Free Disaster Status by Candace Calvert Page B

The sleepy quality of Nick’s voice was replaced by urgency. “I only wanted to say I heard about the pesticide spill, saw you on the news. Are you okay?”
    Leigh choked. Whether that was because the second sip of water went down the wrong way or because of the ludicrous irony of her husband’s question, she wasn’t sure. Had he really had the gall to ask if she was okay? She gripped the water bottle as anger festered.
    “Leigh?”
    “I’m busy,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “That’s what I am right now. You shouldn’t have called. I’m involved in something critical.” Like saving my sanity. Leigh slammed down the phone, then hurled the water bottle against her office wall. He’s still with that woman.
    She sank into her chair and rested her head in her hands for a moment, blinking back tears. She took several deep, slow breaths and then smiled grimly, remembering how she’d advised Mrs. Alton to do the same thing for her pain. “Nice, slow breaths.” It was sound advice. And Leigh was going to follow it.
    Tonight she’d go to the stables instead of the town hall meeting. Erin was planning to attend, and she’d bring back a full report. Leigh would sit in a fluffy mound of pine shavings in a dark corner of Frisco’s stall with her back against the oak-plank wall. She’d listen to her horse chew his hay and snuffle contentedly. She’d inhale—slow, deep, therapeutic breaths of sweet and pungent alfalfa, warm horse flesh, rubbing liniment, and saddle leather.
    And then she’d start her plan to move forward with the divorce. End the pain once and for all. Otherwise her heart would end up in a specimen jar like Elaine Alton’s gallstone.
    Chapter Seven
    Erin parked her Subaru on the sandy asphalt outside Arlo’s Bait & Moor. She opened the door, letting the salty and damp afternoon breeze toss her hair and fill her lungs. The distant call of gulls, scratchy and shrill, accompanied the relentless draw-whoosh-draw of the waves. She climbed out of the car, headed toward the red lacquered screen door of the coffee side of the shop, then changed her mind and walked to the metal railing overlooking the sea.
    A handful of surfers, seal-like in their wet suits, dotted the gray-green water, some paddling parallel to the shore on their colorful boards, the rest sitting upright and laughing together, turning now and again to peer over their shoulders for waves. The narrow stretch of beach was empty of the usual shell-gathering young families and rapidly giving way to the rising tide. Frothy white water swirled around the pitted and sea-scoured rocks bordering the beach. That big rock . . . where Scott injured his arm this morning.
    Erin’s face warmed, remembering him sitting on the gurney in her ER, muscular shoulders, stony expression, and sand in his hair. This is where he swims. And buys his coffee. Erin bit her lower lip, thinking how close—within a short walk of her house—he’d been all this time. She’d walked this beach countless times, sat cross-legged on a blanket in the sand reading her Bible, joked with Annie Popp about taking her coffee worldwide, and yet she’d never crossed paths with Scott. Not once. Until yesterday, when in the face of a community disaster—
    Erin smacked her palms against the rail. Why was she standing here thinking about that aggravating fire captain? The disaster status was the exact reason she stopped here on the way home from work; she needed to buy bottled water. She’d tried to pick some up in the hospital gift shop, but they’d sold out. The volunteer, wearing a Pacific Mercy smock and rhinestone-embellished tennis shoes, had been chatty and sweetly apologetic to everyone, and . . .
    Erin smiled as the thought struck her. Volunteer. In the Little Mercies Gift Shop . Why hadn’t she thought of that before? It would be the perfect spot for her grandmother. She’d be helping at the hospital like she wanted, but she’d be away from direct patient