by Aria Ford
“Yes.” My heart soared. If they knew his last name, he must be conscious.
“He's in the ward over there,” she indicated. “He's resting.”
I nodded. “I won't be long. Thanks.”
Before she could object to me being on my feet or me seeing Jared I walked briskly into the ward.
He was asleep. His face was a mass of bruises, one eye swollen, the traces of blood ghosted paleness on the skin where they'd been cleaned off.
“Jared?” I whispered.
His eye opened. He wasn't sleeping, then. Just resting.
“Darby.”
He sounded tense. I felt my own temper fray.
“How could you do something so crazy?” I snapped. I was so relieved to see him alive and reasonably well that all the horror flooded out of me. “You could have gotten killed!”
“You say that to me?” he said, also furious. “You nearly got yourself killed. How could you just throw yourself into a fight like that?”
I stared at him. “I was protecting you!” I said furiously.
He chuckled. “I don't need... protecting.” He coughed. I looked round, worried, as the coughing increased in volume. Then he stopped, wheezing.
“Jared, you...” I was poised in the doorway for help.
“Ribs... bruised,” he said.
I shook my head. “You crazy person,” I said. I was still a bit mad at him, though I couldn't exactly have put a finger on why. “You shouldn't have fought like that.”
“Only thing they know.”
I knew he was right, but I was still in shock. “You could have gotten killed,” I persisted angrily. He was in a bad way. I felt guilty and because of that I felt angry. I was also shocked to have seen him in action.
I really appreciated what he did for me but seeing it disturbed me. He was a killer. He had the instinct, like those guys. He'd been them. Would he have assaulted a woman, like they would?
The thought made me uneasy.
He drew in a rasping breath, drawing my attention back to him and out of my thoughts. I shook my head, feeling suddenly guilty again. “Thanks,” I murmured.
He smiled. “Don't mention it.”
We talked a bit after that – halting, hesitant sentences where neither of us seemed to know what to say. The nurse arrived and threw me out and I headed back to my own room where I contacted Alex to see if he could come and fetch me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jared
I was in the ward for a day after that. It was annoying, the inaction. I didn't need to be there, I kept on telling them, but they didn't listen. I wanted to be out and do things. I was bored.
And the thoughts that played round and round my head disturbed me.
There were three big thoughts. First, what the hell would have happened if I hadn't been taking my pickup to Maxwell's Repairs? If I hadn't been in that neighborhood, and by chance rushed toward the sound of a woman, screaming, Darby would be in a bad way right now. Second, my rage that anyone could have tried to hurt her. Third, my surprise at how violent I'd been.
None of those things were thoughts I wanted to think. But I couldn't help the fact that they looped round my head like bikes on a racing-course until I thought I was going to go mad.
“Okay, Mr. Manning. You can leave,” the nurse said after a final check by the doctor, the next morning.
“Thank Heaven!” I said theatrically. She laughed. She was pretty in a soft but sassy way. All the same, I couldn't think of anyone besides a certain Darby Gilmore.
I stood and stretched, flexing my back. The day of inactivity in the hospital had really worn on my nerves, and I was looking forward to being back at work. Away from the thoughts.
Thoughts of Darby were disturbing in their own way, too. I dreamed of her. Of her silk-smooth body on mine, the warmth of her, those curves of her.
As I dressed in some clean clothes – Jeff's shirt and Cody's spare pant, brought there by the two of them after a call – I thought about her.
She'd been so mad at me!
I was a bit confused by her, to be honest. She was like no-one I'd ever met. It wasn't that anything she did bothered me – even yelling at me for nearly getting myself killed when I'd saved her was touching – but it was just, well, different.
Darby Gilmore.
Alex had collected her, I gathered, which made me feel less worried for her.
I made a private decision to do a Google search for Darby when I got home. When I could finally leave this place. I walked from the ward feeling like I'd been let out of a prison.
Now I just have to get myself sorted out.
I went to the desk and settled the details, thankful for my health insurance. My employer had kindly sorted that out for me, as he had so many things. I sighed.
A part of me, a small part, had been surprised by how readily the ways of the street, my former life, had come back to me. I knew I'd done what I did to help Darby, but the savage way I'd laid into that guy with my hands had actually bothered me.
I didn't know the old street-fighter was down there.
I had discovered I still had traces of my old self, and that disturbed me, too. I'd been given another chance. I owed it to the people who'd given me that to use it properly. At least, I reckoned, I saw it that way.
