by J. C. Cliff
Her step falters, her eyes wide as if she can’t believe she’d just slapped me, but she recovers all too quickly. Despite her body vibrating between distress and rage, she squares her stance and balls her hands into fists.
“I don’t start working here until two weeks from now. I just came in today to get acquainted with the residents,” she growls in a harsh voice. She lifts her chin to meet my glare in challenge, then adds, “Your sister had just gotten out of bed when I got here. And if you must know,” she says snarkily, “I’ve already promised her that I’ll make every effort to look out for her wellbeing once I start. Not because she’s your sister, but because I genuinely care!”
She pokes me in the center of my chest with her index finger, a firm jab that actually hurts. “And let me tell you another thing, you arrogant prick. You’ve got a seriously jaded perception when it comes to nursing homes and caregivers, so let me enlighten you.” She raises her voice exponentially, full of frustration. “I’ve seen firsthand nurses and caregivers across the board who work their fingers to the bone, go the extra mile every damn time. You want to know why?”
She’s so mad her face turns red as she sprays spittle onto my chest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this irate. “It’s because they take pride in what they do. They have a strong work ethic and have sacrificed a lot to care for the less fortunate. It’s not easy work, it’s hard on your back and feet, and it’s draining, but you don’t care to see that side of the coin do you?”
She sucks in a deep breath of air, then drives her point home, “And I’ll tell you something else, asshole. I’ve seen my fair share of families who are the neglectful ones. Those are the real pieces of shit. Oh, and they do exist... more than you’d care to know.”
I stay silent, chewing on her words while she fights to get her emotions under control. It’s hard to believe there are families out there who would neglect their loved ones. I can’t fathom the thought; I truly can’t.
I know when shit goes wrong with my sister, I always jump the gun and go ballistic, blaming everyone. I guess I let myself get jaded. Instead of blaming the individuals themselves who slack off on doing what they’re supposed to do, I put everyone on the same page, stereotyping them all.
“Look,” she says on an exhale, pinching the bridge of her nose, “I’m not saying there aren’t some people who shouldn’t be allowed to practice medicine, just as there are some people who shouldn’t be allowed to procreate, but you can’t shove everyone into the same cookie cutter mold.”
Wearing a frown, I nod, agreeing with her. She’s effectively been able to curb my anger and calm me down just that quick. I fucking know all the things she said, but that’s how crazy I get when it comes to protecting Laine. I can’t seem to reason with myself objectively, and it took her getting in my face to set me straight. I’ve got to respect that.
“You’re right. I was out of line,” I admit gruffly. “I apologize for jumping to conclusions.” She’s taken aback, looking almost shocked over me doing a one-eighty with my emotions. I shrug my shoulders, not knowing what else to say.
She steps forward, her chocolate eyes softening on mine. “I remember you saying you had a handicapped sister, but I thought she lived hours away. I’m sorry someone did her wrong. Nobody deserves that.”
“No,” I say solemnly, “nobody deserves supervised neglect.” A calmness I can’t explain falls between us, our conversation shifting to a more even-tempered word exchange. “My dad passed away three years ago. I had to make an executive decision to move my mother and sister closer to me so I could help them.”
“I’m sorry… about your dad,” she utters soothingly.
I acknowledge her with the jerk of my chin. I’m not up for delving into that personal part of my life, so I change the subject. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?” she asks defensively.
“All you ever wanted to do was work in the ER. Instead, I find you here in a nursing home.”
She closes her eyes and looks away, almost in shame. “I never finished my nursing degree.”
“What? What happened?” I knew she didn’t work, but I never thought she’d give up her dream of getting her nursing degree. Certainly her husband could afford it.
When she lifts her eyes to meet mine, she takes me off-guard, because she suddenly looks pissed. “I don’t think my life is any of your damn business.”
My head snaps back, and my brows rise in surprise. “Well, when you put it that way, I guess not.”
