Page 34 of Brian and Cora (The Bachelors of Three Bend Lake #2)

Four months later

T he February wind rattled the windows of the doctors' office as Cora finished cleaning the surgical instruments. Her hands moved automatically through the familiar task while her mind wandered—as it too often did—to a rustic cabin by a mountain lake and the taciturn man who lived inside.

She was happy, really she was, living the life she’d dreamed of and worked so hard for.

A real nurse, trusted by both Cameron doctors, and sought after by families throughout the area.

In the past four months, she'd delivered her first baby entirely on her own, sat by the bedside of a dying child, found ways to manage and calm a senile elder, and learned more about medicine than in all her years of volunteering at the hospital.

Her vocation fulfilled her. But not enough to mend her broken heart.

"Ye look tired, lass," Dr. Cameron said from the doorway. "When did ye last have a full night's sleep?"

"The Hendersons' baby had croup three nights ago," she reminded him. "Then Mrs. Mueller's labor yesterday."

"Aye, and the week before that ye were at the Kowalskis' place for five days." He studied her with those penetrating blue eyes. "Ye can't keep this pace forever."

Yes, I can, she thought stubbornly. As long as it keeps me too busy to think.

But that was a lie. Dozens of times a day, she thought of Brian—when she encountered a difficult patient and wondered what sharp retort he'd make, when she read medical journals and imagined discussing them with him, when she saw the first crocuses pushing through the snow and remembered his unexpected gentleness with Jewel, the girl who loved flowers and leaves.

According to Hank, Brian was writing like a man possessed. "Positively feral," he'd said with a laugh during one of his visits to Elsie. "Won't even answer the door half the time. Just shouts to leave the supplies on the porch."

Cora had smiled and nodded and pretended the news didn't cut her to the quick. Brian discovered his story. He didn't need her anymore….didn’t wish to include her.

"Go home," Dr. Cameron ordered. "Alice and I can manage for one evening."

"But the baby?—"

"Is thriving, thanks in part to yer help during the delivery." His expression softened. "Ye saved my sanity that night, Cora. When I saw how long the labor was lasting, how much pain she was in..." He cleared his throat. "Having ye there, calm and competent, made all the difference."

The memory of that night a month ago—Alice's courage, the doctor's naked fear transforming to joy, the perfect tiny girl who'd entered the world with a lustful cry—brought tears to Cora's eyes. The way the man had wept when he beheld his miracle baby before kissing her forehead and handing the infant to her mother. How the couple had touched their foreheads to each other’s, murmuring words of love before Cora tiptoed out of the room.

Throughout the celebration afterward, she'd held herself together.

Used her joy for the safe birth of mother and child to keep a smile on her face.

Only when she'd reached the privacy of her room had she allowed herself to weep from her own loneliness and fear that she’d never experience the adoration of a husband and the birth of her child.

She pulled herself back into the present. "I suppose I could use an early evening.”

"Good. And Cora?" Dr. Cameron paused at the door. "Spring's coming. A time of renewal. Don’t give up hope.”

Before she could form a question, he’d left.

The walk to the Bellaire mansion—she still couldn't think of it as simply home—was bitterly cold. But at least the weather matched her mood. She'd thought by now the ache would have faded. That Brian would have become just another patient and another chapter in her nursing career.

Instead, the pain sharpened with each passing week. Every time she heard he'd been in town—interviewing Sheriff Granger or Deputy Redwolf, consulting old newspapers with Ant Gordon—she'd inconveniently been needed elsewhere.

She was good at being needed. She just wasn't sure if being needed was enough anymore.

"Oh, you’re here!" Aunt Rose—now Rose Bellaire—met her at the door, glowing with a happiness that made her look years younger. "You're home early for once."

"Dr. Cameron ordered me to rest."

"Good man. You've been working yourself to exhaustion." Rose helped her off with her coat, studying her with concern. "Have you eaten? Cook made gumbo—Andre's mother's recipe."

"Maybe later."

She escaped to her room before Rose could probe further. Her aunt's happiness at being married to Uncle Andre was wonderful to see. Cora was genuinely thrilled for them both. But sometimes, like with the Camerons, their joy was too bright a contrast to her own dismal spirits.

She'd been so certain something special developed between her and Brian.

