Montana Dreams

by Kim Law

  Cord reached out and took her hand. “It’s okay.” His hand patted hers. “Just tell us what you know. He . . . what?”

  She licked her lips again. “He has to have emergency surgery.” Her heart thundered, due to both nervousness at standing in front of so many members of Jaden’s family—all looking to her for answers—and the memory of seeing Jaden sprawled at the bottom of her steps. “His bone . . . his ankle. He broke it.” She swallowed her guilt and finished in a whisper. “The bone was sticking out of his skin.”

  That brought Cord up straight, and before Arsula could manage another word, he’d turned and was speaking with someone at one of the two check-in counters. The patient door opened two seconds later, and Cord disappeared behind it.

  Arsula stared at the door as it swung closed and wished she could go back with him. It wasn’t her place to do that, though. She was just the woman Jaden had woken up with that morning.

  Not to mention he hadn’t exactly calmed down before the ambulance had arrived at her apartment.

  Turning back to his family, she noted that even more people had shown up, and with the exception of Gabe and Erica, all of them were now there. Also, more than one of them wore a perplexed expression mixed in with their worry, and at least three pairs of eyes tracked the bag of clothes she held clutched tightly to her chest.

  “He’s going to be okay,” Arsula said, hurrying to comfort them.

  She didn’t know this for a fact, but someone had said that to her the last time she’d asked, so she felt emboldened to pass it along. She thrust the bag toward Dani—a nurse had brought Jaden’s belongings out after they’d prepped him for surgery—before it occurred to her that Dani already had her arms full with her daughter. So she turned to Jaden’s dad. But Max had one arm through his wife’s, and he seemed to be focused on something beyond Arsula.

  She glanced behind her but didn’t see what might have caught Max’s attention.

  “I’ll take his stuff.” The words came from Megan, spoken with a quiet resignation, and Arsula turned back. Guilt squeezed at her throat as the other woman stepped forward, her eyes not quite meeting Arsula’s.

  “Megan, I . . .” Arsula began in a whisper, but she cut off her words when Megan’s chin inched higher. The woman was as mortified to be standing there as Arsula was.

  Instead of trying to explain, Arsula simply handed over the clothing.

  “I also have . . .” She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets as she spoke, before realizing the inappropriateness of her actions. Pressing her lips together, she tugged out the pair of socks. They’d fallen from Jaden’s pockets as he’d tumbled down the stairs.

  As she handed them over, it was now she who couldn’t make eye contact. She looked at the other woman’s hands instead. If being the cause of a man falling down a flight of icy stairs wasn’t enough to sink her into a pit of guilt and shame, passing over last night’s clothing to his girlfriend—even his ex-girlfriend—finished her off.

  “I really am sorry,” she said, forcing herself to speak. She had to say something. Megan might be fine with the breakup, but that wouldn’t make the moment any easier. “This isn’t what it looks like. We had some drinks after the wedding. He was . . .”

  She shook her head as silence surrounded her. Because it was almost what it looked like.

  “I gave him a place to sleep it off,” she continued in a whisper. “Nothing happened.”

  Once again, she became aware of her blood pounding at a too-fast rate. If she didn’t get out of there soon, she might be the next patient to be wheeled away on a gurney. Either due to succumbing to a panic attack, or because she might just have a full-out heart attack.

  “Thank you for staying with him until we got here.” This came from Dani, and Arsula forced herself to look up. Dani smiled gently and reached out to pat Arsula’s forearm.

  “Of course,” Arsula answered. She wished she didn’t have to go. She wanted to stay to make sure Jaden was okay. But she did understand that leaving would be for the best. Jaden needed his family around him now. And he didn’t need the risk of getting upset again if he happened to see her. “I also have . . .”

  She stopped speaking once again as her fingers dug into her jeans pocket and brushed the ring. She’d grabbed it as she’d raced back into her apartment to hurry into clothes before the ambulance arrived. She wouldn’t hand the ring to Jaden’s sister, though. And certainly not in front of Megan. She’d come back later and give it to Jaden.

