by Nana Prah
“With any luck, you’ll never have to again. You did a great job yourself. I still don’t know why you stopped karate when you became a brown belt. You’ve got natural skills and would’ve passed your black belt test with no problem.”
“I’m surprised I got that far. You know I don’t do well with physical activity. I was just trying to follow my big sis, but then I came down with a case of with lazyitis and never recovered.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “You are so crazy.”
“Sorry we had to meet under such awful circumstances.” Her dad held out a hand to Sean. “But it was nice to meet you. Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Gibson. I’m glad everyone’s safe,” he said, shaking the hand of the man Ed was cloned after. “It was nice to meet you too, Mrs. Gibson.” He accepted her handshake.
Jasmine walked them to the door with a sinking heart.
“Will you be all right?” Ed asked.
“Yeah, Mom’s here to pick up the pieces.”
He gave her another hug. “Damn, I’m proud of you.”
She looked at Sean who was already walking down the pathway. A deep sigh escaped her.
“He’s in shock. He’ll get over it. You’ll see. He’s a great guy.”
“Is that why you gave him my number?”
He winked. “Yep. You guys just seem to fit.”
She shrugged.
“I love you, Jas. I’ll come by tomorrow.”
“Love you, too, Ed. Have a good night and be safe.”
She watched him walk down the pathway. At the bottom he waved, which she returned and then closed the door.
She turned around, walked straight into her mother’s arms, and fell apart.
Chapter 7
Jasmine pounced on Ed as soon as he stepped into their parents’ house on Saturday.
“How’s Sean?”
Ed shoved past her. “You need to give him some time.”
“What if I call and explain?”
“What part of what I said didn’t you understand? Any food in here?”
Jasmine sat at the kitchen table as Ed stuck his head into the fridge. “There’s leftover pot roast.”
“Care to be a good sister and make me a sandwich?”
Jasmine snorted.
“I had to try. How’s your arm?”
“It hurt like hell when Mom cleaned and redressed it, but it’s all right. The cut wasn’t deep enough for stitches.”
“Last night seems like a nightmare. I can’t believe we took those guys on.”
Jasmine shredded a napkin. “So do you think I should call Sean to explain?”
Ed paused in cutting the meat. “Do you remember the first time I saw you fight?”
“Yeah. During my first karate promotion from my white to yellow belt. You all came to cheer me on.”
“I must’ve been thirteen or so because you were in your first year of college.”
Jasmine bobbed her head.
“You remember what happened after the exam?”
She’d never forget. “You refused to be alone in the same room with me for almost a month.”
“I couldn’t grasp how my sweet sister could be so brutal.” He placed a couple slices of beef a piece of bread he’d slathered with mustard. “When you first started taking karate I thought you were so cool but, after watching you test, I feared you. It wasn’t just the techniques because most people can do those. It’s who you become.” He grabbed a soda from the fridge and a bag of nachos from the pantry before scooping up his plate and settling at the table. “You change when you do martial arts. You become this cold, hard, calculating, battle-driven, unrecognizable person. I could see this in you, and I was just a kid watching you in a controlled situation.”
He stopped talking to take a bite of his sandwich. She had the tendency to become a different person when training in the dojo and even harder while fighting. Her gentleness and compassion would be replaced by viciousness and purpose.
Justice was the only thing that mattered when she found herself in such a violent zone. Over the years, with the help of her karate instructor, she had learned how to control it better, but it still persisted when she trained or fought.
“I knew you were a good person. But the individual I saw testing freaked me out. I got over it, after constant explaining by Mom, Dad, Grandma, you, and Carly, but it took me a long time to converge your tough-ass personality with your kind one.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Give him some time.”
He wasn’t telling her anything new. They’d had this conversation more than once in the past and sometimes it became the topic of family meetings.
“He’ll come around. I told you yesterday that you two just seem to belong together.”
