Private Property: a Contemporary Romance Novella

by Michelle, T.

  Tabitha had a sinking feeling she knew but couldn’t get her mouth to form the words.

  Jared continued. “It means you need to go to surgery.” He clasped her clammy hand in his large, warm one, trying to reassure her. It didn’t work – her heart began to pound, her breathing became shallow and rapid. “I’ll be there with you; Dr. Moore will be assisting me. I’ll do all the work and put you back together in no time. But if we leave the fragments in the muscle that far away from the bone, chances are it will become infected and that is ten times worse than going to surgery now.”

  Tears had started rolling down her face. Tabitha sucked up her waning courage and nodded. “Call Kristen for me.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “No, don’t call them yet. I’ll do it later.” She rattled off Kristen’s number and tried to swallow some water. “When do you want to operate?” She no longer sounded like herself. Her voice sounded distant, not of her own body.

  “First thing in the morning. I need to wait until your body is free from food and water. So, after midnight, no more to eat or drink for you.” He held her hand a few more seconds after standing, then leaned in closer to her face. “You need to calm down. You’ve never been through surgery before have you?”

  “I’ve never been admitted to a hospital before.” She couldn’t stop shaking her head.

  Jared spoke to Dr. Moore over his shoulder in a hushed tone, and then returned his attention to her. “I’m going to get the nurse to administer some medicine to calm you and allow you some sleep. I’ll be back to check on you in a bit. Someone will call Kristen for you as soon as possible.”

  And with that, he was gone. She was abandoned in her little white room, isolated in her fears. Her mind began reeling through surgical images she’d seen on the Discovery channel, recalling medical horror stories she’d heard about, and delving into her own mortality. She felt as though her heart would come out of her chest at any given moment.

  The slight, quiet nurse appeared again, wheeling in an IV contraption with bags of liquid swinging from curved hooks on either side of a long pole. “Ms. McLean, I’m Sheila. Dr. Larsen ordered an IV for you.” She produced a large syringe of sorts and tapped its belly. Have you ever had an IV before?”

  Tabitha shook her head weakly.

  “Well, it’s just a way to administer medicine in a continual, but adjustable dose.” She thumped the plastic shunt to demonstrate its flexibility. “There will be a sharp, quick pinch in the back of your hand and then it won’t hurt a bit, okay?” She didn’t wait for Tabitha’s consent, but picked up her right hand and began swabbing it with a cold alcohol pad. There was an uncomfortable sting and then Tabitha felt a cold climb up her arm. She watched Sheila stick the needle of a smaller syringe into a branch off the main tube and empty its contents.

  “You should feel rather sleepy here in a moment or two.” Sheila went about checking Tabitha’s vital signs before fluffing the pillows up behind her. “Try to get some rest, Ms. McLean. I’ve made the call you asked for and your friend Kristen will be here as soon as she can.”

  Tabitha didn’t fight the tiredness that overcame her and was thankful to drift off to sleep. She barely remembered bits and pieces of the afternoon from that moment on. Kristen had entered the room at some point and the nurses came in to periodically check on her. She remembered Jared coming in and speaking with Kristen, but couldn’t recall exactly what was said. She woke sometime in the early hours, seeing Kristen dozing in a chair next to her.

  A subtle knock at the door heralded Jared’s entrance. He was decked out in green scrubs, his hair hidden under a green cap. He reached out and gently shook Kristen awake.

  “Okay. The OR’s been prepped and our patient’s ready to go.” Kristen came to abruptly and shoved a hand through her ratted hair. She grasped onto Tabitha’s fingers. “I have to go scrub, but someone will be in shortly to escort you down the hall.”

  Jared turned to Kristen. “This should be a simple procedure – an hour’s work most likely. We’ll be placing some screws in to the bone to anchor those chips.” He turned back to Tabitha. “You’ll be staying here a few days, but I’ll be here with you.”

  “Why do I have to stay?” Her voice sounded small.

  He bestowed her with a comforting smile. “Because it’s the only way I can be certain you’ll stay off that leg and keep from hurting your arm again.” He patted her thigh. “Okay, see you in a minute.”

  She hugged Kristen tightly before the male nurse helped her get situated on the gurney. Kristen was crying by the time she looked back up at her. “I’ll be here when you get out. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Kris.” And she did. Kristen was the sister she never had. Well, Tabitha did actually have sisters, but none that cared too much about her. After all, she was the black sheep of the family.