  “I have great belief that he’ll pull through this okay,” she finished instead of mentioning the ring, and Dani gave her arm a squeeze.

  “Thank you again,” Dani said.

  Arsula left, avoiding making additional eye contact with anyone. She knew most of Jaden’s family, and she didn’t want to see them thinking badly of her. But also, she liked Megan. And she’d hate to make Megan even more uncomfortable than she already was.

  And seeing potential evidence that her ex had gotten naked with another woman . . . on the night of the breakup?

  Definitely uncomfortable. For anyone.

  But especially if he’d gotten naked with the woman who—however minutely—had played a role in the breakup.

  “Ah geez. You again?” Jaden scowled at the sixty-something nurse who’d just entered his hospital room. She’d been in to check on him three times since midnight, and stupidly, when the door had begun to swing open that time, he’d hoped it would be another woman coming to see him. Like his girlfriend.

  “You likely won’t catch a better sight than me before seven in the morning.” The nurse winked at him behind purple-rimmed glasses. “Unless it’s what’s in this little paper cup you’re staring at so intently.”

  She rattled the pills she held in her hand and, after passing the paper dispenser off to him, poured a cup of water from the pitcher beside his bed.

  “More pain medicine, I presume?” Jaden stared down at the two tablets, one orange and one white, and twisted his mouth into a frown.

  “Don’t you think you need it?”

  Sadly, he did. Not that he wanted to admit it. Nor did he actually want to take anything that would make him high off his ass before his family showed back up. He still had to figure out where he could go to recuperate, how to keep from falling behind on his practicum since he needed to be in Seattle for the required counseling sessions, how quickly he could get back to Seattle . . . and then there was the little matter of Megan. Who apparently wasn’t even speaking to him now.

  “Take the pills, Jaden.” The nurse patted his arm. “You had major surgery not twenty-four hours ago. You’ll have plenty of time to play too-tough-for-pills later.” She lifted his hand toward his mouth, her eyes warm with concern. “But right now, your body needs to heal. And to do that, you need to take your medication.”

  He scowled at her once again. He really did need to keep his wits about him.

  But he’d also been sitting there in near unbearable pain for the last thirty minutes.

  He swallowed both pills with one gulp of water . . . and without looking at the nurse. He hated the admission that he needed them, but he decided to be thankful the IV morphine from the night before had already been stopped instead. That way, he should at least have a few minutes before he became too loopy to think straight. Maybe by then, Megan would either come by or at least return his texts.

  “Did you have a good visit with your brother this morning?” the nurse asked as she investigated his propped-up foot. “I’ll tell you, that man had everyone on the floor buzzing.”

  Cord had stopped by while it was still dark outside. He’d had to get back to Billings in time for his first patient of the day, but he’d stuck around overnight to make sure there’d been no complications.

  “My brother always has everyone buzzing,” Jaden grumped. Cord could crook his little finger and get no fewer than five girls instantly tittering over him.

  “He’s a good-looking one, that’s for sure.”

  “
And what do I look like? Chopped liver?”

  The nurse chuckled and repositioned the covers over his foot. “You’re right. You’re good-looking, too. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

  She gave him another wink and a pat, and as he’d done while swallowing the pain meds, he looked away. How embarrassing to have begged for a compliment. Especially one to show that he was as good as his brother.

  “In fact,” the nurse went on, “I’d say that girlfriend of yours is lucky to have you.”

  Thinking about Megan made him growl. “That girlfriend doesn’t even like me right now. She won’t come see me or even text to ask how I’m doing.”

  Not that he could really blame her. He had spent the night with another woman.

  She had shown up when his family first got the call, though. He’d learned that after waking from surgery. She’d come to the hospital along with everyone else, but then she’d had to stand there and accept his clothing from the very woman he’d just spent the night with.

  He growled again, and the nurse shoved a thermometer into his mouth.