She gave him a small smile. “I wonder if David would’ve gotten upset if he’d seen me fight.”
Ed rolled his eyes. “Your ex was a putz. He would’ve run for the hills and never returned if he had, which makes me wonder why he never did. Didn’t he attend one of your promotions?”
“I never asked him to and he wasn’t interested in seeing a chick do karate. He never believed a woman could beat a man, and he was never around during one of my altercations.”
“Wasn’t he in the military when he was younger?”
“Yeah. A ranger. He was discharged for disobedience, but he never told me what he did to get kicked out.”
“He went around bragging about it?”
“Only when he was fall-down-on-his-ass drunk, which wasn’t often, but I took advantage of his blabbering when he was.”
Ed laughed with a full mouth. “Interrogation by inebriation.”
“He tended to be closed lipped about so many things.” No matter how sour the relationship had turned, she had loved him. “For the most part, he was a good man and he treated me well.”
“Until you found out the truth about him being a liar and a cheater. Stupid asshole.”
“You forgot bastard.”
“Please forgive me. Stupid asshole bastard.”
“That’s better.”
***
A few days after the incident, Sean shot down any of Ed’s attempts to bring it up. He hadn’t recognized Jasmine as the sweet woman who’d cried in his arms in the woods. Instead she’d turned into a maniacal bone-breaking avenger. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Just listen,” Ed said.
Sean gave him a look that could freeze lava, but Ed wasn’t deterred. He’d grown up with two headstrong older sisters so it would probably take more than a look to stop him. “Look, this isn’t comfortable. I’m not used to hooking up my sisters. I’ve been in a couple of fights and lost friendships because a guy wanted to hit on one of them. I never allowed any of my friends to date my sisters because they deserve the best and those clowns didn’t come anywhere close.”
Sean’s ears perked up.
“I know you like Jasmine. She’s the same woman you met at Grandma’s. It’s just that she has this itsy, bitsy facet about her you didn’t know.”
“She could be a hired assassin with skills like hers. Did you see the way she handled those guys?” Sean asked before remembering he didn’t want to talk about it and turned his back on his friend with the crazy sister.
Ed laughed. “I once suggested she go into the army.”
This caught Sean’s interest. “What did she say?”
“She got quiet as if contemplating it. Then she told me she doesn’t choose to fight and she would never intentionally kill when she can heal.”
“Didn’t look like her motto the other day.”
“That was self-defense.”
“That’s garbage. She went in there looking for a fight. We could have called the cops.”
“No, she went in trying to protect her family. When her intuition’s in high gear, there’s no stopping her.”
“Doesn’t it scare you?”
“As long as it isn’t against me, I have absolutely no problem. If
she loves you, then you’re protected for life. She’s a good egg, man. You’d be lucky to have her.”
Sean swallowed and asked one of the questions which had been plaguing him. “Has she ever killed anyone?”
Ed grew somber and replied, “Define what you mean by kill.”
Sean’s eyes grew wide. “You know precisely what I mean.”
Ed laughed. “Sorry, man, I couldn’t resist. The look on your face was priceless. To the best of my knowledge, Jasmine has never killed anyone.”
Sean turned his back to return to studying. “That wasn’t funny.”
“If you’d been on my end looking at you, you would’ve died laughing. Get it? Died. I crack me up.”
Sean had never met anyone like Jasmine and he doubted he ever would. Maybe her violent alter ego was what had bothered him about her.
Would he be able to get past who she could become in a split second? She didn’t love him, so would she ever turn against him if she felt justified?
He rubbed at the hollow sensation in his chest. Even knowing her capabilities, he wanted to confirm that she hadn’t been badly injured from the knife cut. Ed had updated him on her status, but he wanted to see her intact with his own eyes.
Tomorrow would be soon enough to figure out what to do about Jasmine. In the meantime, he had to at least try to study.
