by Kim Law
“You don’t have a clue what her subconscious was saying, lady.” He scraped his gaze down her, the intent clearly meant as derogatory. “Who do you think you are, anyway? Talking to me about gifts and intuition.”
She grasped her hands loosely in front of her. Otherwise she might be tempted to throw something else at him. “Are you seriously going to tell me that you don’t believe in intuition, Jaden? Not even a little bit? Or that you haven’t studied dreams in any of your psychology classes?”
“Of course I’ve studied dreams.”
“Then you must know that dreams are your subconscious’s way of speaking to you.”
He remained jammed into the bed’s far corner. “That’s one theory.”
“And what are others?”
She could see his anger ratchet up at the mere fact she’d questioned him. “Don’t talk to me as if you have any real knowledge on the subject,” he fired back. “I’ll bet you don’t even have a day of education.”
His ability to lob a bullet and land on the bone of contention between her and her father annoyed her. “I assume you’re referring to formal education?”
“I’m certainly not referring to ‘Lessons from Aunt Sul.’”
Now her anger rose. And she quit clasping her hands together.
“Do not go there, Jaden. I have three older brothers, and I know how to fight dirty.” She dragged her gaze over the length of him, same as he’d done to her, and made sure to linger on his obvious incapacitation. “You don’t want to know how uncomfortable I could make you tonight.”
His mouth hung open. “So now you’re threatening me?”
“Did you hear a threat?” She picked up his pain pills and rattled them in the air. “All I’d have to do is flush these babies down the toilet and take your crutches upstairs with me.” Her eyes flicked to the fridge beside his bed. “I could also take your cell phone. Make sure you can’t even call one of your big brothers for help.”
Hatred stared back at her. “You knocked me down the stairs intentionally, didn’t you?”
“Oh, please.” She was done with this conversation. Just as she was done trying to explain herself to those too set in their ways to understand it. She put the pills back on the fridge, turned out the overhead light, and picked up the tray she’d left by the door. “Ring the bell whenever someone shows up to get you. It’ll be my pleasure to let them in.”
Chapter Nine
He hadn’t called anyone to come get him. And he’d wanted to regret that fact for the last four days.
He hadn’t regretted it, though. Nor had he figured out why he hadn’t called.
But he also hadn’t caved and offered Arsula so much as a polite word.
The woman was a damned lunatic who didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. He was the right person for Megan. He always had been, and he always would be. He just had to get Megan to talk to him again so he could remind her of that.
And there was nothing whatsoever that he needed help with.
Jaden’s back teeth ground together at the very thought. Yes, he had mommy issues. So what? Or, he’d had mommy issues. But he’d gone to counseling throughout college—with a real counselor—and he’d overcome those issues. He was totally healthy now. Both mentally and . . .
He glared at his foot midway through his thought. He was almost physically healthy.
But that wasn’t anything Arsula could help him with. Just like his emotional well-being wasn’t.
She was a flake. Period. End of story.
He scowled at the television as he flipped from one soap opera to the next, before he thumbed the “Off” button and threw the remote across the room. His aim was off, however, and instead of making a resounding smack against the wall, the remote landed unimpressively on a blanket draped over the back of the couch. Which only irritated him more.
He growled under his breath. Days of being laid up in his sister’s office, with only pity visits from his brothers, and he was nearing stark-raving mad. It was bad enough to be immobile, but immobile and hours on end of being alone could make a man do irrational things.
He glanced through the open doors to the woman sitting twenty feet away from him.
Like consider making up excuses for the very person who’d ruined his life to have to do more than bring him food and grudgingly show up when he rang her damned bell.
He swung his legs out of the bed and reached for his crutches. Thankfully, he was mostly off the heavy pain meds, and from the looks of things, the majority of the swelling had gone down. His ankle still hurt like a mother on occasion. Especially if he tried to do much more than hobble to the bathroom and back. But at least he could now get through a portion of each day with his eyes open instead of closed.
Of course, that only meant he had more time to sit there and stare at Arsula.
He made it into the hallway, ignoring the sound of yet another person entering the office and greeting his nemesis, then slammed the bathroom door behind him. Scowling into the mirror, he scrubbed a hand over his jaw. He needed a shave as well as a shower—he’d refused to take one when Nate had stopped by the day before.
And possibly, he needed to quit doing his best to ensure that Arsula didn’t want to spend any extra time around him. He’d stayed. That had been his choice. So now he could either stay and spend every moment of every night sitting alone in his room. Or he could attempt to foster some sort of truce.
But dammit, she’d told Megan to break up with him.
He frowned into the mirror and asked himself why he was still there. Why was he letting what she’d done be okay?
Then he answered his own question. Because he still didn’t want to sit around the house he’d grown up in, having to depend on someone to take care of him. He still didn’t want to ask his siblings to take care of him.
And he was furious at Megan for not taking care of him.
Damn her for dumping him.