  Tabitha watched as the bright overhead hallway lights passed her one by one. Soon she was wheeled into a stark white room with large metal lights above and metal trays on either side. The room was bustling with activity while people situated themselves. A man introduced himself as her anesthesiologist, while another nurse said she’d be assisting Drs. Larsen and Moore with the surgery.

  Then Jared’s bespectacled, masked face appeared before her eyes. “Okay, Tabby. Just close your eyes and allow the anesthesia do its job. Don’t try to fight it. You’ll be waking up in your room in no ti-.” Tabitha’s eyelids had already begun to droop before he’d finished his sentence.

  

  The bright lights hurt her eyes and muffled sounds were barraging her ears. Someone was squeezing her hand and she couldn’t seem to remove her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

  “Hi, honey. How are you?”

  She tried to focus on the person speaking to her, tried to formulate words, but failed miserably. “Firstah.” She attempted a swallow, but still couldn’t seem to dislodge her tongue.

  “What, Tabby?” The hand on hers began to rub lightly along her skin.

  She cracked an eye and forced some focus to her vision. Kristen. Always tried, always true. She shook her right hand free of her friend’s grasp and pointed to the Styrofoam pitcher on the small table next to them.

  “You’re thirsty?” Thank God Kristen wasn’t dimwitted. Kristen turned and looked over to the opposite chair. Jared sat sprawled across its girth, his large frame overflowing its capacity.

  “Hi.” He greeted, moving to pour her some water. “I don’t really want you to eat yet, but water will do you some good. You’re probably parched.” He slid a straw into the cup and angled it toward her mouth. It was the most euphoric sensation she’d ever felt – the ice-cold water sliding down her throat, releasing her tongue and soothing her dehydrated mouth.

  “Everything went fine, Tabitha.” He began, picking up her wrist and staring at his watch. “There was a little more work to be done than I thought – some of the muscle was required additional stitching. But other than that, you should be fully functional again in a few weeks.”

  Tabitha’s mind sobered and her heart dropped. The tears began flowing and her throat tightened once more. A few weeks would not make her boss happy – it was only a summer gig. Hell, she hadn’t even managed to get one good day in. She’d be out of a job for sure now. Not that she could blame him; Mr. Parker would have to fill the position.

  Jared seemed to read her mind. He brushed her hair back from her forehead. “Sorry about the job, Tabitha. But there will be others. This had to be done. You have two pins holding the bone together. They can stay in for the rest of your life, but if they begin giving you trouble, we can take just as easily them out.” He rose to his full height and glanced at her friend.

  “Kristen, I’ll have the staff bring a rollaway bed for you. Something tells me that you’ll want to stay by her side.” Kristen nodded, blinking back her own tears. Jared let himself out, promising to come and check on her after she got more rest.

  As soon as the door closed b
ehind him, Tabitha let the dam to break. Tears streamed down her face, her nose began to run and her breath came out in hitches.

  Kristen tried to soothe her as best she could, but she knew what Tabitha had endured before finally landing this job. “I’m so sorry, Tabby. But, hey…maybe this happened for a reason. Maybe you just needed to take a break. Something will come along, you’ll see.” She was rubbing the back of Tabitha’s hand so constantly that her skin had started to burn from the friction. “You can stay with me until something comes along.”

  Tabitha shook her head. She was exhausted and groggy. “I can’t do that. I’m tired. I just want some sleep.” She closed her eyes and prayed for a better day.

  She woke in the quiet, wee hours to the picture of her friend curled on a low bed beside her, a large man standing in front of the window, staring out.

  “Jared?” She whispered in the dark.

  He turned around, his hands still clasped behind his back. “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, okay. A little more clear-headed now.”

  He studied her in the waning light. “What will you do now?”

  She hesitated to answer; she hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. “I don’t know. I guess it all depends on this.” She waved a hand at her bandaged arm. Until then she hadn’t realized that a partial cast encased it from her shoulder all the way down around her palm.

  “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.

  Chapter 5

  She was running through a darkness – a forest maybe. Just like all the other times, something bad was chasing her. Only this time, 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 touched 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 stuffed 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 shook 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 d
oing 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 paying me when I owe you and Methodist hospital so much.”