She tells me in a snarky voice, “I didn’t get to finish, okay? I wound up meeting another man, and then fell madly in love with him.” She pauses to lock eyes with mine, and my stomach roils, because those words fuckin’ hurt. “We were so in love, and because he was older than me, he wanted to start a family immediately. I felt giving up my pursuit of a nursing career paled in comparison to having a family of my own. Plus, he was very well off, and he was adamant about me being a homemaker.”
I look down and see her entire body is now shaking. Her emotions are all over the place, but I can plainly see the pain in her eyes. As much as her words sting and piss me off, I push my feelings of hate aside. I surprise the both of us by slipping my hands into hers then gently pulling her into my body. Losing her husband and son at the same time had to hurt like a motherfucker.
A pained expression crosses her face as I wrap one arm around her waist. As I bend slightly at the knees, tilting my head to get on her level, I softly stroke her cheek, closely gauging her reaction.
She almost hisses, and I can’t tell if it’s from hate or desire, but when her eyelids flutter closed against my touch and she goes a tad slack in my arms, I know I’m affecting her. She’s acting as if she hasn’t had the tender touch of a man in a long, long time. She’s hungry for it.
“Sometimes, the pain of losing my husband is still too much for me to bear,” she sadly admits. I squeeze her tighter against my body, letting her feel the empathy rolling off me. “So in order to keep my mind busy and my life moving forward, I decided to re-enroll into nursing school this fall. In the meantime, I wanted to distract myself by helping others. It makes me feel as if there’s a purpose to my life.”
“I know,” I whisper, consoling her, and I do know. We’d spent so much time discussing her dreams while she was in nursing school. She always had a loving and tender heart. It’s one of the reasons why I fell in love with her.
“In fact, I’m leaving in a few days to go on a medical mission trip.”
I swallow hard, my throat going dry, because here we go. I pull back my head in false surprise, and ask, “Oh yeah?”
She nods her head. “I’m going to Panama.”
Looking as if I’m still caught off-guard, I try to break the news gently. “Isn’t this a coincidence? I’m scheduled to leave for Panama in a few days too.”
Her eyes widen, and I almost want to laugh at her shell-shocked reaction, but I remain stoic. “I’m going with a group called Global something,” I tell her, sounding unsure. “I can’t seem to get their name straight, because I work with several global mission groups. I’ve only been working with this one in particular for the past couple years.”
She blinks several times as if she can’t process what I’m saying, and then a faint reply escapes from her lips. “Oh my God.”
“What?” I ask, tilting my head in question, as if I’m totally clueless. “What’s wrong?”
“No,” she gasps, looking absolutely horrified as she shakes her head then tries to back out my arms. I hold her tighter, not letting her go. I furrow my brows, continuing the ruse, pretending I don’t understand. “What’s wrong, Valerie?”
“We… we’re going to be on the same mission trip.”
“What?” I half laugh disbelievingly. “That’s impossible. Do you have any idea how many different organizations there are? There’s no way.” I shake my head, sounding convinced of myself.
“No, we’re with the same organization.
I’m positive,” she says, more than confidant we’ll be in each other’s space. “I understand coincidental run-ins and all, but the fact I haven’t seen you in years, and now suddenly we’ve crossed paths twice?” She pauses, her forehead marred with worry lines as she shakes her head, unable to absorb the news. “And now we’re going on the same trip?” She pales, looking as if she’s going to be sick. “I can’t… I can’t….” Her words get all tied up in a raspy croak. “I’ve gotta back out of this trip,” she whispers in pure distress.
Her petite hands push against my broad chest in an attempt to get away, so I let her go. My gut clenches as I run my hand through my hair, and I briefly look away from the repulsed look she’s giving me. I close my eyes and draw in a long, slow breath, thinking about how I need to keep calm. I’ve got to turn this around somehow, convince her it’s not a good idea to cancel out on her trip. I will be in so much shit with the guys if I can’t change her mind. I turn back to face her as my lungs slowly expel the pent-up tension I feel on the inside.
