by Ashlee Price
Moving to his side, I looked down at his sleeping face. He didn’t look like anything was wrong. There was only one mark on his head that I could see, and his vital signs looked good as well. Having seen that he was basically okay, I was just about to leave when a doctor came in.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that someone was in here. How are you today, Miss?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Who are you to the patient?”
He was eying me like I wasn’t supposed to be there, and since I knew that was true, I felt guilty. “Um, well, I’m his wife.”
“His wife?”
I nodded my head and squared my shoulders to convince him that I was telling the truth. I was lying, of course, but there was no room for me to back down now.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here. We were worried that we weren’t going to be able to get any family down here at all.”
I nodded my head again, really not sure what I was supposed to do. I was just there to check on him. That was what I was supposed to be doing, anyways, but now I was face to face with his doctor. I should act concerned and ask some questions like any other wife would.
“So is he going to be okay, doctor? I don’t even know what happened.”
“From what we’ve been told, he was in a car accident with another vehicle. He came in here unconscious and has yet to come to. Well, there were a few moments when he became conscious, but he wasn’t lucid and we weren’t able to get much information past what the EMT told us. He’s lucky to be alive. The car was pretty mangled up, from what I hear. He was going so fast…”
The man paused, and I wasn’t sure why. I finally asked if he was going to be okay when he woke up.
“Everything tells me that he’s going to make a full recovery. He just needs some time to rest, and then he’ll be able to go home.”
I thanked him and waited for him to leave before I took one last look at Scott and followed him out. I wouldn’t be there to take him home and he wasn’t going home with me, but I’d done what I was there to do.
Melissa was waiting for me in the lobby. When I told her that he was okay, she seemed as relieved as I was. There was no telling her that I didn’t love him now. It was obvious after the way I acted, and I wished that I’d done a better job of holding that all in.
Chapter 2 – Scott
“Good to see you up and around, Scott. I don’t know where your wife went, but I’m sure she will be around in a little bit. How are you feeling?”
Shaking my head, I tried to figure out what he meant about my wife and her being back. My head hurt, and when I felt the top of it, I knew that I’d hit something. I was starting to think that I was either hearing things or I’d really messed up my head, because I couldn’t for the life of me remember who my wife was. If I had one, I was sure that I would remember her.
“I’m not married, doc.”
He looked at me as if he was concerned that I would forget something as important as that. I couldn’t help but feel the same way about it. If I’d forgotten a wife, there was surely something wrong with my head.
“Well, there was a woman in here, pretty young thing who said she was your wife. Come to think of it, she didn’t stay long, but she asked how you were doing and everything.”
“Did she have red hair?” My heart was pounding in my chest. I knew that I didn’t have a wife, but I knew who I would want it to be if I did have one.
“Yeah, so you know who I’m talking about, right?”
His concern was leaving his face. I was sure that it was because he thought I was remembering her. I didn’t want to tell him that it wasn’t my wife, but the girl that I’d dumped a month before. So instead I just kind of nodded my head and told him that I did know who it was.
“I don’t know if she’ll be back tonight. So am I ready to get out of here, doc? I’m not going to say that this isn’t a comfortable bed, but I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”
“Well, we’re going to make sure that all of your tests come back okay and that you’re mobile, but that won’t take more than a couple of hours. You’ll be in our own bed tonight. I’m sure yours will be far more comfortable than what we offer here in the hospital. If I were you, I would want to get home to the wife as well.”
I tried to ignore the last comment, but it was hard to because a surge of jealousy went through me. I didn’t want to think about the doctor looking at Jesse in that way. I didn’t want anyone to ever look at her like that, and it suddenly occurred to me then that having her as my wife was the only way that I was going to have her completely. I needed her, and as soon as I was out of the hospital, I was going to find a way to make sure that she forgave me, my father be damned.
The tests were irritating, but after it was concluded that I wasn’t going to keel over forthwith when I left the place, I was released. I called the office and had a car sent to the hospital to pick me up. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do to win Jesse’s heart and convince her to forgive me, but the fact that she’d come to check up on me told me that she still cared. I still wasn’t sure how that could be, but the very fact that she’d told people that she was my wife made me feel a whole different way about it.
When I got home my phone had several messages on it, from my father I assumed, and I was about to listen to them when I got a call from the man himself. I didn’t really want to talk to him, but when he mentioned Jesse I finally started to actually pay attention.
“Why did she call me, Scott?”
I wasn’t going to tell him about the wreck. I was going to be fine, and there would be a lecture involved if he knew. My head was still hurting too much for that.
“There was a mix-up and I wasn’t able to take care of something.”
“I thought you were done messing with her, Scott. Don’t you remember the conversation we had, where you agreed that it was for the best?”
The conversation he was talking about hadn’t gone like that at all, but it was pointless to argue with him. “I didn’t really have a choice, did I, Dad? You made it seem like I was going to take the company down if I dated her. You failed to mention that you’d bought out her property. Were you even going to tell me about that, or was I going to have to find out later when she came to me with it?”
