HERO (The Complete Series)

by Bella Love-Wins

  What the hell is going on?

  Rosa reached for her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Alexandra, I wouldn’t dare ask you not to come and see your own father. You know me better than that. Your being here is what helped him improve when he was admitted the last time.”

  “So what are you telling me, Rosa?”

  “I’m reminding you of this. Before you were aware that Maxwell was ill, you were already making plans to come to Tucson…to relax. This was supposed to be your vacation, wasn’t it?”

  “Well…yes, but that was before.”

  “You’ve been by his side every day since you got here. Honey, you need a break.”

  Alexandra looked out the window, embarrassed for almost blowing up, now that she realized Rosa was only looking out for her well-being. “I’m sorry, Rosa. I’m worried about Dad. That’s no excuse, but I guess I’m just tired and cranky over this whole situation.”

  “It’s all the more reason to take advantage of some downtime during your last few weeks here. The doctor said he will keep Maxwell hospitalized for observation, and to make sure the smoke he inhaled does not worsen his condition. You heard him yourself. I have every faith that your father will be back to his former health in no time.”

  She faced the steering wheel and turned the key in the ignition.

  Alexandra sulked a bit, but agreed. Rosa was right. She did not have to camp out at the hospital like this. While they were there today, Dad was lucid, upbeat, and only coughed once or twice. All he could talk about was how relieved he was that this hospital stay would not be as long as the last one. He was almost back to his old self.

  “I do need a bit of a break from life in Los Angeles, but I feel like I have to keep busy.”

  “Here’s a thought,” Rosa suggested. “Why don’t you spend some time getting the house together so it’s all repaired when they release your father?

  “I guess I could do that.”

  “The fire department cleared the house this morning, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you phone the cleanup crew this morning?”

  “Yes, I did. Sebastian said he would let them in if they made it there before he left for physio.”

  “That’s perfect. Why not go ahead and hire a contractor to start the renovations? I’m sure your father trusts you to take care of it.”

  “You know, that’s not a bad idea. It would give me something productive to do, and if they make enough progress on the main floor, Dad won’t have to get a temporary place.”

  And I’ll be out of Bash’s place that much sooner.

  She glanced out the passenger side window and smiled. It was a stellar idea.

  “Bash can help you out,” Rosa added.

  Alexandra gave her a sideways glance. “Oh, no! Not you too,” she groaned, shaking her head.

  Rosa did not even deny her involvement in this set-up. Rosa and Dad were playing matchmaker. Dad had probably put her up to this. As soon as he found out Alexandra was staying at Sebastian’s house while the clean-up crew worked on making the Storme residence ready for repair, her enthusiastic father had lit up like a Christmas tree. Dad made a point of reminding her that Bash was the one who kept her company, brought over meals and kept her spirits high while he was ill.

  “Hang out with a man one time, and suddenly everyone thinks there’s a relationship brewing,” she said to Rosa, rolling her eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you and Dad that Bash thinks I’m a guy? You know, I didn’t want to be the one to let the cat out of the bag, but Sebastian Sullivan isn’t really into vegan, if you catch my drift. He’s totally into beef.”

  Rosa blushed as Alexandra chuckled t her on comment.

  “Is that so? I never would’ve assumed that given what I’ve seen.”

  “What have you seen?”

  Rosa shrugged, and did not say anything more. There was something about the way she went quiet that made Alexandra wonder what exactly she was not saying.

  * * *

  Rosa dropped Alexandra off, and Sebastian’s Jeep was nowhere in sight.

  “Thank goodness,” she said under her breath, hoping Rosa did not hear her.

  His absence meant she could go right on up to her room without having any jaw-dropping encounters with him. She and Bash had exchanged their spare house keys this morning, and he had let her know he would likely be at his physical therapy session for a few hours this evening.

  Before heading inside, she asked Rosa to pull into Dad’s driveway.

  “Except for that second floor office window and above it, you almost can’t tell anything happened to the house,” Rosa said.

  The two of them stared at Dad’s three-story home. From the outside, most of the house looked unscathed. The late evening sky hung dusky in the background, and only a small section of the grass out front showed some evidence of the ordeal where the firehoses had trailed through the lawn. The damage up on the second floor had done some damage to the interior of the two guestrooms and Dad’s office. Alexandra was not worried about his files. Rosa had backed up all his essential electronic folders, and took his important hard copy files to his office shortly after he had been admitted to hospital the first time.

  Alexandra climbed out of the SUV and leaned into the open window of Rosa’s CR-V. “I think I’ll take a look around inside and see whether anything is salvageable. I’m hoping my guitar and the trunk of keepsakes in my room are okay.”

  “I hope so too, dear.”

  “Anyway, I guess I’d better get started. Tonight I’ll find a few more construction companies to call for quotes, now that I’m banned from daily visits to the hospital.”

  “You’re not banned, dear. Your father and I just want you to get your mind off his health. He’ll be fine…and I think it would be a nice surprise if the renovations begin before he’s released. He would never ask you himself, but I know he would be so happy. You know how he is about people fussing over him.”