“Val,” I start off with a soft, apologetic tone, “I’m really sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to lose my shit with you. I mean….” I shake my head, my mind scrambling for words to make this right. “When it comes to my sister, I’m more than overprotective. I get tunnel vision every time I have to come to her defense, and most times I can’t see reason. She’s got no one to fight for her, no one to speak for her, no one to work through all the medical red tape on her behalf. There’s no one except me.
“Doctors and nurses don’t take her seriously. They think, because of all her handicaps, she doesn’t know her own body. They don’t listen to her when she tells them something of importance. They think they know better than her. I’m the one who has to be her advocate, because God knows my mother can’t handle that shit. She doesn’t have a confrontational bone in her body. Neither of them does. So they get bulldozed and, many times, get taken advantage of.”
This shit is close to my heart, and Valerie must finally see my burdens in a new light, because her face softens and her shoulders relax.
“I promised my dad on his deathbed that I’d watch over her.” I pause, choking back the emotions that are beginning to clog my throat as I think about that moment in time when I spent two weeks as my dad’s hospice nurse, so he could die at home in the comfort of his own bed. Having him surrounded by his family in his last days was my gift to him, because that was his wish, and I didn’t hesitate. A fierce sense of duty consumes me all over again as I think about the last words I said to him, because even though he couldn’t speak, I knew he could hear me.
My voice is steely, full of resolve. “I’d do anything to make sure her needs are met. Anything. Because the healthcare system is so severely flawed. No one is going to ensure she’s properly taken care of except me. I have to make sure no one cuts corners with her, leaving her shortchanged. So yeah, I can go very overboard when it comes to her, because she’s had such a shit life.” I clench my jaw, pushing back down the emotions that want to surface. “Such a shit life, all her life,” I add. “I’m sorry I lost my cool. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you,” I tell her again, the inflection in my voice nothing but genuine, because I truly am sorry.
“I accept your apology,” she quietly says, then looks down at her fingers as she fiddles with the charm on her necklace. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be stuck together in another country. We’d be forced to spend an entire week working with each other.” She shakes her head. “I can’t do that.”
I take a step closer to her and cup my hand behind her neck while I lift her chin with the other. She’s gone all glassy-eyed, and I feel like shit. Even though I’m not feeling it, I give her a small smile.
“Can’t, or won’t, Val?” I ask, but I don’t want to know the answer. “I’d like you to be there. You never know. This might be the best thing for us. For all we know, there might be a reason we’re supposed to be together on this trip. I mean, think about it.” I inch closer, stopping when our lips are only an inch apart. “We keep running into each other at every turn lately. We’ve lived in the same overpopulated city, never running into each other until now. Kind of spooky in a way, when you think about it. So I’m thinking somebody up above believes in second chances. I know I do.” I brush my lips against hers, and when she doesn’t move away, I know I’m making progress. “We owe each other this opportunity to make things right between us.”
Her breathing accelerates as I gently kiss over her soft lips again, and I pray I’m getting through to her. “I’m sorry, Stryker,” she whispers back, “but that door will always be closed. You will never truly understand the magnitude of what you did to me. I don’t owe you anything.”
A sharp pain stabs at my gut. Maybe it’s the sting of rejection, but damn, it pisses me off that she’s only seeing one side to this story. I want nothing more than to have my say and put all my cards on the table, so I can finally make peace with the past. I’m dying to tell her who I am and give her the truth of what happened the night we broke up. I can’t do that though, because I’m fucking investigating her and her friend.
As if I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve, I look at her pleadingly. I’m giving her my best display of a wounded heart, and I dare not look at those emotions too closely. She’s a job, a sticky job, that’s fucking with my head.
Her hands tremble as she drops them, taking a step away from me. “I can’t and I won’t do this,” she says, shaky distress lining her voice, just before she covers her mouth to keep a stifled sob in check. Before I can say another word, she does an about-face and half-runs out of the room and down the hall, leaving me alone with my own thoughts.