“If you’d gotten rid of her like I’d told you to, we would not have any problems. She would have never contacted you, and we could go on like it never happened.”
He was just so sure of himself and how horrible she was. It made me mad. I didn’t want him to think about Jesse in that way. “She called you tonight because I was in a car wreck, and since she was the last call on my phone and I was out of it, they called her. She wanted to make sure that I was okay and that I had someone there. She actually came down there to see me, which is more than I can say for you.”
“I didn’t know what had happened. Her voice was rushed and sounded strange on the recording. I figured that she was upset about the shop, and you know that I don’t have time for that kind of thing.”
His words made me sneer. There weren’t too many things that he had time for. My whole life I’d never been one of them, and I didn’t see the point in pretending that it was any different now. I was going to choose love over money, if for no other reason than to not end up like him. He was proof of what that choice could lead to. I was a lot like him, but I didn’t want to be like him on that front. I was going to be different.
“Yes, I know. Well, I’m fine. Is that why you were calling, or was it only to tell me that Jesse called?”
There was a silence on the other side of the phone. The longer it got, the more nervous I became. Why was he calling me?
“I wanted to talk to you, son. It’s been a while, and with everything going on, I just wanted to. To see how the business is going. I don’t like how things have come between us in the last month or so. Ever since I sent you to that bistro, it has been nothing but problems. Something is going on, and I need to know that
you can still handle your job.”
“If I can’t, will you replace me or will you take the reins back yourself? We both know that you’re dying to take over again.”
“Why wouldn’t you handle the job? You have the schooling and the experience. You just have to get it together, Scott, and whatever it is that you’re letting bother you has to stop. You have to let her go. She was never meant for you, son. I’m glad that she cared for you and tried to get a hold of me, but her heart doesn’t change her bloodline. You come from good stock, and I want our next generation to as well.”
It didn’t make sense, him talking about the family like he cared. What had gotten into him? Was something wrong and he was just trying to let me down easy? I shook my head. As long as I’d known my father, he’d never been the sentimental type. He was all business. This was actually the first conversation that we had had that wasn’t purely business topics.
“I got to go, Dad. I’ll talk to you later when I’ve been awake a little longer.”
There was a disapproving sound on the other end of the line. I knew he was mad, but I didn’t care. I had bigger things to do than worry about him. I had to go get the girl.
Chapter 3 – Jesse
The morning routine was comforting, and by the time the line was outside, I was getting back into the swing of things. We hadn’t been open the day before, and it was like the customers were itching for coffee. There were more than I remembered, and several times I had to apologize for being closed two days in a row. It had never happened before, and a lot of the locals who I’d been missing popped in to see if everything was okay. By noon I was feeling better about everything, and for a little while I was able to forget about Scott and everything else that was going on.
When I closed up for the day, Melissa went home and I went upstairs. I needed a day to relax, but with the eviction looming, I knew that I didn’t have time to take a nap. I had packing to do: my father’s room was still half full of his things and the closet was almost all the way full. I still hadn’t found the courage and energy to go through it, but now I was going to have to.
Pushing my way into the room, I sighed at the open trash bags and the mess I’d made. Was it really that hard? I had to get rid of some of it, even though I didn’t want to get rid of anything. It was bad enough that I’d lost everything in the span of a couple of months, and now the idea of throwing away an old shirt was hard for me to imagine. I had to, though.
***
I had somehow fallen asleep on the bed. I’d been going through clothes and boxing things up, so I wasn’t even sure how I’d fallen asleep at all. I’d gotten several boxes packed up, but it had taken a toll on my brain. Paired with a dream about Scott, it left me feeling more than a little disoriented. It was about as bad as when I’d gotten drunk the other night. I was back to that weary feeling.
There was a loud knock on the door downstairs, and I realized that it must have been what woke me up to begin with. I didn’t know who it could be, and for a few minutes I was just going to let it go. I didn’t even want to get up out of bed to see who it was. It must not have been anyone important or they would have called me instead of just popping up.
Closing my eyes, I listened for a moment. I was hopeful that whoever it was had left, but then there was another knock, louder this time. Groaning, I got up from the bed and went to the window. I didn’t know who I expected to see, but it wasn’t Scott. Not the man who wore me out in my dreams and left me cold and alone in the morning. What was he doing here? I cursed myself for going to the hospital. I was pretty sure that the doctor had told him what I’d said, and I didn’t want to face him. It was embarrassing to say the least.
“Jesse, I can see you in the window. Please just answer the door. I’ve called a hundred times and you won’t answer, so here I am.”
There he was, and for the life of me I wished he didn’t look so good. There was a big part of me that wanted to see him, more of me than not, but I also knew that it wasn’t going to do me any good. He was just going to hurt me again, and this time the betrayal would be more than I could handle. I tried to wave him off through the window, but he just shook his head and knocked again. The man still didn’t know how to take no for an answer.