  “You’re wrong.” After noting his temperature, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “She did come to see you. You were just asleep.”

  Megan had been there?

  “When?”

  She didn’t reply until she released his wrist. “Right after I started my shift.” She wrote in his chart. “The poor thing. She seemed so worried. I let her come on back even though visiting hours had been over for a while.”

  Jaden hung on her words. Megan did care. He’d known it. No stupid dream was going to change that.

  Now he just had to convince her that what had happened the night of the wedding meant nothing.

  “She brought you those.” The nurse nodded toward his bedside table, and when he looked over, his head already swimming with the effects of the drugs, his gaze landed on a slim vase bursting with brightly colored flowers.

  The sight dumbfounded him. Megan had brought him flowers? That wasn’t like her.

  Normally she was too practical for flowers.

  “Want me to read the card to you?” the nurse asked, and Jaden immediately nodded.

  “Please.”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off the bouquet, and for the first time in the last thirty-six hours, true hope began to flow. His life, as he knew it, wasn’t over.

  “Dear Jaden,” the nurse began, and Jaden shifted his gaze so that he now watched her as she spoke. “I’m so very sorry about . . . everything”—she glanced up, a question in her eyes, but he didn’t fill her in on what “everything” meant—“and I absolutely hate the role I played in it. I would never in a million years want to cause anyone the kind of pain”—she flipped the card over—“that I know you must be suffering. Please don’t hesitate to let me know how I can help. Just say the word, and I’ll be there.”

  Jaden stared at the card in the woman’s hand. Megan was sorry.

  They were okay.

  His heart began to beat again. All he had to do was say the word.

  He reached for his cell to text her for the third time since waking up. Maybe she hadn’t heard the first two since she’d been by the hospital so late the night before. That would account for her lack of reply.

  “She seems like a sweetheart,” the nurse said as she tucked the card back into its envelope. “Of course, I knew that well before last night. I met her at the gym back in December and ended up having a long conversation with her.”

  Confusion tickled at the back of his mind. How had she met Megan at the gym in December?

  Oh yeah, Megan hadn’t gone back to Seattle with him after Christmas. She must have joined the local gym.

  He went back to his text, his head bent forward, and noted that focusing was becoming a bit of a struggle. The pain meds were definitely kicking in.

  “And here she is now.” The nurse’s voice seemed to come from a hundred feet away, and it was all Jaden could do to lift his gaze to see what she was talking about. Who was here now?

  The nurse was ushering someone into the room. “Come on in, honey. He’s awake.”

  Jaden clued in to her words and realized that Megan must be there. Only, when he got his gaze to focus enough to shift it to the person who’d just entered his room, it wasn’t his girlfriend who now stood awkwardly at the foot of his bed.

  It was the woman he’d woken up beside the morning before.

  Chapter Five

  Arsula twisted her hands together as Jaden’s blue eyes stared blankly back at her. She doubted he’d forgotten who she was in the last twenty-four hours; therefore, she assumed his glazed look stemmed from painkillers. That fact made her wonder if now had been a good time to drop by to give him his ring back.

  “Hi,” she eventually said, unsure how else to start or even how he might react to her being there.

  “You’re not Megan.”

  She blinked. Definitely not how she might have guessed he’d react. Then he turned to the nurse.

  “She’s not Megan,” he said to Susan, the woman Arsula had first met in Erica’s exercise class.

  “Who’s Megan?” Susan asked.

  “You said my girlfriend was here.” Jaden pointed at Arsula. “But that isn’t my girlfriend. She’s just the woman I slept with before she knocked me down the stairs.”

  Arsula’s eyes went wide. “No.”

  She shook her head as she tried to take in both Jaden and Susan. “No,” she repeated. “I did neither. I didn’t sleep with him, and I didn’t knock him down the stairs. It was an accident.”

  “We woke up naked together, and you threw a lamp at me.”

  She grimaced. “Well, yes. Both of those things technically did happen. But I only threw the lamp because you made me mad when you called me the devil.”

