Private Property: a Contemporary Romance Novella (8 page)

“Don’t worry – I re-stitched the wound on your hand before casting it.  You had apparently torn some stitches out trying to push yourself down the hallway earlier.”  He moved to sit next to her on the bed.  He looked ragged – the surgical attire long since discarded, his glasses removed.

“You should get some rest, doctor.”

“I will as I need to.”

Tabitha stared at him for a long moment.  “I don’t know
how to thank you.  I don’t –
”
She paused to compose herself.  “I don’t know how I will pay for all of this.
I have no job, no insurance…”
She trailed off.

“Let’s not worry about that right now.  For the time being, let’s just concern ourselves with your recovery.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Jared’s eyes locked on to hers and he held them
a moment
in the silence.  “I don’t really know.  I’d say it was my job, but…I don’t know.”  He stood up then and quietly exited.

Tabitha lay still, studying the ceiling tiles until she drifted off to sleep once more.

She was running through
a dark
ness
– a forest maybe.  Just like all the other times, something bad was chasing her.  Only this t
ime, her right arm had been ripped
off,
ragged tendrils of skin and torn
muscle seeping blood from the shoulder.  She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t stop for fear of being caught, couldn’t manage to wake herself up.

“Hey…
hey, Tabby.”

Tabitha woke with a
start,
thankful Kristen had managed to rouse her.  Her arm was throbbing.  It was her sixth and final day in the hospital.  Jared had consented to removing the stitches in her palm and leg and allowing her to go home.  He would be meeting with them sometime early afternoon to sign her out.

She sat up and allowed Kristen to rub the kinks out of her back.  “That was a horrible dream.”  She admitted.

“Same as usual?”  Kristen ceased her administrations and began cutting up the lump of scrambled eggs on the breakfast tray in front of Tabitha.

“Yeah, only this time I didn’t have my arm.  It had been torn off.”  She shivered at the recollection of that grotesque image.

“That probably has something to do with the surgery.”

Tabitha nodded in agreement.

The two spent the day going over plans for hospital repayment and job searching.  Jared had informed her that the
new full
cast would stay on at least six weeks depending on how well she healed and that absolutely no pressure could be applied to the wound or surrounding area.  Good thing she was
right
-
handed.  But, she’d promised him to take it easy until the cast came off.

Kristen and she spent the last day thanking the nurses who’d babied her over the past week and discussing how to get all the stuffed animals and plants in the room into Kristen’s small
sports car
.  They still hadn’t found out where all the ‘get well’ gifts had come from.  There were no tags attached to the plants and flowers and the nurses were no help.  The gifts had been discreetly left outside her door every night.

Tabitha gave a passing thought that maybe Kristen was secretly depositing them there for her to cheer her up, but that didn’t make much sense.  She knew her friend well enough to know that Kristen was proud of being a good person and liked to bring attention to her good deeds.  Once
,
she’d tou
ched upon Jared as the culprit
but quickly dismissed that notion.  He wasn’t the type.  Plus, he’d just done his job – a task so ingrained in his person, as to be thoughtless in gesture.

Whoever they came from, there was a room full.  A multitude of flowers and greenery stocked the shelves, windowsills and corners of the room.  Two large teddy bears (one brown, one black) sat at the foot of her bed and a long, flat, multi-colored puppy dog had been laid on the floor like a bear rug.  It livened her spirits
up
.

Sometime around one o’clock, Jared entered the room looking very relaxed in a pair of charcoal gray slacks and
pale gray
shirt.  He looked as though he’d finally gotten some sleep.  “Okay, Ms.
McLean
.  You ready to leave here?”  He smiled, truly smiled, and the action transformed his face.  The chiseled lines of his jaw relaxed and a gleam lit his crystal green eyes.

“Yes.”  She beamed in return, happy to have a life to fix again.

Jared came over to her, sidestepping the s
tuffed dog on the floor.  “Tabitha, could
I talk with you a moment?”  He slid a glance at Kristen.

“Oh!  Gotcha.”  Kristen jumped out of her chair.  “I’ll just go gather up your stuff from the nurse’s station.”

“Oh no.”  Tabitha moaned, making Kristen halt at the door.  “I left my backpack at your house.”  She grimaced at Jared.

He inhaled sharply and nodded at Kristen, to which she promptly left them alone.  “Well, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Getting my stuff back to me?”  Tabitha managed a sitting position and angled the bed to better prop her up.

“Well, since your belongings were left out at my place and you have no place to go, I was wondering – ”

“What do you mean I have no place to go?”  Tabitha was instantly on defense.

“Kristen told me that you were hoping to spend the summer out at the campsite and now that it’s fallen through, you
don’t have a backup plan
.  So I thought I could hire you.”

“Hire me?  To do what?  And that’s not true.  I could go stay with my parents or brothers and sisters…ugh.  Who am I kidding?  I couldn’t stay with them.  Hell, I haven’t even gotten up the courage to let them know what’s happened to me yet.  They all think I’m living it up on some hillside outside of Austin.”  She
dismally
shoo
k her head
.

“Why didn’t you notify them?”  Jared looked bewildered.  It was a good look for him – his eyebrows knitted together made his eyes stand out.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“I’m the failure.  The one no one wants to talk about.  And if I go to one of their houses, it will just embarrass them and remind them.”

“How many of you are there?”

“I’m the youngest of seven children and the only one who doesn’t have it all together.”  She sniffed in disgust.  This was not what she wanted this man to know.  But what was the point in hiding from the truth?