  “He would be the first to tell me “Stop hovering, Alexandra!”, or something very similar,” she said, trying to mock her father’s gruff tone.

  “Trust me, I know. Well, I’ll keep you posted on his progress, but as you already know, the doctor does not expect to keep him for much more than a week or two.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks, Rosa.”

  “No problem. In the meantime, if you need me for anything, you know how to get in touch with me. I’ll even be available to help you break the rules when you want to sneak in and see Max.”

  “Thanks Rosa. I know this whole idea of keeping me away from the hospital is all his idea. See you later.”

  “See you soon, dear.”

  Alexandra waved goodbye when Rosa drove off. Pulling out Dad’s house keys from her satchel, she stepped up to the front door. As soon as it opened, the acrid stench of charred wood overwhelmed her. Thankfully, as Tucson was so dry during the summer months, much of the water had evaporated, which meant there would not likely be a musty smell from the water damage.

  The cleanup crew they hired had been at the house. The front entryway was clean in the places where mud had been tracked in last night. She took a cautious step inside, testing her weight on the stairs before climbing up to the second floor. The fire department had cleared the house, but the memory of the fire was still fresh enough to make her second guess her movements.

  Up on the second flood landing, she passed the large water damage restoration fan the cleanup crew left to ventilate the space. She held her breath at the second door. It was clear where the fire had started. Dad’s office door was open. It looked like a war zone.

  “Christ,” she whispered, shaking her head as she peeked in. The walls were black, and everywhere including the ceiling was coated with soot. One step inside, and her shoes squished across the semi-damp rug. Now she wondered how much longer the clean-up crew would be. She made a mental note to call and find out. Renovations would have to wait until all the water up here was gone. The floors and
drywall would probably need replacing as well. A survey of the room confirmed Dad’s computer, printers and other electronics were wiped out. His file cabinet was scorched, but seemed intact. Still, there wasn’t much she could remove from this room tonight.

  Ducking out of the office, she shuffled up to her bedroom. She threw open the closet and took a whiff. A heavy smoke smell lingered on everything inside. Fortunately, nothing was destroyed. She grabbed the backpack and threw in her wallet, tablet, phone and laptop before turning to the closet.

  “I hope it’s something a good washing can take care of,” she said aloud. “Let’s see what I can do.”

  She tugged out an armload of clothes to supplement her wardrobe while at Bash’s house. In one corner of the closet, she came across a dress that must have been missed when she had initially cleared out the space.

  “Hey, how did you get here?”

  She held it up, turning it side to side in the waning evening light, and let out a wistful sigh.

  I haven’t been in girl clothes in over a month.

  God, how I miss shapely clothes and bright colors.

  The last time she had worn this particular dress was sometime in high school, probably at a football game.

  “I wonder if it still fits me,” she mused.

  The sleeveless lavender shift dress was gauzy, ultra-short and leggy, with a high waistline that screamed two thousand and seven. Alexandra could not resist dropping the suspenders from her shoulders, unbuttoning the shirt and shimmying out of her pants. She slipped the dress over her head and let it fall down her torso.

  Gleefully racing over to the sooty mirror, her eyes widened at the effective transformation. The person staring back at her was not quite Lexxi Rock, but it was close. She was not styled to perfection, dressed up in designer digs, or sporting impossibly high heels, but looked younger, freer. There was no makeup to hide the almost invisible freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her hair was a tousled mess, but she found it cute.

  She grinned at her reflection and burst out laughing. Lifting up her heel, she looked at the black Chuck Taylor’s paired with the lavender dress in the mirror.

  “Hey, the shoes are a nice touch.”

  Out of nowhere, there was a loud thump downstairs. She spun around to face the bedroom door. Standing still, she strained to hear. The house remained absolutely silent, so she chalked it up to the old place settling. She turned back to her reflection with a dismissive shrug.

  “Note to self,” she whispered. “I have to make this one of my new looks when I get back to LA.”

  Alexandra heard a door close, and distant footsteps that began to slowly clomp up the stairs. There was definitely someone in the house. Her eyes darted around her bedroom in search of a weapon, just in case it was not the cleanup crew. It could be anyone. It was no secret in the neighborhood that the house would be vacant. She was not about to be caught unprepared by a potential burglar. She grabbed the dusty baseball bat forgotten in a corner and hefted it to her shoulder, ready to swing.

  Chapter 5

  ALEXANDRA stood near the door ready to swing the baseball bat and inflict some damage if the need arose.

  “Alex, is that you up there?” Bash called out.

  The baseball bat dropped from her anxious fingers at the sound of Sebastian’s voice. Her heart skipped a beat, and she now stared in horror at the girl in the mirror.

  “Holy fuck!” she mouthed in alarm.

  She quickly tried to pull the dress up over her head and it snagged on the silver chain she was wearing. She managed to tear it free with some more colorful expletives as Bash got closer. He was walking up to the third floor now, and sheer panic set in.

  What in hell am I going to tell him now?

  She shouted out, “Hang on a sec, Bash! I had a bean burrito for lunch, and I’ve got killer gas, dude! You do not want to come in here just yet.”

