Private Property: a Contemporary Romance Novella (6 page)

“Why were you trying to use it?”  The
significant
creases of his scowl deepened over the bridge of his nose
, but he’d softened his tone
.

“Because I want to lay down.”  Her pain was morphing into
frustration
.  “I can’t do anything else.”  A sob escaped her.  “And now I can’t even get to the bedroom.”

“You should have called me.”  He squatted down in front of her, raising the hem of his shirt to her face.  “Wipe your nose on this.”

“I am not wiping my nose on your shirt.”  She slapped his hand away and smeared the tears across her cheeks with her good hand.  “I wasn’t going to call for you while you were on the phone.”

Jared looked up at the wall and seemed to give thought to what she said.  “I suppose that would not have been a good idea.”  He grabbed hold of her injured arm and turned her hand over.  Blood stained the gauze wrapped around her palm.  He grunted his disapproval.  “C’mon.  I might as well check all your sore spots and dressings.  He picked her up again, laid her on the bed and
directed her to roll half on to her stomach, half on her side exposing both the back of her arm as well as her calf
.

“How are you planning to look at my leg with my jeans on?”  Her voice was a bit muffled by the pillow she was pressed into, but she didn’t feel like attempting to brace herself up on one arm.

“I’ll take them off.”

“
No you won’t
!”  She snapped and jerked her body up before she had time to register the response.  The abrupt action caused her muscles to groan in protest, her arm screaming in white-hot pain.  She cried out and crumpled onto the mattress, holding her arm and rocking while tears poured out of her.  “I don’t like these pain pills.  They’re turning me into a
titty
baby.”

“No, you’re just being a
titty
baby.  Now roll over before I lose my patience with you.”  He growled
without any real menace
and pulled at the comforter beneath her to
gently roll
her on to her
side
once again.  “Quit worrying about being seen in your underwear.  Your bare body is the last thing on my mind and I’m finding it a little irritating that you seem to be so preoccupied with it.”

That shut her up.  She hadn’t considered that he didn’t give a w
h
it about
seeing her
unmentionables.  She lay passively on the bed while he tugged her jeans off and examined the bites on her leg.  When he moved up to her arm, the slightest touch made her wince and after a few attempts, he sat down on the bed next to her.

“Okay, new plan.  I’m going to make a few phone calls and then we’re going to take a little trip.  I think your arm is in more serious condition than I could ascertain last night.  And by attempting to use it, you quite possibly have exacerbated the problem.”

Tabitha’s heart did a little trip in her chest.  “Do you always talk like that?”

“Like what?”  He tenderly
pulled the hair out of her face so she could talk better.

“With all the big words and stuff.”

“I didn’t know I spoke
with all those big words and stuff
.”  He pushed off the bed.  “Just relax, I’ll be back in a few minutes.  And don’t move unless absolutely necessary.”

Tabitha lay in the room, fighting the overwhelming urge to throw a huge pity party.  Now, he was going to make her go to the hospital.  Another bill she’d never be able to pay.  She felt her throat tighten and her chin begin to wobble but
she
fought the fresh wave of tears, afraid that at the rate she was crying, she’d dehydrate herself in a matter of minutes.

Time went by as
Tabitha lay still, listening to the deep rumble of Jared’s voice.  She couldn’t make out words,
but
his
darkly satin
cadence
soothed her.  T
he
cessation of sound heralded his
return
.

“Okay – we’ve got a small drive to make to the helipad and after that, it should be smooth sailing.”  His gruff tone belied the nonchalance of his words.

“Helipad?”  Tabitha grunted as Jared began working a pair of huge sweat pants over her legs.

“Yes;
I’ve got to get you to Methodist.  It wouldn’t be prudent to drive – it’s too far away and
although there’s a break in the storm,
flooding has probably taken out large portions of the road.
  But, if we move fast we can get there by helicopter in between the two storm bands.
”

“Why back to Houston?  Doesn’t Giddings have a medical center?”  Tabitha asked as he urged her to wrap her right arm about his neck.

“
Because Methodist is the hospital I’m associated with
.”
He picked her up, heading toward the front door.  “Sam!”  He called out, leaning against the screen.  Tabitha’s grip tightened on his shoulders.

Sam loped into view, head hung as he followed them out to the Jeep.  “Does he have to go?”

Jared snarled at her.  “I would no sooner leave him here than I would you.”  At least he was being consistent – still a
protective
asshole
when it came to the dog
.

Once Tabitha gave it some thought, it seemed he had reverted to being a jerk after the phone began working again.

“Do you have a patient in trouble?”  She ventured while he situated her in the seat.

“No, but I have a troublesome patient.”  He eyed her pointedly before closing the door.

Tabitha cowered against the door when Sam jumped in and positioned himself between the seats.  Jared did an exaggerated eye-roll at her as he started the
vehicle
, a look of total intolerance etched into his profile.

“I…I was just wondering if there was something, or someone…
” 
Tabitha bit off her statement, not exactly sure what to say.

“You were wondering what?”

“Well, it’s just that your mood seemed to turn after that phone call.  I don’t want to be keeping you from something else.”

“
It’s really no concern of yours, Tabitha, and there’s
really no way around it
with your injuries
.”  He huffed.

