“Definitely. Do you have insurance?”
“No.”
“Okay, private pay,” she said under her breath.
The phrase “private pay” sounded so exclusive. Almost desirable. Yeah, right.
The lady handed Jada a pen and papers secured in a clipboard. “Fill these out and I’ll get you back to see a doctor asap.”
“Sure. Let me change clothes first.”
“No problem. The restroom is to the right.” She pointed.
“Thanks.”
Jada followed the woman’s direction. One good thing about children’s backpacks was their tendency to be plastic, thus waterproof. Jada changed into a blue cotton t-shirt and a pair of black yoga pants. Her tennis shoes still sloshed with wetness. The best she could do was remove her socks and shake her shoes until no more water flung out.
She wiped the floor with paper towels and checked herself in the mirror. Ew! The gash had opened up now and was every bit as ugly as the receptionist’s reaction.
Jada sat two seats down from her imposing rescuer and completed the forms. When she got to the section requesting information about the “financially responsible party,” she glanced up at him. “Um…there’s a part you need to complete.”
When he looked at her directly, Jada’s heart thumped wildly. Her attraction to him was starting to scare her. I’m gonna fail the mandatory blood pressure check if I keep looking at him.
She passed the clipboard and pen to him.
He eyed the paper momentarily. “I don’t want to be privy to all your personal information.”
Jada chuckled. “Trust me, if you tried to benefit by stealing my identity, you’d be sorely disappointed.”
He shrugged. “If you say so.”
After completing the bottom portion, Jada took the documents from him. She read, “Knox Stoneworth.”
“Yep.”
“Sounds like a fake name.”
“So does Jada Jones.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really.” He smirked slightly.
It ought to be illegal for a man to look this good. Jada steadied herself. “Well. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You’ve been very kind to me, Knox Stoneworth,” she said, placing air-quotes around his name. Jada didn’t give him time to respond. She returned the papers to the receptionist and waited there for a few moments before the woman buzzed her past the door separating lobby from patient rooms.
The first stop was a scale. Jada weighed 140. She wasn’t surprised, though. She knew she’d been losing weight since she lost her job two months earlier and had to move in with her sister, Samyra—affectionately known as Sam. Not that her sister wouldn’t or couldn’t feed her. Jada simply didn’t want to be a burden on Sam and her husband, Patrick. With a one-year-old baby in the house and living on Patrick’s police officer salary alone, Jada had known things would be tight, though Sam never complained.
What Jada hadn’t known was what kind of foolishness her sister had married into until Jada moved in with them. To put it mildly, Patrick was abusive. In every sense of the word. Emotionally, physically, financially…ridiculously!
Both Sam and Patrick had done a decent job of hiding the physical abuse. Sure, they argued about money, the baby, and everything else Jada imagined married people fussed over. Jada could remember her own parents arguing when she was a little girl, though not quite as heatedly as Sam and Patrick.
Jada stayed out of her sister and brother-in-law’s arguments, which always started off small—Sam leaving a baby bottle in the den or Patrick coming home ten minutes later than he’d promised. The spikes in their voices were Jada’s cue to grab a novel, put on her headset, and ride it out in her self-created peace…until this evening.
The emergency physician, who introduced herself as Dr. Ashe, concurred with Knox’s assessment and prepared Jada for stitches with Betadine and Lidocaine. A second woman whose nametag read “Lisa” entered the treatment room for assistance.
“This won’t take long,” Dr. Ashe said.
Jada tried her best to relax as she lay flat, waiting for a surgical needle and thread to be forced through her skin. She’d suffered a broken bone from jumping out off a swing once, but never had stitches before.
Suddenly, Jada was scared. What if they messed up and hit a vein? What if the vein they squashed was the one that supplied oxygen to her optical nerves—would she go blind in one eye? Would she have to wear an eye patch and look like a pirate for the rest of her life?
She needed someone there to make sure nothing went wrong. “Umm…would it be possible for my…acquaintance to be here during the procedure?”
“Sure,” Dr. Ashe quickly agreed. She motioned for Lisa to go get Knox.
Jada added, “He’s a doctor, too.” That ought to scare her into doing her best.
“Really? What’s his name?”
“Knox Stoneworth.”
“Hmm…never heard that name before. Sounds like one I’d remember.”
“Yeah. Well, he is.”
Shortly thereafter, Knox entered the room. His towering frame cast a shadow of relief over her body.
“Hello,” Dr. Ashe said from her side of the table. “I hear you’re a doctor, too?”
“Yes. A Veterinarian.”
Jada bit her tongue. A veterinarian? What?
“Awesome! I seriously considered working with animals. Probably a lot less stressful.” Dr. Ashe chuckled.
“I’m sure.”
“You work at Mayfield or are you independent?”
“Mayfield for now,” Knox said. “Considering my options for the future.”
Relieved that Dr. Ashe regarded Knox’s profession highly, Jada had to put herself in check. Give the brother some credit. Whatever degree Knox had, it was beyond the associate’s degree she’d earned. He probably had more letters behind his name than most people.
