Strummin' Up Love Read online

  With a quiet sigh, Louisa finally forced her eyes open, a living room she knew as well as the back of her hand swimming into view.

  “Are you okay?” Her mother’s face appeared just inches away from her own, and Louisa jumped. This wasn’t an easy feat, honestly, considering she was lying down, so it really was more like a whole-body jerk, complete with a wild swing of the arm and another whap against the coffee table.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” Louisa groaned, running her hands over her face and then rubbing her hand gingerly. “Nice and awake now.”

  “Sorry, sorry. I was talking to you about the bathroom, and you were not answering.”

  “You were?” Louisa searched back, trying to figure out if her mother’s words had registered even on a subliminal level, but came up with nothing.

  Huh. Maybe she wasn’t fine.

  Scratch that. She bloody well wasn’t fine at all. Who was she kidding?

  “Em is making breakfast burritos in the kitchen,” Mom continued, “and Alex just got out of the bathroom. If you hurry, you can squeeze in there before Frizzy realizes no one’s using it and hogs it for the next two hours.” She gave her daughter a wry smile.

  “Thanks, Mamá,” Louisa said, reaching out and squeezing her mother’s hand. It’d been a good long while since she’d had to jockey around younger siblings, trying to make her way into the bathroom before anyone else did, but it’d all come back to her soon enough.

  Stupid Louisa. You thought you’d escaped all of this, but you didn’t. You’re still a Latina, and living in a too-small house with too many siblings is your life. It doesn’t matter how many medical degrees you get – this is still where you’ll end up.

  Emelia shouted for help, and Mom hurried off, leaving Louisa to swing her legs off the couch and make a dash for the open door of the bathroom before the twins, Francesca and Isabel (or Frizzy, as almost everyone called the pair of them) seized their chance and clogged up the bathroom for the rest of the morning. They’d just discovered makeup last year, and according to everyone who had the bad luck of sharing a bathroom with them, now spent most of their waking hours either applying or removing it from their faces.

  Was I ever that vain? That self-absorbed?

  It seemed impossible, honestly.

  After using the worn, 1970s avocado green bathroom that perfectly matched the coffee table, Louisa headed for the kitchen, the smell of eggs, salsa, and beans drifting on the morning air.

  Mi casa.

  This was her home. She’d been stupid to think that she could make a home in a white man’s house. Matthew had told her that she made him into a better person; that just being around her made him want to try harder, but apparently he hadn’t finished that sentence. Try harder to find someone else to love was what Louisa had actually managed to convince Matt to do.

  Not the most useful talent on the planet, turns out.

  And now he was happy with his white girlfriend and their incoming white baby, and Louisa was here. Right back where she’d started.

  Back where she belonged.

  The chatter, loud and happy and enthusiastic, switched seamlessly between English and Spanish as her siblings dished up their burritos and argued over whose turn it was to do which chores that day.

  “Tia Carmelita called, Louisa,” Mom said, cutting across the argument over the last person to scrub the toilet. “She said you should call her back. Wanted to talk to you.”

  Louisa arched an eyebrow at her mother, trying to divine the point of this. Tia Carmelita, her mother’s sister, lived up in the mountains of Idaho, north of Boise, far, far away from the potato fields and cheatgrass and lava rocks of Pocatello. Carmelita visited them once a year, understanding that it was easier for her to drive across the state to visit them than it was for her sister, brother-in-law, and six children to trundle across the state to her.

  Once-a-year visits…well, Louisa knew her aunt well enough to be able to pick her out of a line-up, but they weren’t close by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. They certainly didn’t have cozy little chats every Tuesday morning.

  Mom just shrugged her ignorance at the look Louisa was sending her. “She wouldn’t say why; just said that it was important and to call her as soon as you had a chance.”

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  Louisa hurried through her breakfast burrito and then dug into the side of black beans and salsa as quickly as she could without being rude. Alex slid into the chair next to her, sending her a grin as he dug into his food.

  “Want to go outside and play fútbol after breakfast?” he asked around a mouthful of food, the scrambled eggs from the breakfast burrito spraying the table in front of him.