I moved away from the window. I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do. Looking down, I saw that I was still in my uniform. Whether I wanted to see him or not, I didn’t want to see him like that. Pulling on some clothes that were a bit nicer, I walked down the stairs slowly and eyed the man looking back at me.
Scott looked good, but he also looked like he hadn’t slept very well the last couple of days. There was still a knot on his head, and it reminded me of being called to the hospital and all of the feelings that he’d made me feel again. I missed him, a lot, and I walked a little slower just so I could take him in. Why did I still feel this way when I knew that he didn’t feel the same?
“What do you want, Scott?”
He smiled at me, the type of smile that melted my heart into a little puddle. It was hard to be mad at him when he looked at me like that, but I had to stay strong and not let him get in my head again.
“I want you, Jesse.”
“If you wanted me so bad, Scott, then why did you dump me?”
“Because I thought I had to.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t want to go another day without you, Jesse.”
It was similar to what he’d said on the phone, I thought. Parts of that conversation were still coming back to me in flashes. “Well, you could have had me. You did have me.”
“Not anymore?”
I shook my head no and tried to walk back inside, but his hand shot out and stopped me with a firm grip on my arm.
“No, Scott, not anymore.”
Chapter 4 – Scott
I’d expected her to be mad, so when she tried to walk away, I couldn’t say that I was really all that surprised about it. What I was a little shocked about, though, was how much my heart clenched with the idea of her walking away. I didn’t like it when she said that she wasn’t mine anymore. She was always going to be mine. I just had to get her to agree to it. At first I’d underestimated how upset she was, but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
“Just hear me out, Jesse. I know that there are a lot of questions that you have, and I owe you an explanation, I know that.”
“Don’t worry about it, Scott. I get it, really I do.”
“You don’t get it at all, or you wouldn’t be looking at me like you wanted to scratch my eyes out right now.”
Jesse just shrugged and pulled her arm away. “Well, if you’re going to be here, I’m going to need some coffee. I still have a lot of packing to get done before I have to vacate your father’s property.”
“That’s one of the reasons that I’m here. I didn’t know about that, Jesse. I didn’t know about it until you told me about it on the phone the other night.”
Her face turned red and she looked down, no longer able to meet my gaze. It made me wonder what had her looking like that. I knew that she had every right to be mad at me for what my father had done, but it didn’t mean that it was my fault or that I’d had anything to do with it. That was the first thing that had to be clarified between us before we could move forward. I knew that.
“I find that rather hard to believe. Your signature was on it, remember?”
I tried to tell her that it wasn’t true. Someone had apparently forged my name, and although that was illegal, there wasn’t much I could do unless I wanted to get my father in trouble. That was not a battle that I was ready to have yet; in fact, it was one of the very last things that I wanted to focus on right now.
“Yes, it was, but I wasn’t aware of it. I don’t think that I signed it, Jesse, but if I did, you have to understand that I sign hundreds of contracts for various things every week and I don’t read them all. I would have never signed it if I’d known what it was. You have to know that, Jesse. Why would I co
sign on that loan, just to do that a month later?”
She shrugged, and I could tell that although she wasn’t completely on board yet, her wall was starting to crumble a little bit. I was getting through to her.
“Well, I don’t know why you did that, Scott. Maybe you knew that this was going to happen and just wanted a date. I never could figure out what you saw in me, and I guess I don’t care.”
“I saw a woman who was full of fire and not afraid to tell me when I was being an ass. You were the first person in a long time who talked to me like that.”
“So yelling at you is what sealed the deal? Like that was a good thing?”
I chuckled and nodded my head. “I spend most of my day around people who want something from me, so they say whatever they think I want to hear. While it’s good for my ego, it gets old. You were like a breath of fresh air, Jesse.”
Her eyes were still looking at the ground, so I raised her chin up so that she was looking right at me. “I see a beautiful woman that I don’t want to be without for another moment. That is what I see when I look at you, Jesse, and so help me, I don’t know why I said what I said before.”
“It’s okay, Scott. I told you that it’s fine. You don’t have to explain anything.”
“I do, because you still just don’t seem to get it. I love you, Jesse, and there is nothing more I can say than that. I love you more than I ever thought was possible. I didn’t think I was capable. You’ve met my father. I thought I was cursed to be like him, that I could never feel the way I was supposed to. But I don’t want that. Nothing is more important to me than you, Jesse. You have to see that.”
Jesse was looking at me like she was trying to decide if I was telling the truth or not. I’d forgotten for a moment that I had more to offer than just words. I went to the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out the deed that had cost me so dearly to get my hands on.
“I want you to have this, Jesse. No one will ever take this shop away from you. I know how much it means to you, and as soon as I found out what my father had done, I fixed it.”
