twice.”

  She waggled her eyebrows at me.

  “And it was amazing.”

  “You’re killing me.” She fanned her face. “I need a boyfriend.”

  “Or just some sex,” I said with a wink.

  “True.” She nodded thoughtfully. “But you absolutely deserve some hot kisses. Replace Roger the baked potato with some good memories with Noah the hot tamale!”

  We devolved into a fit of giggles before ending the call.

  For once, though, I felt downright hopeful.

  I leaped up from my seat and continued changing out the faucet on the kitchen sink. I’m pretty sure that job shouldn’t take four hours, but if I just stayed patient, it would all come together. I was sure of it.

  After two more hours of fussing around with the sink, I called Noah. “Hey, are you busy?”

  “Always,” he said with a laugh. I could hear the sound of goats bleating in the background.

  “Oh shit. Sorry.”

  “But not too busy for you. You need something?”

  I debated ending the call, but the truth was, I was fixated on finishing this job. “Well, you do owe me for the goats.”

  “And here I thought that was out of the kindness of your heart,” he said with a chuckle.

  “If now’s not a good time . . .”

  He cut in quickly. “I can be over in five. What do you need?”

  It felt good, hearing that Noah would rush over to help me.

  That was a trigger I knew I’d been holding on to from Roger. He’d never make time for things I needed done.

  Sure, when it came to me helping him prepare to host his friends for a night of watching a football game, I’d be expected to happily agree. But when I asked him to help me clean up the house so I could host a girls’ night, he’d told me he had too much work to do, and then proceeded to play five hours of video games.

  So, yeah, it meant a lot to me that I was a priority to Noah. I hadn’t been treated like that in a long time—like I was a priority. Not since I lived back here and had Grandpa Paul and the Hart family in my corner.

  As promised, five minutes later, Noah was at my door. Hell, I think it might have been four minutes. I don’t even know how he got here so quickly.

  His hair was perfectly disheveled, sticking up in the front. His facial hair had grown into the perfect five o’clock shadow.

  “Hey, you,” he said as he pulled me into a hug.

  “Hey, yourself,” I said, which was totally cheesy, but neither of us seemed to care.

  We watched each other for a second, grinning like two idiots.

  Damn, he’s handsome.

  “So, what are we doing?”

  He hadn’t even asked. I swear, that shouldn’t have shot straight to my heart, but dammit, it did. I was sorely lacking tending loving care, and here Noah was providing it to me.

  “Something with water?” he said with a laugh as he took me in.

  My shirt was soaked. I had been so close, I thought, to finishing finally. But when I tested it, water sprayed angrily from the handle.

  “It’s this darn thing.” I sighed and gestured to the sink where a half-assembled faucet taunted me.

  Noah unbuttoned the cuffs of his plaid shirt and rolled up the sleeves, revealing his thick, tanned forearms. In that moment, I wanted to say, Forget the faucet, let’s make out again, but I had to behave myself, despite Megan’s advice.