Page 10 of What Hurts Us

Nursing had been an obvious profession for me to go into. I enjoyed fixing people. Putting them back together. But that proclivity bled into my personal life. I had a habit of reacting to men the way I reacted to rescue puppies. All it took was a single wounded look, and I was lining up to have my heart steamrolled by someone who needed to deal with his problems in therapy, not a relationship.Cue the Sarah McLachlan.

“Have you met your neighbors yet?” Lauren asked as she dipped a corn fritter in sour cream and took a bite.

I stuffed my face with a fried green tomato and shook my head. “Nope,” I mumbled. “I’ve seen them, though. I think they’re like … gym junkies or something. They’re always blasting music and running blenders ridiculously early in the morning. I don’t even have to set alarms to get up for work. They’re making power smoothies at five in the morning and rolling out with stuffed gym bags.”

I looked back at the sidewalk and caught a glimpse of Callum’s back as he shuffled down the sidewalk. The bedrest clearly hadn’t been a problem for his physique.Holy cheese and crackers.The man had the greatest ass on planet earth.

Shane came back from his bathroom run and plopped back into the third seat at our table. “What are we talking about?”

“Layla’s neighbors,” Lauren sing-songed.

“Myloudneighbors and their thin walls,” I corrected.

Shane grimaced. “Sucks.”

“Tell me about it,” I grumbled into my sweet tea. “Thank goodness for blackout curtains, sleep masks, and earplugs.”

“And melatonin,” we all agreed in unison, then laughed.

Shane tipped his beer toward me. “I’ll drink to that.”

Lauren nodded in agreement. She had been pulling night shifts with the police department and was feeling the zombification that came from nocturnal sleep patterns in a diurnal society.

The weather today was glorious. The breeze was a filthy liar, though. It gave the impression that fall was right around the corner, but summer would hold out for another month or two.

The side door of The Copper Mule swung open, and Tiffany, the head waitress, stepped out. “Is this table okay for y’all?” she asked the two patrons she was leading out onto the patio.

“That’s great,” the man said.

That voice was oddly familiar.A faint reminder of a previous life.

I turned and looked as the customers took their seats.

Che halâl zâdeh!Speak of the friggin’ devil. If he hadn’t been wearing a Beaufort Fire Department shirt, I wouldn’t have believed it.

“Austin?”

Austin Hale was a firefighter back in Beaufort, North Carolina. We didn’t see each other much when I lived and worked there, but we ran into each other from time to time when he’d come into the ER after getting banged up in the line of duty.

He was enormously tall, built like a tank, and was as sweet as Yazdi cakes. He looked like Thor but had the temperament of a golden retriever.

Austin whipped around, obviously not expecting someone so far from his home to know his name. He took one look at me and bolted out of the wrought-iron chair. His knees caught on the edge of the table, and he tipped the ketchup bottle over. “Layla?”

Big muscular arms enveloped me in a hug before I could get another word out. He squeezed a laugh from me as he nearly lifted me off the ground.

“What are the odds? Mel Jacobsen told me you moved out here a while ago.” He set me down and took a step back. “Didn’t expect to run into you as soon as I got into town.”

I gave his bicep a squeeze under the guise of friendliness, but the muscles had actually hypnotized me. “What are you doing here?”

Austin stepped to the side and draped his arm over the shoulders of a woman who held an uncanny resemblance to him. “Layla, this is my little sister, Bethany.”

Austin Hale made agorgeouswoman.

Bethany had the same brilliant smile, bright eyes, and blonde hair. She shook my hand. “Just Beth. It’s nice to meet you. How do y’all know each other?”

Austin looked down at his sister. “Layla used to work at Carteret Presbyterian. She, uh … patched me up a time or two.” He winked at me.

I laughed. “I think you even dragged me out on the dance floor at Jokers a time or two.”

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