“We’ll be finished up in just a minute,” Dr. Ashe said as her assistant laid tools on the silver tray.
Knox looked at Jada again with a raised eyebrow. She read his silent inquiry—Are you all right?
She grinned slightly in response—I’m fine.
Jada settled into the long chair and waited for the procedure to begin. She closed her eyes, thinking about what a crazy day this had been. Today’s dose of trouble at Sam’s house had started with another miniscule argument. Another headset time-out for Jada, until she physically felt a thump while sitting in bed. She’d taken off the headset. Was that thunder from the storm? She listened. Heard and felt the thump, followed by her sister’s screams. “No! Don’t!”
Jada rushed from her bed and burst into the master suite, where she’d found Patrick restraining Sam in a move Jada had only seen on bad cop shows—perpetrator face-down on the floor, officer with one knee in the perp’s back, the downed person’s wrists retrained by the officer’s bare hands.
Without a word, Jada jumped on Patrick’s back and began pounding him with her fists until he let go of Sam.
“Get off me!” he hollered like a five-year-old girl.
Jada dropped to the floor. She picked up a lamp from their dresser and threw it at him. She missed. The shattering glass ricocheted back at her, cutting her deeply above the eyebrow.
Jada touched the fresh wound. Blood covered her fingertips, though she barely felt any pain due to the adrenaline rush.
“You got exactly what you deserve! Stay out of our business!” Patrick yelled as he stormed out of the room.
Sam struggled to catch her breath. “Jada. Stop.” She croaked.
“Me? You want me to stop? What about him?”
“It’s not what you think.”
Jada stopped for a moment to process those words. “Umm…were you two flirting just now?”
“It’s…we had an argument. That’s all.”
Blood dripped into Jada’s eye. She swiped it away. She watched her sister slowly come to a standing position.
“You�
��re hurt,” Sam said, raising a hand to Jada’s face.
Jada slapped her hand away. “I know what I saw. Patrick was hurting you. And not just with words this time. I’m calling the police.”
“Shhhhh!” Sam bit her bottom lip. “Don’t bother. He works for them, remember? This is a nice little suburban department. Officers work here because they don’t want to be around trouble. They’re close-knit. They won’t do anything to rock the boat.”
She spoke like she’d already been down that dead-end road before.
The front door slammed. Patrick was gone.
With the immediate threat gone from out of the house, Jada thought perhaps she could talk some sense into her sister. “You don’t have to live like—”
“You don’t know anything! You’re not married! You don’t have kids! You don’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes,” Sam cried, her eyes wild with desperation.
Sam crammed her feet into a pair of shaggy house shoes. She pulled a coat from the closet. “I have to follow him. Stay here with the baby. Give me your keys.”
“That would be a no. Have you lost your mind? Why are you chasing someone who just tried to kill you?”
“Jada, I need your keys. I’m trying to save my family here.”
“If this is your definition of family, it’s not worth saving!”
Sam shifted her weight to one side. “Are you going to give me your keys or not?”
“Not.”
A charged silence held between them as they stared-off.
“Then get out,” Sam ordered.
“Gladly.”
With that, Jada grabbed her purse and stuffed one of her nephew’s spare backpacks with everything she might need for the next few days. If she knew her sister, Sam would come to her senses in the next day and they’d be packing Patrick’s bags real soon.
She’d found directions to a cheap hotel and was headed to check-in when her GPS suddenly gave out in the stormy weather. She’d tried to remember the route but realized she’d gotten off track when she passed the Country Club. The winding roads around the golf course, slick streets, the nearly-bald tires on her hooptie combined to create the small disaster in a muddy ditch.
And now here she was in a clinic getting stitches with two doctors in the room, one of which could have graced the cover of a GQ magazine.
“All finished,” Dr. Ashe announced. “Lisa will give you the follow-up paperwork at the front desk.” She snapped off her gloves and tossed them in the step trash. “It was nice meeting you, Dr. Stoneworth.”
“Same here.”
They were able to shake hands now.
Jada sat upright and prepared to hop down from the chair.
Knox gripped her hand.
Jada sucked in a ball of air.
“Just trying to help you get down,” he explained himself.
She knew exactly what he was doing. It was the pleasure of his soft, warm hands that snatched her wits away. “Thank you.”
When Lisa presented Jada with aftercare instructions and the bill, Jada’s nose twitched—$345.28!
Knox had already whipped out his credit card.
“Hold up,” Jada said, fishing through her purse for her wallet. She gave Lisa her last bit of cash. “Apply this first.”
“Certainly.” Lisa counted the money, tapped a few keys on her computer, then said, “That brings it down to two seventy-three twenty-eight.”
Knox didn’t hesitate to pass his credit card across the counter.
Jada watched as the plastic was swiped through the digital reader.
What if it doesn’t go through? What if he’s been lying to me all along?
A strip of white paper came jutting from the top of the machine. “If you’ll sign right above your name.”
He took the pen Lisa offered him.
Jada stole a glance at the paper to confirm his name. There it was in plain black-and-white. Knox Stoneworth.
He gave the slip to Lisa, who exchanged the signed one for a second strip, a receipt.
