Chapter One
The first time Nora Walsh saw Jake Ramsey, he was getting his hair braided.
He was sitting in one of the chairs at Curl Up and Dye reading a copy of Field & Stream while a stylist did some kind of elaborate Maria von Trapp cross-scalp braiding thing to his long brown hair. The image was almost comical: this giant, beefy man sitting on a chair that looked like a piece of dollhouse furniture compared to him. It was like Jason Momoa’s paler twin had shown up to play beauty parlor.
“Can I help you, hon?”
Nora transferred her attention from Aquaman to the older woman behind the reception desk. “Yes. Hi. I don’t have an appointment, but I was hoping to get my roots touched up. Or to make an appointment for later, if you can’t take me now.”
“Come on in.” The woman led her to the salon’s unoccupied chair—there were only two in the small space. “Carol Junior can take you after she’s finished with Jake.”
“Almost done.” The younger woman was a carbon copy of the older one, minus the wrinkles. “I’m just playing around.” She grabbed a hair elastic from her workstation, tied off the braid, and stood back to assess. “Well, that’s not going to win any awards.”
The man lowered his magazine, leaned forward to examine himself in the mirror, and shrugged. “Looks fine to me.”
The stylist patted him on the shoulder. “You’re such a good sport, Jake. Take that out, and we’ll get you washed.” She turned to Nora and gave a little shriek. “Oh my God! I love your hair.”
Nora had a pixie cut. A very short, very platinum pixie cut. She’d wondered if it would stand out in Moonflower Bay, and it did. Pretty much all the women she’d seen so far—though admittedly, she’d only been in town a day—had long hair. She was afraid she would come off like the city girl who thought she was all that. But it wasn’t like she sported piercings or tattoos or anything. She just had really, really short hair.
Unlike the big dude next to her, who had started raking his fingers through his hair to undo his braid. She wondered why he bothered getting it done in the first place if he was just going to take it out.
He transferred his attention from his reflection to Nora, and as their eyes met in the mirror, there was a record scratch in Nora’s brain. It was like there was the normal, unremarkable, white-noise soundtrack of life unspooling as it always did, and then it just stopped.
She wondered if he felt it, too, because he blinked a few times and paused in undoing his hair.
His eyes were green. A green so intense that, together with his long, dark hair, it brought to mind something not quite human. If he had told her that he was part wolf, she might have believed him.
Or maybe he was Aquaman? Some kind of sea god or something? They were on a Great Lake.
She examined the rest of his features, trying to decide if they were mortal or otherwise. His jaw was clean shaven, despite the thick, lustrous hair on his head. His lips were full and pale pink. A stark-white scar ran over his upper lip on one side, so deep it pulled the lip up a little.
The stylist laughed, and the record in Nora’s brain started playing again. The man returned to dismantling his hairdo, and Nora willed her suddenly hot cheeks to chill out.
“Look at you two! We’ve got a long-haired boy and a short-haired girl.” Nora was about to fire back—she was primed for these small-town folks not to approve of her—when the woman added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” Standing between the chairs, she put her hands on her hips and examined both of her customers in the mirror. “Because you both have totally amazing hair.”
Nora didn’t know what to say. Maybe this town wasn’t going to be as small-minded as she’d feared?
The stylist wiped her hands on a towel before sticking one out in front of Nora. “Carol Dyson Junior. Folks call me CJ, though, to differentiate me from my mom.” She hitched a thumb toward the front of the salon, where the older woman had retreated to the reception desk. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”
“Nora Walsh. I just moved to town.”
CJ’s mom—that would be Carol Senior, Nora reasoned—suddenly reappeared. “Oh! You’re the new doctor!”
“I am.” Word sure got around. Four weeks ago, she had been a physician in the emergency department at St. Michael’s Hospital in downtown Toronto, a job she walked to from a twentieth-floor apartment a few blocks away. Today, she was the doctor in the small Lake Huron town of Moonflower Bay and was renting a house twice as big as her old apartment at a fraction of what she used to pay.
Also: four weeks ago, she’d had a boyfriend named Rufus. Now she was single.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” the older woman said. “It’s been a real pain having to drive to Grand View or farther to see a doctor since Doc Baker retired.” She leaned in. “Did you buy the practice from Ed?”
Nora had not bought the practice from Dr. Edward Baker. She’d responded to a classified ad in Ontario Medical Review, just out of curiosity, once she’d started toying with the idea of a total life reset. Before she could even blink, Dr. Baker had responded with a more-than-fair price to buy him out. But there was total life reset, and there was total insanity.
She hadn’t quite crossed over into insanity yet.
So she had counterproposed that she lease the practice for two years, Dr. Baker had agreed, and here she was. New town, new specialty, new life. And, most importantly, the government offered medical school loan forgiveness to people who did time in places with doctor shortages. Worst-case scenario, she spent some time professionally unfulfilled, treating ear infections and writing referrals for joint replacements, but she’d make some money and be back in Toronto in a couple years, ready for the Walsh Sisters’ Real Estate Adventure.
Moonflower Bay was a palate cleanser, basically. Once cleansed, she could go back to Toronto with a mended heart, a clear head, and a little bit of cash.
She could go back to Toronto a woman in control of her own destiny.
“Dr. Baker and I worked out a rental agreement for two years,” she said to both Carols.
“Why only two years?” Carol Senior asked.
“My sister and I are planning to buy a house together, but the Toronto housing market is through the roof.”
“So I hear. What a world we live in when a doctor can’t afford a house.”
“Not even close. These days, I think you have to be a Russian oligarch to afford a house in central Toronto.” She explained about the loan forgiveness program. “So my sister and I are both going to save aggressively and start shopping in two years. In the meantime, I’m going to try my hand at small-town doctoring.” Wait. Had that sounded patronizing? I’m just gracing you with my sophisticated, big-city presence for a couple years?
Neither seemed offended. Carol Junior pointed at Aquaman. “This here is Jake Ramsey.”
“I like your hair, Jake Ramsey.” Now that it was down, it came past his shoulders. It was the kind of hair women coveted. Nora might even grow hers, if it was guaranteed to end up looking like that. A mixture of naturally thin hair and long shifts at the hospital had always meant short, low-maintenance hair for Nora, but it was even shorter than usual these days, because she and her sister had shaved their heads five months ago in solidarity with their grandma, who’d lost hers while in treatment for breast cancer.