Turning from the mirror, he took care of business and washed his hands, and when he started back out of the room, one of his crutches caught on the edge of an uneven floorboard. He stumbled, slamming his shoulder into the door facing while his head whacked against the frame. Then he caught himself on his other crutch. Forward momentum didn’t cease as he spun around, the top half of him tilting precariously, and then he hopped, dropping both worthless pieces of sticks as he windmilled. Until he crashed face-first into the opposite wall.
Stars swam above him as he clenched his jaw, and all talking in the front room ceased.
“Jaden?”
He didn’t respond.
He couldn’t see who else might be with Arsula, but he knew that whoever it was, both of them were looking in his direction. That’s another thing he hadn’t thought through before committing to staying here. That he would be little more than a monkey in a cage. With Arsula’s work area right off his makeshift bedroom, every single person who entered the building spent a good amount of time looking at him.
And a lot of people had entered the building in the last four days.
Arsula’s face appeared in the doorway. “You okay?”
She had on a pale-pink sweater today and a dainty scarf tied around her neck, and the way she’d made up her eyes with thick liner made him think of movie stars from the 1950s.
“I’m fine.” He refused to be the invalid he was. “Just making sure you’re paying attention.”
Her lips pursed as if silently calling him the moron that he was, and she retrieved his fallen crutches. “Do you want me to help you back into bed?”
“No.” He smirked, and after another two seconds of her seeming to contemplate a reply, she silently turned and left. It had been like that all week.
Conversation picked back up the second she was out of sight—some woman telling her about the date she’d been on the night before and how she never would have gotten the man’s attention if Arsula hadn’t gone shopping with her to help revamp her wardrobe—and Jaden began to slowly make his way
back to his room. His ankle throbbed once again, and he would love to take a pain pill. Instead, he grabbed his laptop and hauled it over to the couch. He’d made the needed calls and gotten permission to continue his practicum with Dr. Wangler until he could get back to Seattle, so he’d contacted a neighbor to pack up his computer and overnight it.
In order to complete his degree, he had one class to finish—which he’d already been taking online—the therapy sessions to both observe and participate in, as well as the required paperwork and a weekly discussion associated with the sessions. Then there was his thesis. And all of that would now have to be completed with his foot either in this stupid splint, in a cast—which apparently came next—or in an eventual walking boot. Which, funnily enough, didn’t mean he’d be walking. At least not at first.
He eyed the crutches propped next to him. He suspected the three of them were going to become excellent friends over the next few weeks.
Flipping open his laptop, he decided anything school-related could wait. He couldn’t very well take care of the work he had to complete without a desk, could he? So he’d order one . . . which he’d then make Arsula help him put together.
A baby’s laughter came from the front of the building, and he leaned forward to see into the other room. Some woman who looked to be about his age had just come in, baby on her hip, and Jaden watched as the baby cooed at whatever Arsula said. She took the baby, jostling it in front of her as the child’s mother began to relay a story about how things were going much better between her and the baby’s father, and Jaden leaned back against the couch. When did she manage to get any work done around here?
It seemed half the town had come through the place in the span of a few days. And though he assumed some of it had to do with him—likely trying to figure out why he was there, maybe even why he’d been at Arsula’s place Sunday morning to begin with—there was no way all of them were merely seeking gossip. Arsula Moretti was an enchantress, reeling them in. And from what he could tell, all they wanted to do was talk. Meaning, they were not stopping by for his sister’s services.
Yet, half the town seeking Arsula out or not, he refused to believe the foot traffic had anything to do with any sort of “gift.” That was just ludicrous.
He listened for another minute as the two women continued chattering about the current state of the mother’s love life, then realizing that his ankle still throbbed, he inched forward on the cushion until he could prop his foot on the end of his bed. Except, that left his head the only part of his anatomy still touching the back of the couch. He couldn’t sit like that, so he got up and hopped on one foot as he tugged against the sofa. The darned thing was heavy, and he’d barely made any progress when the PR executive who worked alongside Dani stuck his head through the hallway door.
“Making a lot of noise out here today,” Tim observed. He glanced at the activity going on out front before stepping farther into the room. “Need some help?”
“I’m sorry about that, man.” Jaden had met Tim earlier in the week. He didn’t come into the office every day, and now Jaden felt bad that he’d disturbed him. “I just need to—” He motioned to the problematic piece of furniture, then let his hands drop in defeat. “I’m trying to scoot this over so I can prop up my foot while sitting.”
“Not a problem.” Tim helped him move the couch, angling it so Jaden and his crutches could still get between it and the bed, but shifting the far end so the bed’s footboard could do double duty as a footrest.
“That’ll work,” Jaden told him. With the couch now repositioned, he tried it out again, and this time he could both sit upright and prop his foot.
He could also see Arsula.
Tim stood at his side, seeming in no hurry to get back to his own work, and it took only a matter of seconds for Jaden to understand why.
“She may not be the most efficient office manager in the world,” Tim mused, his eyes never leaving Arsula as she continued to play with the baby, “but I’ll tell you, she certainly gives life to the place.”
Jaden wasn’t sure the place needed life given to it. “Aren’t you married, Tim?”
