Tying the Knot Read Online Free PDF Page B

by a choppy metal-and-concrete skyline, smog, and the noise of rush-hour traffic.
    Anne’s tea had turned cold, and she made a face as she swallowed. Easing herself off the chair, she returned to the small kitchen and lit the burner under the teakettle. She leaned against the counter and flipped on her CD player. Andrea Bocelli’s operatic tenor filled the cabin. She felt her pulse slow. Quiet moments with a cup of tea and serious music were what this move was all about. A new life, a new start with God. The chance to escape the specter of the past and finally make peace with the Almighty. She wouldn’t deny she’d felt abandoned over the past year. God had seemed painfully absent in her tragedy—a grief of her own making. She couldn’t get past the feeling of heavenly betrayal to turn into His embrace.
    She feared she never would.
    Obviously God wasn’t keeping score because He had intervened, offered this job and this place of refuge. Thanks, God. She folded her arms across her chest. I needed this, and You knew it. Tears edged her eyes and she flicked them away.
    If only she could hide inside this moment for eternity.

    Noah parked his Suzuki 350 next to a gleaming silver Lexus and secured his helmet to the seat. He still wasn’t accustomed to leaving the bike or the helmet unattended, but he’d been stretching his trust boundaries since arriving here. Moments like this reminded him that Deep Haven was worlds apart from the inner city of Minneapolis.
    He pocketed the keys and swiped both hands through his hair. Common sense demanded he wear a helmet, but he cringed at his rumpled hair reflected in the glass entry doors. He tried in vain to smooth it down, to match it with the suit and tie and mask his biker guise. He hoped Doc Simpson was a man of good humor. And compassion. And he prayed the man kept Saturday hours.
    The ER lobby hosted a kid in a baseball shirt clutching an ice pack to his eye and an elderly gentleman with a bloody towel wrapped around his thumb. Noah grimaced at a fishhook poking from the appendage.
    A redheaded duty nurse with curious blue eyes watched as he approached the desk. Noah tried a smile. “Hi. I’m looking for Dr. Simpson.”
    “Just a moment, please.” Her gaze ran over him like a cop’s as she picked up the phone. “Hello, Dr. Simpson, there’s a . . .” She raised her eyebrows at Noah.
    “Noah Standing Bear,” he filled in.
    “Mr. Standing Bear here to see you.”
    Noah kept the smile on his face as she nodded, then clipped out directions. He felt her eyes on his back as he strode down the hall.
    The stew of antiseptic, cotton, and food baking in the cafeteria made his stomach clench. Something about hospitals always made him woozy. He nodded a greeting to a dark-haired man ambling toward the exit, toting a bulging duffel bag, as if leaving the hospital after a year. He guessed that feeling of freedom rivaled the one he’d experienced when he’d walked out of prison.
    Noah followed a worn trail down brown carpet, noting the few aerial photographs depicting the growth of Deep Haven on the walls. The lighthouse on the point had obviously been one of the town’s first buildings.
    Dr. Simpson waited outside his office door and stretched out his hand in greeting two paces before Noah clasped it. His long face curved into a wrinkled smile, and the warmth of his green eyes immediately slowed Noah’s pulse down a notch. “What brings you to Deep Haven Municipal Hospital, Noah?”
    “My camp, sir.” He followed Dr. Simpson into the office. The window was open and faced an empty, weedy field. An overhead fan mixed the office air with fragrant forest smells—pine, wildflowers, mossy dirt. Noah lowered himself into a wooden straight-back chair while Dr. Simpson settled into a creaky metal rolling chair from the sixties. Over the doctor’s head, a trophy rainbow trout sprang from a mount, and Noah could almost feel the breath from the moose head hanging high behind