“Since we’re headed back to Houston and I’m so inconvenient, you should be relieved to pawn me off on some other doctor.”

“No.”  He bit out.  “You’re one of my cases, I’ll finish what I started.”

“Way to make me feel like a person,
Dr.
Larsen
.”

The bumps and dips along the dirt drive abruptly ended their quarreling as each joggle jarred her arm.  She placed her forehead against the cool glass of the window and prayed for a reprieve, her arm tucked tightly against her side.  Then her leg began to flare up because the material of the seat was rubbing against the bandage, the jolting vehicle forcing unbearable pressure on the soreness.  She felt sick, her stomach roiling in response to the pain.

“Are you okay?”

Tabitha swallowed a couple of times before risking a response.  “No.  Everything is beginning to hurt. 
I feel like I’m going to throw up. 
The pain pills aren’t working any more.”

“It’s the way you’re sitting.”  He patted his thigh.  “Here, t
urn
around in the seat and put your legs up on me.”

Tabitha rolled her head to look at him.  To put her legs on his lap meant stretching them across Sam’s head.  Another bump clacked her teeth together.

“Look, Sam will not attack you.  First of all, he is only sent out to guard at night and chances are, if he hadn’t been spooked by the storm, he wouldn’t have done more than bark.  Plus, I’d just let him outside to pee and you probably startled him.”  He held out a hand to her.  “Just move so you can prop your feet up on me.”

Tabitha slowly shifted so that she faced him and pressed her back to the door.  Her leg was killing her, making the pain in her arm seem almost trivial.  It really would be better if she could move her calf away from the edge of the seat.  Lifting one leg at a time, she placed her heels in the middle of Jared’s thigh, the relief almost instantaneous.  The dog didn’t move.  In fact, he’d gone to sleep almost
as soon as
he’d
lain
down and hadn’t moved since.  Tabitha expelled a pent up breath and closed her eyes.

A heavy, warm
th
appeared on her knee and she reached out to it, thinking she would be laying her hand atop Jared’s, happy he’d decided to show her a little compassion.  What she touched instead was the softest velvet she’d ever felt.  She cracked an eye then snatched back her hand when she saw that it was Sam’s muzzle she was stroking.

The big beast still didn’t move.  He’d propped his
nose up by
her knee
and gone right back to
snoozeville
, his
hind
quarters on the
back
seat and
his front draped on
to
the console between
them
.  Tabitha watched him for some moments, recalling that in the brief instances she’d seen the dog since their initial encounter he’d been docile and mute, never wasting much energy at any given time.

Tabitha reached out and rubbed the side of his nose with her knuckles.  His eyes popped open and rolled to look at her.  Her hand froze; her breath stopped.  When he made no hint of a reaction, she began lightly stroking him again.  His nose was the softest she’d ever felt and just as black as pitch.  She smiled.
He did seem to be a sweet dog.

A loud thumping sounded from the back of the
Range Rover
and upon inspection she saw that Sam had begun to wag his tail, slapping it down against the
leather seat
.  She giggled and he licked her hand.  Then his tail stopped moving and his
rolled
eyes closed.  Sam nodded off again like a true narcoleptic.

“I told you he was a good dog.  Better companion than most people.”  Jared clicked on the radio and flooded the
interior
with Jazz tunes.

The helicopter ride was a new experience
that she didn’t exactly want to repeat any time in the near future
- complete with horrible, gut-wrenching turbulence
.  Plus, Jared chose to sit up front and leave her
i
n the back with the big dog.  Sam had gotten a bit skittish when the small bubble
of a
craft
began
hopping around hundreds of feet above the ground, making her feel threatened. 
But, she’d risked a calming hand and soon they were calming each other on the flight: Sam’s warm bulk soothing her, her fingers lightly massaging his ears in return.

The weather
certainly wasn’t optimum for
a helicopter ride
but
the pilot had reassured her that “
helis
” are often brought
in
during weather in which sma
ll aircraft are grounded, even as
the craft had begun to swing a bit like a pendulum
while
he attempted to calm her nerves
.

The pilot had radioed ahead and by the time he set the small craft down
in front
of the hospital, a small team had gathered to assist getting them out of the rain.
 
Sam stayed in the cab of the helicopter with the pilot, a friend by what Jared had said.

Tabitha
found herself in
a realm she knew nothing of, having never before been to a hospital for much more than to visit a friend.  Jared and the staff pushing her down the hallway talked above her head in more ways than one.  She spent a few seconds trying to crane her neck and listen to the different people, but gave up because she couldn’t understand them anyway.

“
Get
x-rays and
an MRI
of her
left
arm and hand…also the left
gastroc
.”  Jared
called
out as he broke away from the pack.  The young man steering the wheelchair she was in slowed
as Jared spoke directly to her
.  “I’m going to change and make a few calls.  Tony here will show you to a nice room after some
scans
and blood
work are done.  Will you be alright?”  It was the first show of concern he’d had for her since early morning.

She nodded mutely and watched him disappear down the hall with the other doctor and two nurses that had met them on the helipad.  Tony pushed her through one monotonous white hallway after another until he finally parked her in a small room with a sign that read X-RAY/MRI WAITING ROOM.