“Wow.  That’s a whole lot of family.  So, why did you refuse Kristen’s offer?”  Jared leaned back, resting his hands on the mattress.

“Because I don’t want to freeload off the best friend I’ve ever had, and that’s essentially what I’ll be doing for the next five weeks or so.”

“That’s what I figured.”  He
pushed off the bed.  “Okay, it
’s settled then.  You’ll come work for me.”

“You haven’t told me what it is I’ll be doing yet.”  She wrinkled her nose and glared at him.

“Well, we’ll discuss it when we get back there.” 
He was saved from further interrogation by a nurse and a wheelchair
.  “Let’s go, then, shall we?”

The drive back to Giddings was long and a bit uncomfortable, but the sweet sounds of sax music filled the interior of
Jared’s Jeep
and she
dozed on and off
from the strict regimen of pain
and
anti-inflammatory meds
she
was still on
.

Once she was out of the car and stretching her legs
back at
Jared’s property, he approached her.  “Here’s my proposal.  My receptionist has long since needed a vacation and since mine was prematurely terminated, I thought I could forward the phones up here and you could take my messages.”

“I don’t know a thing about the medical community.”  Tabitha dismissed him.

“But you are intelligent and in desperate need of a job.  So, you’ll learn quickly.  Besides, there’s
not much to know.  Just refer new
clients to my partner, Dr. Moore, and take messages.  How hard could that be?”  Jared kicked a couple of rocks out of his path.  “You can also help me around here.”

Tabitha pointed disgustedly at her slung arm.  “With what?  Swatting flies?”

The harshness returned to his features.  “I’m just trying to give you an out, Tabitha.”

“Honestly, no you’re not.  You’re trying to make yourself feel better by assuaging your ego and relieving your sympathy for the poor charity case you got shackled with.”  His eyebrows rose dangerously high up his forehead at her retort.  “But, the problem is, I need the money.”  She sighed in resignation.  “What I don’t understand is how you’re going to justify p
aying me when I owe you and
Methodist
hospital so
much.”

“I didn’t say anything about being paid.”
  He smiled.

Before Tabitha could form a response, he moved off into the trees, whistling for his dog.  Kristen pulled up behind Jared and bounced out.  Tabitha smiled and shook her head at the foolishness.

She’d alway
s loved being around Kristen
f
rom the moment she’d seen her hanging upside down on the monkey bars in kindergarte
n.  None of the other kids
would even attempt to sit on the top much less hang by the
knees.
  Then some boy had yanked one of Kristen’s golden ponytails and down she’d come, hard.  But, she’d found her feet and beat that boy to a pulp before the teac
hers could get her off of him.

From that day forward the two had been inseparable.  They became known as the Trouble Twins – Kristen the boldly mischievous, Tabby the more reserved, crafty one.  They were at the complete opposite ends of the spectrum from each other, all the way down to looks.  Kristen was taller, aroun
d 5’8
” and built like Marilyn Monroe – all curves and sex appeal with golden hair that hung down her back and big smoky blue eyes.  She laughed loudly, went for everything with gusto, and was loyal to a fault.

Tabitha, however, faltered a bit on this scale.  She was small – the smallest member of her family, standing all of 5’3”
and barely filling out a size 3
jean.  Even though she wasn’t completely lacking, she had no hourglass figure to boast of, in fact, when puberty had struck them (Kristen more so than Tabitha) she had borrowed Kristen’s bras to stuff.  What she did have was a good dose of the family’s American Indian and Irish genes coursing through her blood blessing her with black, glistening hair and round, piercing blue eyes.  Not that she paid heed to it anymore,
but it usually brought her
more than enough
attention
in the absence of a long pair of legs
.

Kristen popped up alongside her, hoisting the large black bear further up on her hip.  “Where do you want this?”

They made their way into the house and deposited the plants and animals in the guest bedroom.  Kristen raised the blinds covering one of the windows and they both stared out at the man playing catch with Sam.

“Jesus, he is beautiful, isn’t he?”  Kristen breathed.

“You should go for him.”  Tabitha turned her back on the scene and busied herself situating the stuffed animals about the room.

“Why don’t you?”  Kristen flopped onto the bed, snagging Tabby’s wrist and dragging her down as well.  “He seems to have an affinity for you.”  She waggled her eyebrows up and down.

“Oh, please.  I’m just his pet project.  He probably feels sorry for me because his dog did the damage.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t agree.  Would he really be setting you up with a place to stay and a job just because his dog attacked you?”  Kristen began braiding Tabby’s hair, a habit she’d had since grade school.  “The signs posted at the front of the drive definitely exonerated him from liability.  You entered at your own risk.”

That was true, however Jared’s behavior reeked of guilt.

“God, I could sleep for a week on this bed.”  Kristen slid down, flopping the long plait over Tabitha’s shoulder and nuzzling up next to her.

“I know.  I love it.”

“How long do you think he’ll let you stay?”

“He said I’d be covering the phones while he takes the remainder of his vacation.  I guess a week or two.  That should be plenty of time to find a waitressing job or something.”

Kristen
pointedly looked at
the arm casted and hung from a s
ling about Tabitha’s neck then rolled her eyes.  She
found the energy to remove herself from the seductive confines of the bed. 
“Okay, kiddo.  I need to get go
ing.  My clients are throwing a fit at my absence this past week.”