Part I: Jeremy
Chapter 1
“You’re going where, exactly?” Mark’s voice crackled through the cell phone as I drove through the tree-lined two-lane road that led to Wilder River. “Never heard of it.”
The curves on the winding road tugged at me with their laws of physics, and I kept my truck’s speed a hair too fast for comfort. Just like old times.
“Nobody has. That’s why I’m going.” Not true. I had other reasons for going back to Wilder River. Make that one reason: Danica Denton.
“But, dude! Hotston Properties just signed that deal acquiring Georgetown and Prince Medical Group, ten practices, all majorly profitable.”
I knew that. Everyone knew that. As my lawyer, who’d drawn up all the paperwork for all the contracts, Mark knew better than anyone. Why repeat it to me? “So?”
“So, dozens of clients are going to hear about it and come knocking on your door. We’ve got momentum. Hotston Properties is set to be not just the top medical practice broker west of the Mississippi, but the top medical practice broker in the whole country—and you’re going into the hinterlands? Now?”
“Yes.” And for precisely the reason he mentioned. “I closed with Georgetown.” My eighteenth medical practice acquisition this year. “It’s time.” Time to finally see Danica again. She can’t blow me off now. Not that Wilder River people heard much, if anything, about medical practice real estate acquisitions coups in the city, no matter how huge. But had I done enough in the past dozen years to prove I wasn’t the screw-up she accused me of being?
Only Danica could be the judge of that.
I was banking on her logical mind taking charge, accepting that time had passed and people could change, even persona non grata Jeremy Hotston, the unmitigated knucklehead she’d claimed she would never forgive.
Never is a long time.
Today, I intended to prove that never was officially over. At least when it came to my chances with Danica.
The trees thinned from evergreens and gave way to just-turning-yellow leaves, evidence of the shortening days. I slowed my truck as I approached the Wilder River perennial speed trap on the edge of town. Sure enough, an officer—probably Lonnie Parsons who graduated with us—sat behind his radar gun, aiming at me as I flew past.
Too late! Lonnie—or one of his compadres in blue—flipped on his siren and lights and whizzed out onto the road after me. I muttered a curse I’d learned in the military as I pulled to the side of the road, careful not to tip my truck into the barrow pit.
“License and registration,” he said, not lifting his mirrored sunglasses as he stood at my window, where I’d pulled alongside the grassy ditch. “I clocked you at forty-nine in a thirty-five.”
“I’m sorry, officer.” I handed him my documents. “It won’t happen again.”
“Jeremy?” The policeman lifted the tinted flap of his glasses and peered at me. “Jeremy Hotston? Is that really you?” He reached into my truck and clamped his hand on my shoulder, shaking me hard enough to dislodge my fillings. “It’s been ages!” He pointed at his badge. “Lonnie. Lonnie Parsons.”
“Hey, Lonnie!” I shook his hand, then I cupped my jaw. No, it hadn’t been dislocated by his shoulder-shake. “I heard you’d become a highway patrolman. Laughed, of course, when they told me.”
“Well, now I can speed legally—got my Dodge Charger doing a hundred and fifteen on the straightaway chasing down a speeder last week. Didn’t even break a sweat. Speeder had drugs on him, and so double the fun. Booked him and everything.” He could have blown on his badge and shined it. “Good to see you, man. Where have you been? You just up and disappeared from Wilder River. Nobody heard of you again.”
Uh-oh. That was not good to hear. Not if I planned to count on Danica being impressed with my improved reputation. “I’m living in Reedsville, running a business.”
“I hope it’s all above-board. Nothing shady.”
Unless he considered the current inflation rates shady, resulting in several of my investments from just two years ago tripling in value. “It’s all legal, my friend.” I gave him a smile. “Go ahead and write me that ticket.”
“Nah, you’d just have to pay a fine and watch your insurance rates go up. Promise me you’ll take the speed limit seriously and I’ll let you off with a verbal warning. This time.” His voice held menace for a moment, and then lines wrinkled at the sides of his eyes. “Why are you here? Did you hear about Danica and come right over? Word travels fast. No wonder you were speeding.”
“Hear what about Danica?” My mind hopped like a deranged cricket. Danica was getting married. Danica needed help. Danica was hurt. “Is she all right?”
“They think she’ll live.”
Now my heart hopped like that deranged cricket on a hotplate. “Just a second. What? Tell me what’s going on.” As in immediately. It took all my willpower not to reach out and grab his shirt by the collar and shake him like he’d shaken me. “Lonnie. Is Danica hurt?”
“Calm down, dude. Man, you’ve got it bad for her—as bad as always.” He gave a chuckle, and I made imaginary fists around his neck. “Man, I’ll never forget when you tried doing that romantic balloon release for her while she was horseback riding with her dad. That was wild.”
More like the horse had been wild. Spooked by the balloons, her dad’s horse had plunged headlong down the hillside from the trail, nearly giving the guy a heart attack.
My mistake.