  “Alexander Vargas,” Louisa scolded him. He had the good graces to look ashamed and wiped hastily at the tablecloth. After a big swallow of milk washing down the remaining food in his mouth, he tried it again.

  “Wanna go kick around the pelota?” he asked eagerly. He was 13 and just starting to hit that stage in life where he’d become much too cool for his oldest sister (or anyone in the family for that matter) but apparently the desire to play fútbol won out over being too cool to be seen with family.

  Oh, the struggles of teenagerhood…

  “I have to call Tia Carmelita first,” she told him. “Then we’ll see.”

  His face dropped and he dug back into his burrito without another word. Louisa sighed as she stood up, ruffling his hair as she passed to take her plate to the sink. She was the oldest of the six Vargas children; he was the youngest. She’d been a second mom to him – hell, she’d been his mom – after their mom had almost died giving birth to him. Their mother had been weak and shaky for months afterwards and by time she regained her strength, it’d seemed natural to everyone that Louisa simply continue to take care of Alex. When she’d left to go work at the University of Utah Hospital down in Salt Lake City, Alex had cried for days.

  And now I’m letting him down by not kicking a ball around with him for an hour.

  Whatever Tia Carmelita wanted, Louisa would get it done and then go play with Alex. It was only right.

  Louisa snagged the cordless phone off the cradle – her mother refused to get rid of the landline and only have a cell phone like everyone else in the civilized world – and hit the speed-dial for the Miller’s house. Carmelita was the housekeeper for the Miller family – had been all of her adult life – and often joked that God didn’t send her kids or a husband because he knew she had enough people to take care of in the Miller family.

  Stetson Miller, the youngest of the Miller brothers, was only 18 months older than Louisa. The last time she’d seen him had been at his father’s funeral. She’d heard that he’d gotten married since then, which really was too bad; from what Louisa could remember, he was tall, lanky, and handsome as sin.

  All of the good ones are taken. It explains why I stuck with Matt for so long.

  “Miller residence,” her aunt said in her softly accented voice, a dead ringer for her sister when they were on the phone. It was a little creepy how similar they sounded, honestly.

  “Hola, Tia Carmelita,” Louisa said, slipping easily into Spanish. They chatted for just a moment and then, ever efficient, Carmelita dove into the heart of the conversation: She had a job for Louisa.

  “You what?!” Louisa said, so startled she switched back to English without meaning to.

  “A singer,” Carmelita said, making the switch effortlessly and following Louisa’s lead. “His son is a…how do you say…he cannot use his legs…”

  “He’s a paraplegic?”

  “Yes, that is the word. He is only 12 and he cannot walk. Poor boy.” Tia Carmelita sounded like she was on the verge of adopting the kid herself and Louisa chuckled under her breath. Carmelita was never as happy as she was when she had someone to cluck over, and since the youngest of the Miller boys was now probably pushing 29, she was likely going stir-crazy. A paraplegic child was just the person she’d love to mother-hen.

&nb
sp; “His dad is Zane Risley,” Carmelita continued. “Have you heard of Zane?”

  “Ummm…no?” Louisa said, quickly searching her memory for any mention of that name, and coming up blank. “Did he graduate from Sawyer High School?”

  “Oh no. He is a famous country music singer, at least according to Stetson. I do not know – I do not listen to such stuff. But Zane and Skyler got in a car wreck and now Skyler cannot walk. They flew here from Tennessee to attend Dr. Whitaker’s horse therapy camp but Zane needs someone to help take care of Skyler. Dr. Whitaker’s wife, Kylie, called me after hearing from Abby that you might be available. I told her that you know far too much to be a nursemaid to a little boy but Kylie…she is stubborn. She insisted I ask.”

  It was on the tip of Louisa’s tongue to ask who the hell Dr. Whitaker and Kylie and Abby were, but decided to let it go for the moment. She had to focus and figure out a tactful way to say thanks but no thanks. She was an RN with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, dammit. Before she quit, the hospital had been training her to take over in preparation for the charge nurse of their floor retiring, at which point Louisa would’ve been in charge of a crew of over 15 nurses. She had not gone to four years of school just to hold the hand of a little boy and blow his nose, no matter how sad his story was.

