“No, I’m fine.” She blushed. “And I was thinking of stopping at Rose’s Café, anyway.”
“Rose’s Café it is.” He was glad she’d agreed to come with him, even though he wasn’t exactly sure why he’d brought the idea up in the first place.
Nothing had changed. Larissa was still a nurse at Hope County Hospital, and he was still vying for the medical director position. He couldn’t afford to get emotionally involved with someone he worked with. Yet he could relate to where she was coming from. Sitting at home alone didn’t hold a lot of appeal for him, either.
He would just have to make sure that spending the day with Larissa was about being friends and nothing more.
____________
Larissa told herself that being out on Gabe’s boat didn’t mean anything. Even though Josie had wagged her eyebrows when she’d noticed Larissa and Gabe together. Larissa tipped her face to the sun and tried to calm her racing heart. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had.
So why had she said yes?
The logical answer was that she’d been bored and hadn’t wanted to sit around in her apartment. But the real reason was that she liked Gabe. As a person, not just as a physician she worked with.
And she hadn’t liked a man in a really long time.
For the first time, she realized that she’d been running away from her past. As much as she learned to love Crystal Lake, the fact of the matter was that she would have worked anywhere that wasn’t Chicago Central.
Gabe wasn’t Rolland. She’d made one bad decision, but did she have to live with that one bad decision forever? Maybe it was time to forgive herself. Wasn’t that what Pastor John had suggested?
“I brought you here to relax, not to be stressed out,” Gabe said as he slowed the boat, banking gently around a curve.
She hadn’t realized that her distress had been so evident and cleared her features. “Sorry about that. I guess I was wallowing in the past. You’re right that being out on the water like this is very relaxing. You must come out here whenever you have a day off, weather permitting.”
“I don’t come out often enough,” he admitted. “I tend to lose myself in running instead.”
She grinned. “Yes, I know.”
He was silent for a long moment. “I’ve been working hard to let go of the past as well,” he finally said. “So I understand how it can creep up on you at the worst time.”
She lifted a brow, surprised he’d admitted that much. “We should be able to let go, right? Considering how nice and peaceful it is here.”
He nodded as he glanced around. “Yeah, nothing like the city, that’s for sure.” He lifted his brow. “It’s a bit ironic that we’re both relatively new to the area.”
She remembered her first few weeks here and suppressed a shudder. “At least you were a Wisconsinite.” She’d heard he’d moved here from Madison. “I came from Chicago, and let me tell you, that was a huge hurdle to overcome.”
He laughed. “I can only imagine.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “Thankfully, Julie Crain befriended me, and since she grew up here, the locals finally stopped treating me like an outsider.” Julie was working this weekend or she would have had someone to hang out with.
Someone other than Gabe Allen.
Not that she was complaining or anything.
“I bet if we asked around, we’d find more transplant residents than those who were born here,” Gabe confided.
The thought of people who were born and raised here made her think of poor Annie Hinkle. According to Julie, the Hinkles had been here as long as she had. Her smile faded. “You might be right,” she agreed.
Her cell phone rang, surprising her. She stared at the screen for a moment, tempted to let the call go to voice mail as she didn’t recognize the number. Reluctant curiosity compelled her to press the green button to answer. “Hello?”
“Larissa? It’s me, Annie.” The woman was speaking so softly she could barely hear her.
A shiver of apprehension rippled down her spine. “Annie? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
There was a loud crash followed by nothing but silence.
Annie had hung up.
Chapter Four
“Was that Annie Hinkle?” Gabe asked, every sense on alert. When she nodded, he tried to remain calm. “What happened?”
Larissa’s tortured gaze met his. “I don’t know, but I think we should call the police.”
He quickly turned the boat back toward his pier. “Are you sure? Maybe she just didn’t want anyone to know she was calling you.”
“She was talking really softly, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear her. But then I heard a crash and then—nothing. I’m worried something terrible has happened to her.”
He understood where she was coming from. The dark bruise around Annie’s wrist had revealed an ugly story despite her claims of falling off the porch. He’d seen his share of domestic violence cases when he’d been in Madison, but he couldn’t figure out why the women didn’t just get out. He knew being a victim was part of the cycle, believing the guy was going to change, thinking that next time the same thing wouldn’t happen, but it was still frustrating.
“Call 911 and send the deputies over there just in case.”
He could hear Larissa on the phone, speaking to Deputy Thomas, explaining Annie’s abrupt call and the crash she’d heard. After she finished, she turned back toward him. “They said they’d send a squad out to check things out.”
“That’s good,” he said as he pulled up next to his pier. “Wait for me to help you,” he cautioned. He made quick work of tying up the boat before giving her a helping hand.
She crutch-walked up the front lawn at a fast pace. He followed close behind. “Do you know where Annie and Kurt live?” she asked as they rounded the house.