I settled the administration at the front desk and headed down the hallway to the door. Out in the sunshine, I blinked. It was about midday and it was nice out. I looked around but had no idea where I was. I decided to call someone to get me back home.
Jeff came to fetch me in a pickup from the farm. I settled down beside him.
“Hell, Jared. You sure you should still be walking around?”
I chuckled harshly. “You ever been in hospital?”
“No,” he admitted.
I laughed more. “Well, then, you don't know why I'm outta there.”
We both laughed.
“It's good to have you back,” Jeff said. “We missed you.”
“Oh?” I was surprised. It was, if I thought about it, probably the first time in my life someone had actually said they missed me. It was a weird feeling. He nodded.
“Yeah. Cody missed being able to pull pranks on someone and have them pull them back, only worse.”
I laughed. I hadn't known how much they actually all accepted me and the news came as a surprise.
We reached the ranch when the others were ending shift for lunch. I swung down out of the pickup, feeling slightly wobbly, and landed on my feet.
“Hey!” Cody yelled.
“Cody! Nics!”
I greeted them with some enthusiasm, though I winced when Cody punched my playfully on the arm.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.”
They all looked impressed by my bruises and fresh cuts and I felt proud and also, weirdly, shamed. It was just another way I was different than them.
We all went to lunch together.
“Much better than hospital-food,” I said as we sat at our usual street cafe. They all laughed.
“You sure got beat up,” Nics commented. I scowled at him.
“There were three guys,” Cody said in a soft voice.
Nics looked at me with big eyes, seeming impressed now. “That's cool.”
It wasn't actually something I was proud of, the fact that I'd just attacked three guys and landed one of them in hospital too. I learned that from the discussions from nurses too.
“I just did it,” I said gruffly. I felt awkward.
Cody, who was sensitive to my moods for some unfathomable reason, looked out the window.
“Looks like we're in for fine weather,” he suggested. “We can fix the roof tomorrow.”
That was met with wails of protest and cheerful swearing at him. It covered my discomfort.
Later I thanked Cody.
He smiled.
“I get it,” he said. “Nics can have a mouth like a waterfall – stuff just keeps flowing out.”
We both laughed.
I walked out into the sunshine. I felt a bit better about the fact that they were giving me space – it wasn't like I was really raw or really needed it. I was just confused.
I don't understand what the hell is happening to me.
Ever since Darby came into my life three days ago, there had been funny thoughts in my head. Thoughts I never usually thought about if I could help it, like wondering if I could make something of my life – more than just being a cowboy, which had always been enough for me before. I wanted to establish something for myself. Maybe try saving up cash. I felt like these were things I could do, where before I had just been really impressed that I wasn't on the street anymore.
I left work with all the others and aside from my shoulder aching a bit I felt fine. I got home and found myself checking my phone. I searched for Darby Gilmore.
She was the third one on the list. Darby Gilmore. Lawyer, Neville and Associates. Really?
My heart sank. Darby was a lawyer? A smart, educated woman I always knew she was. But I hadn't actually guessed she was a professional bad-ass.
If she's... who she is... I don't even have a chance.
I looked at the photo of her – smiling, suited, confident. The fact that she had actually slept with me was miraculous in itself. To expect anything more was foolish.
“Stop being dumb,” I told myself.
Heart aching, I closed the tab and put my phone down. Weirdly, it hurt to close that tab. Like I was closing her out.
I was.
“Jared, you always knew she was too good for you,” I told myself. I had always known that. Now I knew for sure.
No wonder she'd been mad at me. She wasn't mad because I'd risked myself. She was probably mad because she'd seen me again. That made more sense.
“Stop thinking about her and go make dinner,” I told myself harshly. I should do stuff and then go to bed and sleep properly, since I had things that needed doing tomorrow morning.
I knew I was going to dream about her and I was mad at myself for it. It was stupid, but Darby was the first woman I'd actually fallen for. I was in new territory with all this, but one thing I knew for sure was that this was going to hurt me really badly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Darby
I spent the day – my second-last day in town now – studiously avoiding my brother and our family. I knew Mom had noticed something weird about me and I really didn't want her asking awkward things.
Alex had fetched me from the hospital, so I'd had to tell him the story.
He was in the hall when I came back from my morning walk. I'd taken breakfast at the hotel across the street so I didn't have to face their staring. But now I couldn't avoid it.
“Darby, I...”
“Alex, I'm fine,” I snapped. “Really, I am. Just exhausted.”
He frowned. “Darby, you should...”