  Alexandra bought herself some time with the shameless lie. Her shirt and trousers had been flung around thoughtlessly, and now sat somewhere in the pile of clothes from the closet. She dug through the pile, coughing as she searched high and low to find them. Once found, it seemed to take an eternity to put them back on.

  Bash was laughing so hard, standing right outside her bedroom door.

  Crap. The door isn’t fully closed? Shit.

  Silently cursing at herself for being so careless, she could only hope he did not look through the open crack to see her jumping around in her underwear, trying to yank the damned pants up her legs.

  “I promise I won’t judge you,” he chuckled. “Are you all right in there?”

  He tapped on the door, and it gently swayed wide open. Alexandra stood there, chest heaving, trying to catch her breath. That had to be some record, getting dressed in twenty seconds flat.

  Bash stepped into the bedroom, looking around. “I’m sure there’s something in my medicine cabinet that can take care of that stomach for you.”

  She flashed him a nervous, embarrassed smile. “No thanks. I’ll be fine.”

  “What are you doing here? I drove up as Rosa was leaving, and noticed you going inside. I got a bit worried when you didn’t come back out.”

  “I’m just, just, um…” she stammered, feeling guilty and distracted by how everything the man wore made him so damned sexy, including this simple pair of khaki slacks and the polo shirt.

  I can’t even talk around him now. Christ.

  “Are you packing up those things on the bed?”

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  “I can help you with that, if you want. There’s something about physio that makes me appreciate the shit I can still do, now that there are so many other things that I can’t.” He sighed. “This damn knee is a real headache.”

  “You look like you’re getting around a lot better than you were this morning,” she pointed out.

  “Yes. It’s not as sore as this morning. All that stretching on those machines warmed it up a bit.”

  Alexandra turned slightly and noticed the dress she had tried on was now tossed across the pile of clothes on her bed. Wincing at the carelessly left clue, she took a slow step to the right to put her body between the dress and Sebastian’s view.

  “Good. Well, I dropped in to see how much progress the cleaning crew made today. I plan to take care of all the renovation details until my uncle gets released. While I was here, I figured I would check to see what clothes I could still use if I need to meet with construction companies or contractors. I got this, man. I don’t need much. You can go on next door. I’ll be over in a second.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she waved him off. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Okay, cool. Holler if you need anything.”

  The second she heard Bash descending the second floor stairs to the main floor, Alexandra rubbed her temple and collapsed dramatically into her bed. She stretched her body out like a chalk outline, arms raised in surrender and legs at awkward angles. The laughter that bubbled up was inevitable.

  “Are you trying to get yourself found out?” she asked softly, gazing up at the ceiling.

  Maybe I am.

  * * *

  It was easier in theory than in practice to avoid this man who let Alexandra share his living space.

  She woke up hungry the next morning, and needed to find something to eat right away. Opening her door a crack, the peered out and listened for Bash. Nothing moved. She did not hear a sound. She hurriedly tiptoed downstairs, discovering which steps creaked and which ones did not as she headed down to the kitchen, hoping he was not up yet. After having seen him in just a towel, she couldn’t predict what her sex-deprived body might do if he was around and almost naked again.

  Sneaking around the place got tricky too, considering she was not familiar with the layout of his house. Finally finding the kitchen, she opened each cabinet with her body tensed up and eyes nervously sealed shut, praying the hinges would not squeal. Sebastian’s pantry looked about as we
ll stocked as any bachelor’s.

  What was I expecting?

  She pulled down a box of cereal and gave it a shake, only to hear nothing but crumbs rattling around inside. A glance in the fridge revealed a ton of stuff that required cooking, and she was not the world’s best cook. Sighing, she pulled out a carton of orange juice, avoiding the bacon and eggs, and searched out something easier to fill her growling stomach.

  “Okay. Here we go,” she whispered when she found a box of toaster pastries in the back of a cabinet. She tossed a couple of them into the countertop toaster oven. The ticking of the timer was a quiet tap, certainly not loud enough to be of concern. Relaxing at last, she found a glass and poured a cup of orange juice from the carton, waiting for the pastry to warm. After a few minutes without a ding, she checked it. The toaster was not even hot.

  “Oh, come on.” She blew out an exasperated breath, her anxious eyes darting to the kitchen entrance in case Sebastian was coming.

  It’s fate. Seriously, fate hates me.

  Fate is conspiring to put me and Sebastian in the same room, but I am master of my own destiny, and I’m not about to let it run me like this.

  Swearing, she yanked the toaster oven forward to examine it.

  I haven’t broken the thing just by touching it, have I?

  There had to be a reason it would not work. Maybe it never worked. She picked it up and shook it slightly.

  “You’re up early.”

  Fumbling with the oven, Alexandra swiftly shoved it back on the countertop all in one move.

  “Bash!”

  Like I said, fate.

  Tensing, she watched him as he approached with a sleepy smile. She swallowed hard, trying not to notice he was only in pajama pants. His chest was bare, and a fuzzy beard covered his cheeks and chin, making him look extra…edible.