I sigh in defeat. I can’t back her into a corner. I can’t command her to go on this trip, nor can I demand answers from so long ago. Doing either would only cause us to keep bickering and fighting, and I can’t afford to keep arguing with her; it only builds the dissention between us.
I could see the inner conflict in her eyes just before she ran out on me. It’s obvious she wants me, especially when her body betrays her and she caves, but her pride keeps getting in the way. The physical connection between us is undeniable, and I’m a bastard for knowing I’m the one she thinks of when she gets herself off, and then use that information to my advantage.
If she and Celia were to back out and change plans, it’d look too suspicious if I were to coincidentally show up to be part of their new set of plans. Quinn was right; this was the perfect set-up to integrate ourselves into their lives, and it dropped right into our laps as if it were meant to be. I have to think if something corrupt is going on, like the FBI says it is, changing their travel plans at the last minute would definitely fuck with them. I don’t think they’d do it, especially when they have zero suspicions they are being watched. This thought gives me hope that not all is lost in this undercover operation.
I just hope when she gets home tonight she’ll cool off and decide to not change her plans, or my team is screwed, and it’d be all my fault. I question my actions tonight, wondering if it would’ve been better had I just shown up in Panama, instead of telling her I was going to be there. I sit down on the sofa in the private room and put my head in my hands. This is uncharted territory for me, and I don’t like it.
But one thing I do know is I chipped away at her resolve tonight, and she knew it. She didn’t like me testing her emotions. She couldn’t face the truth of the matter. She still wants me, and not just physically. It’s written all over her face every time I kiss her. It’s in her body language every time I touch her, and it’s in her eyes every time she looks at me, whether we’re arguing or not. I know all this and more, because she really hasn’t changed over the years. She never could hide behind a mask of indifference. Because of the way she ran out of here, overly conflicted, it only confirms it.
But I’ve got to stop being so reckless. I can’t afford to fuck this up for everyone, just because I can’t reel in my temper and control my em
otions when I’m around her. I’ve had some damn hard jobs in my life, including running blindly into situations I wasn’t sure I’d be walking out of alive, but nothing compares to the internal battles consuming me over Val—nothing.
CHAPTER 17
~ Valerie ~
That makes it twice now. Two times I’ve stumbled into that arrogant ass, and this time I wound up slapping him in the face. Hitting another out of anger is totally against my character, but he’s Stryker, and he’s infuriating, conceited, and he gets under my skin. I hate that somehow he became even more ruggedly handsome than when we were first together. Each time I see him, he doesn’t fail to elicit a vast array of emotions that slam into me all at once, and I get so flustered in his presence I wind up acting out of character. This includes wanting him to kiss me, take me, make me his again, but I can’t.
I won’t.
Despite us living in the same city, I truly never thought I’d see him again. For one, we never really ran in the same circles, especially once Graham and I were married—we only socialized with Raleigh’s most elite. But now? Now it seems I’m colliding into him at every turn. I can’t seem to get away from him, and it looks as if I just might have to quit the new job I haven’t started yet at the nursing home, all so I can avoid him.
A frustrated growl erupts from my lungs as I unlock the front door to the beautiful home Graham and I once shared. Stryker has no right to barge into my life, not now, not ever. It pisses me off how cocky he’s been about it too, acting as if he has every right to turn my life upside down.
Anger sluices through me as I think about how he just presumed we owed each other a second chance. The idea that I’d even contemplate it... ugh... just... what a bastard. I shove the front door open with all my strength, wanting to rip it off its hinges in a fit of rage, taking my anger out on anything in my path. The door bangs loudly against the entry wall and bounces back. I quickly move out of its returning path just in time to help slam it shut using the heel of my foot. Normally, I’d wince at such sound, but I don’t even blink. I glance to my right, the hole in the drywall mocking me. Just wonderful—I’ll need a repairman now.