  “He cannot walk because of…how you say…his back. No, his spine—”

  “His spinal cord?” Louisa supplied, perking up. The unit she’d worked in was one of the premier spinal cord injury units in the US; people from all over the nation flew to Salt Lake to be treated by their unit. Sounds like a crushed vertebra, or three. I wonder which ones. Did they do surgery? What was his prognosis? How long ago did this happen? Have they been doing therapy on him since then?

  “Yes, that is it,” Carmelita said with satisfaction. Her aunt’s English was superb, but Louisa doubted she had much reason to learn technical medical terminology. “His spinal cord. It was hurt. Over 18 months now, and he still does not walk. Poor boy.”

  “Which verte—” Louisa caught herself. Even if someone had told Carmelita all about the injury, it was doubtful she would’ve understood a word of it. Tia Carmelita was a housekeeper for a rancher, not a specialized doctor at a hospital. “Huh,” Louisa said instead, tugging on her earlobe as she thought. “Do you know what happened to the last nurse?” It seemed awfully foolhardy to fly across the country to attend a horse therapy camp without the proper staff in tow.

  “He did not like Idaho, I do not think. He is already gone back to Tennessee.”

  Louisa chewed her bottom lip. She was so overqualified for this job, she could do it in her sleep, but hell, hadn’t she been thinking just a couple of weeks ago how nice it’d be to take a little vacation? Taking care of one small child would be a vacation, honestly, after being in charge of a whole floor full of needy patients.

  And shit, a famous singer? He probably had loads of cash. She’d make sure he paid out of his nose for her specialized care. This could make a nice dent in her student loans. Maybe even wipe them out.

  Damn, that’d be nice.

  “Tell them I’m interested,” Louisa said finally. “Let me know what I need to do next.”

  It was, Louisa thought as she hung up the phone and stared dazedly at the wall, not at all what she thought Carmelita would be calling her about. Not that she had any idea what Carmelita would be calling about – recipe exchange? discussions about the price of beef? – but a job was definitely not on the list. She’d planned on spending the day applying for jobs at hospitals across the country but suddenly, this easy-as-pie position had just fallen into her lap.

  Never one to question her good fortune, she sought Alex out. They could play a little fútbol after all.

  Chapter 2

  Zane

  “You found a nurse for me?!” Zane repeated, stunned.

  On the first day of camp – was that only yesterday? It seemed so much longer – when Zane had confessed to Dr. Whitaker’s wife, Kylie, that he needed a nurse for Skyler, he’d done it mostly because they kept expecting him to know how to help Skyler transfer from his wheelchair to the saddle on the back of the horse, and he finally confessed that he just didn’t help with that sort of thing. His gone-forever-back-to-Tennessee aide usually did.

  The nurse had not only gotten a ride back to Tennessee on Zane’s private plane at no cost, he’d done so with a six-figure check in his pocket – his payment to keep his mouth shut about what a horror Skyler was.

  The nurse’d lasted a whole eight months – a record – but apparently salt in his coffee was a step too far.

  Zane had already called the staffing agency and demanded a replacement, but they’d sounded dubious about their abilities to convince yet another nurse to take a stab at being Skyler’s assistant. Apparently, Skyler’s…difficult nature had made the rounds at the agency and no one wanted to take him on.

  No shit, Sherlock. He’s a hellion. Of course no one wants to take care of him, least of all me.

  He was, without a doubt, the worst father on the face of the planet. Not only could he not take care of his son himself, he couldn’t even convince anyone else to do it either, not for love or money. Or the love of money.

  But now, the veterinarian’s wife was telling him that she’d found someone for him. Was this for real?

  “But…who?” he finally got out. There was no way he could hire some rando that some chick was recommending to him. He needed the nurse to be vetted and FBI background checks and the whole nine yards.

  But still, he was a little bit curious who they’d found in the backwoods of Idaho to take care of his child. Some high school student who wanted to be in the medical field someday? A 97-year-old woman who was in diapers herself?

  Licensed, professional, skilled nurses did not simply sit around No Name, Idaho, waiting for someone to come along and hire them.