  “But you are the devil. You talked me out of my clothes even though I have a girlfriend.”

  “I . . .” Arsula momentarily closed her eyes. This was not at all how she’d envisioned the morning going. She’d hoped to slip in and out without causing so much as a stir. Not to be gossip fodder before she’d even had her second cup of coffee.

  “I’ll leave you two to it,” Susan murmured, patting Arsula on the shoulder before ducking out of the room. When just the two of them remained, Arsula inched around to the side of Jaden’s bed.

  Anxiety clawed at the back of her neck. “I’m sorry about throwing the lamp at you.”

  Jaden didn’t reply. He just peered at her through thinly slit eyes, and then he dropped his head to the pillow as if unable to hold it up a second longer.

  “Do you want me to go?” She motioned toward the door. “I could just—”

  “You brought me flowers.”

  She glanced at the bouquet sitting beside his bed. “I did.”

  “Why did you bring me flowers?”

  She gave a little shrug. “Because you’re in the hospital. And because I felt bad about my part in your falling.”

  “You threw a lamp at me.”

  She sighed. She knew she had. But really, it hadn’t been that large a lamp. A ten-dollar purchase from a big-box store shouldn’t have been heavy enough to knock him down the stairs. “I really am sorry,” she told him. And she truly was. “I don’t usually lose my temper like that.”

  Her last statement could be considered a tiny fib if the right person were to be asked. She’d been sent to detention far too many times during her teen years to ever be able to say she didn’t usually lose her temper when someone goaded her. But the good news was, it was more of a heat-of-the-moment thing. Her outrage rarely lasted beyond the argument itself.

  “I like the flowers,” Jaden said, his eyes now closed and his words running together. “Nobody’s ever brought me flowers before.”

  “I’m glad you like them. My mom sent them to me for Valentine’s Day, but I thought you needed them more.” Her mother always sent her flowers for Valentine’s Day. Even when she’d still been living at home.

  Jad
en nodded. “I did need them. I didn’t even get a birthday present.”

  A birthday present? “Was it your birthday recently?”

  “Saturday.”

  This made Arsula smile. She loved birthdays. “You were born on Valentine’s Day?”

  His eyelids fluttered, but they didn’t open. A half smile touched his mouth, though. “I’m a Valentine’s baby. Shouldn’t be so hard to love me then, right?”

  Once again, Arsula was taken aback. He’d been like that Saturday night after he’d accidentally called her Megan. He’d grown melancholy and skated right along the edge of sad.

  “I would guess you’re quite easy to love,” she replied honestly. Until the hours following the wedding, she would’ve had no basis to make that statement. After spending time with him, though, she’d seen that though he might present a hard front—and really, all his brothers did that—Jaden Wilde had a good dose of squishy on the inside.

  He didn’t reply to her statement, and as Arsula stood there, taking in the steady in and out of his breaths, she assumed he’d fallen asleep. Which meant . . . she should probably leave.

  She didn’t immediately move toward the door, though. There was something soothing about watching this man sleep.

  The lines of pain that had been carved around his mouth and eyes as they’d waited for the ambulance the day before were gone now, and in their place was a peace that too often seemed rare in the world today. Everyone was always stressed or in a hurry. Or had their guard up and didn’t want to let anyone in. Arsula was good at reading people, even when they tried to shield themselves, but when their shell was completely down, it often felt as if she were looking directly into their souls.

  And in Jaden’s soul, she saw the little boy he would have been when he’d lost his mother.

  Was that how she was supposed to help him? To overcome something relating to his mother’s death?

  She remained uncertain. She had little knowledge of the details surrounding his mother’s passing. Only that she’d been involved in a car accident and that Dani had come home from college to help finish raising him and the twins. Nick, Nate, and Jaden had all been under ten at the time, while the older brothers had both been in high school and nearing graduation, and from what Arsula had learned over the past months, her death had been hard on all of them. Only, for some reason, she’d always sensed there was more to their struggles than solely the fact that they’d lost their mother.