“Have a nice evening,” Lisa said.
Jada and Knox returned the salutation.
They walked back to his car. The rain had slacked to a light mist.
Once again, he opened the door for her. “Thank you.”
He tipped his head gently and closed it before walking to his side and entering.
“Thank you,” Jada gushed with gratitude, “for everything.”
“No problem.”
She wondered if he was going to drop the bomb now, ask her to spend the night with him. Or maybe he was married and he was about to offer a side-chick proposition. Of course, she’d turn down both offers. Then he’d lock the doors, peal out of the parking lot, put the pedal to the medal, and kidnap her! Then she’d just have to jump out of a moving car and scrape her face…wait… that scenario made no sense since he’d just paid close to three hundred dollars for her stitches.
“Where to?” he asked.
Jada reeled her imagination back from the high-speed jump-out. “Huh?”
“Where would you like me to take you?”
Good question. Jada had used all her money at the clinic. She honestly didn’t have an answer.
Knox shrugged. “I suppose you could stay at my—” Here it comes! Jada thought—“parents’ pool house.”
Not exactly what she had in mind. “Your what?”
“My parents have a pool house. They usually have someone there—a guest minister, a family member in transition—but it’s empty now.”
Wooo hoo. Your parents have a pool house. Must be nice. “No, thank you. I’ll just…you can take me to the gas station. I can take it from there. But thanks for everything. You’ve got some good Karma coming to you.”
He laughed slightly. “I don’t believe in Karma. What I do believe is that you need a place to stay for the night. Am I correct?”
Jada smacked her lips. “Look, I’m from the hood, okay? I know how to survive on the streets.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Says the woman with a ‘Bob the Builder’ backpack?” He pointed toward the footboard.
There, staring up at them, was the screen print of her nephew’s favorite person in the whole wide world, besides his mom.
Jada took a deep breath. Knox was right. She had nowhere to go, no way to get there, and no street creds with Bob on her back. “Well…as long as the house is empty.”
“It is.”
“And you’re not staying there?”
He raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. “No, ma’am.”
“And you won’t try anything?”
He raised his hands higher. “Promise. I’ll stay in the main house.”
Jada would have to be plain ignorant not to know by now that she was in the midst of a true gentleman. “Okay.”
Somehow, this Knox Stoneworth was inching his way into her jacked-up world.
Chapter 3
Knox had to be totally honest with himself and God. Had Jada been unattractive, greedy, and/or genuinely mean, he would have dropped her off at the clinic and wished her well. Jada, however, had proven herself none of those things in less than two hours.
When he finally got to see her head-on, in full light at the clinic, Knox couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’d even asked himself if maybe he was being punked. How many times does a man drive up on a beautiful woman walking down a street? Let alone a beautiful woman with spunk and quick wit who had an inner moral compass that prevented her from taking advantage of his kindness?
Knox exited the freeway and made the familiar journey to his parents’ house. The wide streets, mature trees, and automatic lighting systems in the neighborhood gave glimpses of his family’s financial blessing.
“Nice zip code,” Jada commented.
“Thanks.”
“Your parents doctors, too?”
“No.” He couldn’t really tell the whole story in such a short time. “My dad played in the N-F-L fo
r a while.”
“Oh.” Her voice rang with understanding. “Gotcha.”
Knox parked his Jeep under the porte cochere, the half-way point between the main house and the pool house. The pool sparkled from the overhead lights leading to the basketball court further down the property’s cobblestone walkway.
“We’re here.”
“I see.”
Jada got out before he had the chance to help her.
He walked her to the pool house and opened the door. “We don’t usually keep it locked. But, of course, you can lock it while you’re inside tonight.”
“Why don’t you keep it locked?” she asked, stepping across the threshold.
“I don’t know. Never really thought about it.” Knox turned on the lights. Except for the bathroom, every section of the house was visible at a glance. Kitchen area and dining table to the right. Living area with sofa sleeper, fireplace and television to the left, office nook straight ahead.
His mother had decorated the small house in gray and white with placid blue touches, keeping it neutral so that her guests wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by her personal tastes.
“This is nice, Knox. Thank you. Again.”
Hearing Jada speak his name was all the reward he needed. Her hair was starting to dry, creating soft tendrils around her temples. Jada was a perfect picture of black beauty—thick lips, kinky hair, almond-shaped eyes, and an aura of confidence he couldn’t put into words. She had the kind of beauty he probably couldn’t have appreciated without an understanding of his heritage.
If she shared the same faith, she’d make an unbelievable package.
“I can take your wet clothes inside the main house and dry them for you, if you’d like.”
“That would be great.”
He hadn’t expected her to accept his kindness so quickly, but he was glad for it.
She unzipped the backpack a little too far. Out tumbled hair potions, a toothbrush, and some other feminine products Knox had no desire to witness.
He turned his head sharply, shielding his vision with his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Jada giggled. “Sorry for what?”
“I didn’t mean to see your…personal effects.”
“Haven’t you ever lived in a house with a woman?” Jada bent down to pick up the objects.
All This Love (Stoneworth Series Book 2) Page 2