  “Well, Adam’s best friend is Wyatt Miller,” Kylie began. “Wyatt is married to Abigail. Abigail was visiting Jennifer and Stetson last week, which was when Carmelita, their housekeeper, mentioned that her niece had quit her job at the University of Utah Hospital and had moved back home to Pocatello. So when I mentioned to Abby that you needed someone to help you, she knew just who to call.”

  Kylie smiled angelically up at him, her thick blonde hair in a long braid over her shoulder, acting for all the world as if that game of telephone that she’d just rattled off should make total sense to him.

  “This…uhhh…what was her name?” Zane asked, keeping an eye on Skyler, who was apparently throwing some sort of tantrum over the saddle they were using. Adam seemed to have it under control for the moment, but Zane wasn’t taking his eyes off the scene, just in case.

  “Louisa,” Kylie supplied.

  “Louisa,” Zane repeated absentmindedly. “What was her position at the hospital?”

  He was ready for Kylie to say administration or bookkeeping so he could dismiss the idea out of hand and get on with his life, when she came back with, “She was a nurse in the spinal cord injuries unit at the University of Utah Hospital, which, Carmelita informed Abby who informed me, is one of the top hospitals in the nation for spinal cord injuries.”

  Zane wrenched his eyes away from the power struggle playing out to stare, slack-jawed, at Kylie. “And this nurse wants to come take care of my child? Doesn’t she have patients of her own to take care of?”

  Kylie shrugged. “Abby didn’t seem to know why Louisa wasn’t at the hospital anymore, but it sounds like something personal happened. You’ll have to ask her. But honestly, if she’s Carmelita’s niece, you couldn’t do any better. There is no finer people than Carmelita.”

  Zane searched his mind, trying to remember if he’d met this paragon of virtue, this Carmelita, since arriving in Idaho, but came up blank. He’d never been great at names, and it was really starting to bite him in the ass.

  “Hold on, did you say that Carmelita is a housekeeper?” he asked. Maybe he’d screwed up the story. Maybe this perfec
t soul was someone else completely.

  “Yup,” Kylie replied cheerfully. She did everything cheerfully. Zane tried not to let this fact grate on his nerves. “She’s been the housekeeper for the Miller household all her life, from what I’ve been told. Her parents helped take care of the Millers and then Carmelita took over as soon as she graduated from high school.”

  “And the housekeeper’s niece is – was – a nurse at one of the top spinal cord units in the country?” He tried not to slather the sarcasm on too thick. Somebody was playing a practical joke on him, and he couldn’t say he exactly appreciated that.

  “Isn’t that the American Dream?” Kylie asked softly, her light green eyes piercing through him. “That if you work hard, you can be whatever you want to be?”

  “Right. Of course. I just…” He scrambled around to find words that wouldn’t make him sound like a bigoted asshole. “I was just surprised,” he finished lamely.

  “I think you’ll be really happy with Louisa,” Kylie said with finality. “I’ll tell Abby to tell Carmelita to tell Louisa to send over her resumé. I’ll make sure it’s here when you two come back for therapy lessons tomorrow. Will that work for you?”

  Zane opened up his mouth, tried to think of a reasonable – and non-assholish – excuse to give as to why that would not work, came up with nothing at all, nodded, and closed his mouth.

  “Good,” Kylie said, pleased. “I’m going to go check on my daughter, Ruby Carol. I think Skyler might need a hand.” She nodded towards his son, which Zane saw, with a sigh, was yelling at some Hispanic kid. She headed towards the house while Zane moved over to the squabbling pre-teens.

  “Dad,” Skyler whined, drawing the name out to two syllables, “this kid won’t let me ride Midnight. Says that he’s the only one who rides her. I told him that my dad pays good money for me to be here, and I can ride any damn horse I want to.”

  Zane raised one eyebrow in silent rebuke of his son’s profanity, and then turned towards the Hispanic kid. “Hi, I’m Zane Risley,” he said smoothly, putting out his hand to shake. He found over the years that his name, height, and demeanor tended to get him what he wanted, and knew that some scrawny 12-year-old was no match for him. “And you are…?”