Chapter Five
O n Friday morning, Deirdre greeted the food services staff as she loaded up her morning coffee in the cafeteria, careful not to spill on her cream-colored blouse and khaki pants.
A familiar warm chuckle sent a frisson of excitement down her spine. She immediately squared her shoulders before turning around.
“I see we had the same idea this morning.” Calvin lifted his metal tumbler in a greeting.
Damn him, but he looked no worse for wear in his typical scrubs and vest, despite having finished his twenty-four-hour shift. In fact, the light stubble on his chin gave him a rugged appearance that woke her up faster than Yukon Valley hospital’s black coffee.
“Did you have a good shift?” she said.
Calvin scrubbed his lightly stubbled face, the rough sound popping on her nerve endings. “The medical part was no problem.” He shot her a wry grin.
Her toes curled, and she gripped the coffee carafe.
With a nod, he continued in a low voice, “The sheer amount of meddling in my personal life from Mom and Pop, who are in cahoots with every hospital employee, is exhausting.”
Dee paused mid-pour. “Wait. You, too?” She kept her voice low also.
The food services staff were nice, but they heard everything in the hospital.
“Damn it. If you’re fair game for the Yukon Valley matchmaking team, and you’re admin, then I’ve got no chance.”
“Are they being unprofessional?” This was a more casual work environment where most staff members knew each other outside of the hospital. However, if necessary, Deirdre would redirect the staff regarding boundaries and maintaining professionalism in the workplace.
“Mom and Pop? Always unprofessional.”
“No, the staff.”
“They do a great job, and the camaraderie is excellent. I don’t want to mess with their teamwork. But they’re applying that teamwork to other areas of my life.” He took a sip. “It’s more about them having conversations and poking gentle fun. I’m not looking to get anyone in trouble.”
Deirdre shook her head. “I thought it was mostly me that the staff had focused on. Mav, too. Seems like ever since he got hooked up, Mav has time to spare to evaluate my nonexistent dating life.”
“Not sure about Maverick’s motives, but with the staff I’m sure they have good intentions. We’re all friends here, so I don’t take offense.”
“It’s not interfering with your work?”
“Nope.”
“Do you feel comfortable stopping it if need be?”
“Yep.” He flashed a thoughtful expression. “Although, I’d hate to take away all of their fun.”
With a laugh that bubbled up from deep inside, she stared at Calvin’s familiar but handsome face. Her old friend. We’re all friends here , he had said. Old friends who could put a plan together like no one’s business.
Something resembling an idea started to take shape. Deirdre tapped the mug with a finger.
“Uh-oh. You’re plotting.” He gently bumped her upper arm with his elbow.
“Just thinking that”—she dumped cream in her coffee and stirred—“your problem sounds exactly like my problem.”
“Huh.”
“My problem is being the focus of the staff’s machinations. Looks like they have similar goals for you.”
“It’s also uncomfortable for you when they ask kind but probing questions?”
“Yes!” she said too loudly, then quickly smiled at the employee nearby. She sipped the coffee to lower the fluid level in the mug so that any wild gesture of hers was less likely to spill.
Calvin’s dark eyebrows shot up. “We have the same problem.” He looked around to make sure no eavesdroppers lurked nearby. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
No. No way. She shivered. The plan had risk, but also a chance of relieving the pressure.
It could work. “I think I am. And I believe we should have a meeting. Right now.”
“Where?” He made a face before taking a drink of his coffee.
“My office.” She tilted her head toward the staff milling around in the cafeteria. “You’d rather we meet here?”
“No, I do not.” He paused and pulled his buzzing phone from the vest pocket. “Pardon me a second.” She tried not to peek as Calvin studied the screen, frowned, swiped the screen, and put the phone back in his pocket.
“Everything okay?” she said.
His expression smoothed out in a split second, but his smile was tighter than normal. “Nothing we need to worry about. Let’s go.” He mirrored her businesslike stride and posture as they collegially walked side-by-side to the administration suite.
Once safely in her office, Calvin shut the door with a gentle, solid sound.
A sound of finality and promise.
She wetted her lips and motioned toward her small round meeting table. Calvin settled in a chair, and Deirdre took the seat next to him and scooted it to face him. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the staff. It’s very nice that they’re trying to help me out. It’s nice that they care about others,” she began.