Those conversations about books, the growing ease between them, that moment in the canoe when the world had shrunk to just the two of them, and, most important, that last hug.

Had she imagined everything? Built a romance out of proximity, caretaking, and loneliness?

Through her window, Cora could see snow beginning to fall again. Somewhere in the mountain valley, Brian was probably hunched over his desk, lost in his story. She hoped he was happy. She hoped the words flowed easily. She hoped?—

No. She pressed her palms against her eyes. No more hoping. Tomorrow she'd rise early, report to the office and lose herself in the needs of others—keep moving on the way she’d been.

Because the alternative—admitting that she'd lost her heart to a grumpy writer who'd apparently forgotten she existed—why, there was no way on God’s green earth would Cora Collier allow herself to wallow in her misery.

Brian burst through the double doors of the Gordon Building office like a man possessed.

He probably looked like one too—unshaven, under his hat, his hair wild from the wind, clothes rumpled from not being laundered in who knows how long, his face reddened from the bitterly cold ride.

He pulled the doors closed on the cold wind that followed him inside and took a jubilant breath.

His book was finally, finally finished.

The manuscript, wrapped in oilcloth against the weather and clutched against his chest beneath his coat, felt like a living being.

Four months of frenzied writing, of eighteen-hour days and cramped hands, of reliving the trauma so he woke up sweating at night.

Diving so deep into his memory, the posse’s memories, that sometimes he'd forgotten to eat or sleep. But he’d birthed the book into the world.

Now, finally, he could put his plan into motion. He unbuttoned his coat, unwound the oilskin, and looked at the cover page for a final moment before relinquishing the heavy stack of pages into the capable hands of Ant’s new secretary:

Lawwoman’s Justice:

A True Account of Robbery, Murder, and the Capture of the McCurdy Gang

by

Brian Bly

He shuffled to the next page, to the dedication, and had second thoughts about keeping something so vulnerable in this draft. It can go in the final draft. He stuffed the paper into his pocket.

"Brian!" Ant Gordon emerged from the Sweetwater Springs Herald office. His large frame would have filled the doorway, if the man hadn’t designed the doors to be higher than usual. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Three hundred and forty-seven pages of blood, sweat, and honesty," Brian confirmed.

The editor's eyes lit up. "Hot dang! Pardon my language. Delores!" He called to his secretary. "Clear your schedule. We've got Bly's book!"

Brian had met Delores Knickerbocker on a previous visit—a thin, efficient woman with steel-gray hair and fingers that flew over the typewriter keys like a pianist performing a concerto, although in a more staccato beat. She appeared now, spectacles perched on her nose.

"How soon do you need it typed?" she asked without preamble.

"As soon as possible. I'll pay extra for rush work."

"No need," Ant interjected. "I’m paying her. This is the story of the decade! And you arranged the contract with your publisher for us to serialize the book—the only newspaper in the country to do so."

The door across the hall opened, and Cora stepped out of the dressmaker's shop, winding a blue scarf around her neck. At the sight of him, she gasped and stopped.

She looked exactly as he'd pictured her a thousand times while writing—intelligent gray eyes, wisps of brown hair escaping from her practical bun, a determined chin he'd dreamed of kissing. But shadows that hadn’t been there before smudged the skin under her eyes, and she seemed thinner, honed, perhaps.

"Brian?" Her gaze dropped to the manuscript in his hands. "Is that your book?"

He nodded, words deserting him. This wasn't how their meeting was supposed to happen.

He had planned to have the manuscript typed and bound, for himself to be clean-shaven and well-dressed.

He wanted to present the book to her when it contained the flowery dedication that currently burned a hole in his pocket.

"You finished your book and didn't even tell me?" Hurt flashed across her face. "I thought I was part of... of..." She spun and fled.

"You are!" he called, but the door had already slammed behind her.

Fool. You absolute fool.

In that moment, Brian realized not only had his romantic plan just gone up in smoke, but that he had the wrong plan in the first place.

He'd been so focused striving toward a perfect moment that he'd forgotten the most important thing: including Cora in the journey.

He thrust the manuscript at Ant and raced after Cora.

The street was empty in both directions, with snow beginning to fall more heavily. She must have gone home. He started down the street, then stopped. He had no idea where Andre Bellaire lived.

Cursing his stupidity, he rushed back inside.