Tim cut a look at him, accompanied by a half smile. “Happily. With three kids, two dogs, and a substantial mortgage.”
“Then maybe you should get back to work so you can make payments on that mortgage.”
Tim chuckled. “Maybe I should.”
He lowered to sit on the arm of the couch.
Arsula laughed at the same time the baby did, the sounds filling the space and her entire face transforming into the type of beauty Jaden suspected women might kill for. With her dark eyes shining as bright as her smile and the soft curves of her jawline giving her, at the same time, the look of innocence and youth as well as that of a sultry vixen, he couldn’t peel his eyes off her.
The way she looked when she smiled was probably why so many people stopped in to see her all the time. Even the women were awestruck.
When she leaned forward and handed the baby across the bar-height portion of the reception desk, her body stretching out as she did, both Jaden and Tim held their breath. Her sweater rode up, exposing a couple of inches of bronze skin, and her black slacks showcased a perfectly rounded rear.
“Damn,” Tim muttered. He headed for his office. “I need to go call my wife.”
And Jaden needed to text his girlfriend.
The office door on the other side of the hallway closed, and the baby and its mother left the building . . . and then Arsula whipped around. She pinned him with a stare.
“Did you need something back there?”
He shook his head. He just needed his girlfriend back.
“Then quit staring at my behind.”
“Oh my gawd.” Maggie Crowder stopped five feet from the table Friday night, arms out in front of her and hands pressed palms out, and she looked like someone about to break into song. “It’s an Arsula miracle. Coming out of hiding after a full week of captivity.”
Arsula smirked. “Funny. But you know I haven’t been hiding.”
“I know.” Maggie slid into the booth, giving Erica a “hey, hon” as she settled in beside their other friend, and snagged a tortilla chip from the bowl in the middle of the table. Instead of eating it, though, she pointed it at Arsula. “Apparently you’ve been shacked up with Jaden Wilde all week.”
Arsula glared at her friend. “Shut up. I have not.”
“Hey. I’m just repeating what I’ve heard.”
“I’ve heard it, too,” Erica confirmed. She grabbed her own chip and scooped out a bite of salsa. “I hadn’t been in the gym for two minutes last night before three different people accosted me and asked if it was true that Jaden had dumped Megan and hooked up with you.”
“What?” Horror filled Arsula. That wasn’t at all what had happened!
“Don’t worry.” Erica reached across the table and patted her hand. “I told them they had it wrong. That you’ve just gone into the adult babysitting business now, as well as that of dream interpretation.”
“And I told them that the real truth was even fatter and juicier than they thought.” Maggie waggled her brows, and Arsula kicked her under the table.
“You’d better not have said anything like that.” This was the first time the three of them had been able to get together since the wedding, and she wouldn’t be there tonight if Gabe and Jenna hadn’t promised to stay with Jaden until she got back.
Not that she spent evenings sitting by Jaden’s side. The jerk was still acting jerky—remaining sullen throughout the days, while ringing that blasted bell in the middle of the night . . . every single night—but that didn’t mean she would leave him on his own until it was safe to do so.
“Did one of you stand up for Megan, at least? This was her decision. She did the breaking up.”
“Of course we did.” Maggie munched on another chip. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with you as well.”
Her friends had asked about the nigh
t of the wedding, of course, and along with skimming over the breakup, she’d relayed the same watered-down version of why Jaden had been at her place that she’d originally offered at the hospital. She didn’t make a habit of keeping things from her friends, but she had no idea what Jaden might have shared with his family. She’d also been unsure if she wanted to admit how far things had really gone with him. At least not over the phone or while sitting at her desk with Jaden looking on.
A server showed up with three margaritas, this not being the first time they’d visited the establishment on a Friday night, and asked if they wanted their regular entrees. After they were alone once again, Arsula turned to Erica. She was about to send the conversation into a full 180, but the longer she’d sat around that week, not talking to Jaden, the more she’d known she had to ask.
“What can you tell me about Jaden’s mother?” she said, and Erica froze in the act of bringing her straw to her mouth.
“What do you want to know?”
Everything, Arsula thought. The more she learned, the better she could help.
“Everything” was too broad, though.
Maggie sipped at her drink as Arsula rephrased her question. “What was she like as a mother?”
She already knew a little. When Erica and Gabe had first been dating, his ex-wife had come back into the picture, and apparently the woman had been a lot like Gabe’s mother. Meaning, manipulative and selfish. That had been the gist of what Erica had shared—along with the fact that Gabe continued to suffer hang-ups from his childhood.
But what kind of hang-ups, and why, Arsula could only guess.
“I wasn’t around then,” Erica stalled. “I didn’t meet Gabe for the first time until after she was gone and we were in college.”
Erica often dodged when the subject of Carol Wilde came up, and though that act alone piqued Arsula’s interest, she’d always let it drop. She’d seen no need to push a subject her friend obviously didn’t want to discuss.
Only, Jaden was in the picture now. And she suspected that Carol Wilde’s behavior had affected him as well.