“I agree. However, they are wearing me down, and I’ve only been here for two shifts. There’s a lot more scheduled. If I have to answer one more question about when am I settling down and having kids, I might jump out the window.”
A snort-laugh erupted, and Deirdre was darn lucky she hadn’t been mid-sip of coffee. “This is a one-story building!”
“I didn’t say my action would be effective. Mostly demonstrative.” Even though Calvin sat casually with an ankle resting on his knee, leaning back in the chair, he somehow managed to take up space and air in the small room. He put the coffee tumbler on the table. “You’re suggesting we work together to remove us as targets for the staff’s plotting pleasure?”
“Exactly.”
“So.”
“Um.”
“Pretend to be together.” His storm-cloud gray gaze pinned her in place.
He had said the words she couldn’t.
Her heart kicked an extra beat, and it didn’t have to do with the caffeine. Could she do this? Could she survive being closer to Calvin but pretending? For how long? So many details swirled in her mind.
Still, the chance of a reprieve from the kindhearted, relentless prying tempted her.
Calvin planted both feet on the floor and leaned forward. He peered at Deirdre long enough for her to memorize the fine lines bracketing the set of his mouth. “Cards on the table,” he said.
Deirdre’s cards were way too complicated when it came to Calvin. Her past and their past and her feelings and whatever his feelings were all obscured the water like glacier melt in a slow-moving river. So much existed beneath the surface that she couldn’t see.
Wouldn’t examine.
Deirdre swallowed again. True, the last several years of grief and immersion into work as her go-to avoidance technique had gotten old. Everyone in town and in the hospital knew her story. Everyone had decided it was time for her to move on with her life.
Except Deirdre.
Her life was a well-oiled machine, efficient and productive. Fulfilling. Her daily job contained enough uncertainty and change. She wasn’t prepared to bring that level of uncertainty and change to her personal life.
What she and Calvin proposed might get everyone off her back for a while. Relieve the social pressure.
Tempting.
Almost as tempting as the tall, lean frame of the man she had known for years. Yet, here he sat, so much about him now unfamiliar due to physical distance and the passage of time.
What she did truly know about this present-day Calvin? Not much, except that he was still her friend.
Deirdre’s therapist would have a heyday with this elaborate decision to avoid addressing her issues.
Avoidance sounded darn good to Deirdre.
She took a fortifying sip of black gold and mirrored his forward posture, resting one arm on the table next to her. “Okay. I have a few cards I can lay out for you. Here’s the deal. I don’t have time or energy for a relationship. However, like you said, it’s exhausting having everyone poke around in my personal life. Frankly, I can’t handle the poking right now. If I hear one more comment about taking a date to the Breakup Festival, I will jump out the window right behind you.
“All of my spare time is taken up by work or helping Mav with the lodge. Or, here recently, defending against those idiots who want to access to claims in this area.”
A land speculator, Randy Nelson, had posed as a guest at the lodge over a month ago in early February. He had faked an accident to try to financially ruin Deirdre and Mav so he could purchase the property along with newly discovered valuable mineral rights. They had squashed Randy’s threats to their family home and land but were determined to get the property legally squared away so nothing like this could surprise them again.
“I’m too busy for anything actually resembling a real relationship.” She wrapped up her rant.
A tiny inkling niggled at her. If she did have a quality partner, she would make time. But as of now, that idea continued to be a nonstarter. There was a saying that work expanded to fit the time available, and her life was a prime example. Her life was full of professionally satisfying activities that wouldn’t hurt her.
Calvin laced his long, tapered fingers together, making tendons move on the back of his hands and his hair-dusted forearms. “Then we are in complete agreement. I think the only way we can get folks off our backs is to start dating. At least until after the Breakup Festival.”
“Break up after the breakup?”
“The irony is not lost on me.” His boyish grin caught her off guard for a split second, transporting her back to her senior year in high school when two men held special places in her heart. That was then.
Then didn’t matter.
In the present, she and Calvin were two totally different people in a totally different situation with very different needs. “We’ll have to continue working together. Can you separate your professional relationship from a pretend relationship?” she asked.
“Pretending is one of my best skills.”
She laughed, because any other reaction meant she acknowledged how the truth hit too close to home for her as well. Pretending to be okay. Pretending to have dealt with her grief. Pretending to be part of normal society. “Me, too!”
“Then we might have a deal.” Calvin stuck out his hand with a businesslike dip of his chin. “Deirdre Steen, would you agree to pretend to date me?”