Page 16 of Breaking Bristol

“Right.” She backed out. “Yeah, go ahead.”

I grabbed the bag off the kitchen counter and then went outside. The motion light was on the corner of the shed, so I reached up and untwisted it, then changed the batteries. I heard her follow me, so when I was done, I turned to her. “Good as new.”

“Thank you. But I feel kind of silly because all that stuff seemed really easy to fix.”

“Even if it was, that’s not your job.”

One of her dark eyebrows arched. “Why, because I’m a woman?”

“No,” I tried not to smile but felt my lips curling as I talked. “Because you’re a tenant. Your landlord is supposed to fix stuff.”

“Oh… all right.”

“Anything else while I’m here?”

Her face scrunched up adorably as she thought. “Not that I can think of.”

“All right then. Good seeing you. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Okay, thanks.” I had my fingers wrapped around the handle on my truck. “Dr. B…” She called out to me, and I so badly wanted to tell her my name just to hear it rolling off her tongue. But that would be even more dangerous, so I waited for her to say whatever was on her mind. “Do you, uh, want to stay and have a cup of coffee or something?”

Did I ever. “I’d love to, but I haven’t been home since my shift, so I really need to just go home and crash.”

“Oh my God.” Her eyes got big. “You didn’t have to do this now.”

“It’s fine.”

“Go home and get some sleep.” She shot a tentative smile my way. “Thanks again, and see you later, I guess.”

I pulled the door open and put a foot on the rung. “Later, sweetheart.”

CHAPTER 5

Bristol

“Can you believe it’s almost the middle of February already? Where did the new year go?”

I moved my purse off the table as the school secretary sat down in the faculty lounge. Most of the staff ate lunch at their desks, but I refused to do that. I loved my job with a passion, but I needed that thirty-minute break out of my office. Otherwise, I’d spend the time answering calls and emails.

“I know, it’s crazy.” It seemed like it went by in the blink of an eye, but at the same time, I couldn’t get New Year’s Eve out of my head, so it also seemed like yesterday.

She poured dressing on her salad and put the lid back on to shake the container. “I feel like I just recovered from Christmas and New Year’s. Now I’ve gotta go shopping for Valentine’s cards and the stuff for little gift bags for a hundred kids when the weather’s supposed to be shitty this weekend.” She had four children, all in elementary school, and I didn’t blame her for feeling overwhelmed.

“Well… you don’t have to do the gift bags if you don’t want. And honestly, you don’t need to do the cards either, Reese.”

She gasped. “Every single kid brings Valentine’s cards. Could you imagine mine being the only ones who didn’t? They’d never forgive me. Besides, everyone in town would hear about it and think I was dying or something.”

“That’s probably true.” I took the last bite of my sandwich. “But I stand by no gift bags.”

“I know. It’s a lot, but I just figure they’re only young once, right? Pretty soon, they’ll be in middle school and won’t want me to do this kind of stuff anymore.”

“I guess.”

She stabbed some lettuce with her fork. “Do you want kids?”

I tried not to show the pain that came with that question. When would people, women in particular, learn how hurtful that question could be? “I kind of need to be married first and I don’t even have a boyfriend, so…”

“Oh, I know!” She scrolled through her phone and then held it up to my face. “That’s my brother, Blake. He’s single now. You’re single. Why don’t I set y’all up for a blind date?”

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