“I don't need to know about that, Alex,” I said. “Whatever it is, I don't think I need to do anything different. What I'm doing's just fine.”
He sighed. “Darby, what happened must have been really traumatic. I know you...”
I bridled. “Yes, it was traumatic. Which is why I don't need people getting on my nerves now.”
I knew I was being unkind when I saw his face fall. But I had to get some space. It was bad enough having been put in a place of complete helpless terror by three thugs – it made me need my space more than anything – but I also didn't need his questions.
I stalked off and went to my room, shutting the door behind me.
I hadn't told him about Alex.
Somehow, sharing the identity of the guy who had intervened was more than I wanted to do. If my brother knew, then he'd want to thank Jared. He'd invite him here. Make a fuss. And I didn't want to make myself see him again.
I'd already decided he wasn't for me.
“I'm nuts.”
I said it aloud as I lay back on my bed and looked at the ceiling. He was a handsome man. A cowboy. He'd saved me. All those elements should have meant I wanted him to be part of my life. But I was desperate to close that door. It was the dangerous quality about him that bothered me, I think.
That, and the thought of taking him out with me.
It wasn't just my family who would disapprove – even Alex, who'd turned the guy's life around for some reason he still hadn't divulged – would frown worriedly.
And my colleagues would laugh at him.
I didn't want to think that, but I knew it was true. He was so unlike them. Unsophisticated, raw. How could I take this magnificent racehorse of a man into a circus-rink like my daily life?
I can't do it to him.
At that moment, someone knocked on my door.
“Hello?”
“Darby?”
It was my brother. I sighed. I'd been really mean and I felt sorry.
“Hey,” I said, opening the door. “Alex, I'm sorry...”
“You don't need to be,” he said gently. “But I didn't come to bother you. I just wanted to ask if you were going to join?”
“Depends. For what?” I asked hesitantly. My game-plan for these last two days was to avoid my family until it was time to leave.
“Uncle wanted to take us to a restaurant. We're all leaving tomorrow.”
“Uh...” I considered my options. Be really rude and sever my ties to this particular branch of relations, or go and try and field awkward questions.
“I'll handle people's questions.” Alex said as if he read my mind.
I felt my heart go out to my brother. I smiled.
“Thanks, Alex. I really appreciate that.”
He smiled. “Pleasure.”
We went down to join the rest.
We went to a place I hadn't noticed before, quite a nice restaurant in the town center with a terrace. There was a nice view of the hills from here, the only thing detracting from the landscape being a shady-looking cafe on my immediate left, across the road.
“Darby, have you...”
“Pass the mustard, would you, uncle?” my brother interrupted.
“Oh. Sure. You're going to put mustard on that? Really?”
The conversation veered towards the relative merits of mustard and I was saved. I caught Alex's eye gratefully. Mom, beside me, was quiet and hadn't asked any more questions. I appreciated it.
I enjoyed my lunch – bean chili – and that surprised me. Not because I wasn't expecting the food to be pleasant, since if nothing else a day of hospital food had given my food standard a beating, but because I was feeling a bit sad.
This was my last day here.
I felt as if my idyll with Jared was really at an end now. It was like, the moment I took off above those mountains something would shift and change and that magic would disappear into the past. I should have been pleased about that, but I wasn't. I knew I would take a while to get over it.
Don't be stupid. It was nothing.
I couldn't tell myself that, though. I had bonded with the guy in a way I'd never have expected during that time.
“Right,” Uncle was saying. “Let's see the damages.”
There were protests as he insisted on paying for all of us, and I watched the hills over Alex's shoulder, feeling numb inside, the noise cascading round me.
We stood to leave. I went briskly down the side-walk to my car – I'd come on my own to avoid awkward questions and was parked some distance from the rest. I saw someone cross the street from the cafe, heading to the convenience-store where my car was parked. Because I was still a bit jumpy, I tensed, watching them near.
It couldn't be. But it was.
His blue eyes met mine and locked with them.
Jared.
I froze. I didn't know whether to run or to stand or to just walk away as if I had never seen him. I had decided on the latter and was busy walking when he called me.
“Darby.”
I spun round.
“Jared, please,” I said. “Just...”
He looked at me sadly. “I just w
anted to say, um, you know. Thanks.”
He shrugged awkwardly.
I frowned. “Thanks?”
“Not for the... well... that too,” he said with that endearing grin that took my heart and twisted it up. “But for what you said the other night. For listening to me. I... appreciated that.”