***
Jasmine’s work schedule was heaven made. She taught at Boston College on Saturdays as a part-time lecturer, and worked on the hospice unit three days a week, doing only eight-hour shifts. This allowed her to have time to prepare her lesson notes and do her grading. It also allowed her to have time for herself to relax and train at the dojo.
When working with the hospice patients, she felt a true sense of connection with them as she used her gift for soothing people. She couldn’t count the number of times a patient’s family member had told her how much comfort she’d brought to the individual. It always put her in a humble state of mind because she was merely using the gift God had given her.
She sat with one of her favorite patients on a Wednesday, two weeks after her parents were almost attacked, when she noticed Mrs. Morris wince.
Jasmine slid to the edge of her chair. “Are you in pain?”
“A little bit,” Mrs. Morris said, obviously trying to downplay her discomfort.
Jasmine laid a hand on the sixty year old woman’s forearm. She’d fought a valiant fight with ovarian cancer, undergoing surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, but the cancer had overtaken her body. The doctors said she now had less than a month to live.
She’d once told Jasmine, “I declared war with the cancer not too long after I got the diagnosis. I proclaimed, ‘Cancer, the war is on. I’m coming at you with all guns blazing and I will win.’ Little did I know that while I fought with guns, it came at me with nuclear warheads. Jasmine, I fought and my family and friends fought with me, but there comes a time when fighting is no longer required. A time for war and a time for peace, isn’t that what it says in the bible? This is my time for peace and love. I thank God for giving me this gift of time.”
Jasmine would try again to help Mrs. Morris to stop being so stoic when it came to enduring her pain. “You have the control of pain medication in your hot little hands. By pressing this button, you’ll have an instant dose of morphine directly into your bloodstream.”
“I’m aware.”
“What keeps you from using it?”
“I’m afraid I’ll be too doped up to enjoy my family.”
“The doses you give yourself won’t put you to sleep. They’re specifically adjusted to regulate your pain. Will your family be able to enjoy you if they think you’re suffering?”
Mrs. Morris frowned. “No.”
“Just think about it.”
“I will.”
Jasmine gave her hand a squeeze. A beep sounded, indicating Mrs. Morris had pressed the button for a dose of morphine.
Jasmine smiled. “I can’t be hanging out with you all day. I have other patients to attend to.”
Mrs. Morris smacked a hand on her chest. “You mean I’m not the only one?”
Jasmine would miss the woman’s sense of humor when she died, but she wouldn’t think about the inevitable sadness at this point in time. “I’ll be back to see you before my shift ends.”
“You’d better.”
Jasmine chuckled. “I don’t know how I let you get away with being so bossy.”
“It’s because I’m loveable and I know it.”
Jasmine straightened her bed and turned to the door, only to be brought up short by a wave of dizziness. She held onto the chair she’d vacated. Damn reaction.
***
Sean refused to hold his abdomen once the pain hit him as Jasmine turned around.
Although it looked as if he were eavesdropping, he’d come to her workplace to conduct research. He forced himself to stay in the doorway rather than scurrying to support her. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi there,” the patient sang with an enthusiastic hand wave. “Who’s your friend, Jasmine?”
“Um...this is Sean Taylor. Sean, Mrs. Morris.”
He stepped into the room and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“You, too, young man,” she said with a smirk.
“I think I’d better get you out of here.” Jasmine said, laughing.
“Before you go, take my advice, Sean.”
Jasmine groaned.
“If you’re lucky enough to catch this woman, keep her well satisfied.” Mrs. Morris gazed fondly at Jasmine. “She’s a rare and special jewel and will help make your life heaven on earth.”
Jasmine leaned over and kissed Mrs. Morris’s cheek. “Thank you.”
Sean wished he could’ve been the one with her luscious lips on his skin. After the way he’d treated her, he doubted he’d ever get the opportunity.
Mrs. Morris patted Jasmine’s hand. “Just telling the truth.”
Jasmine turned toward Sean. “Let’s go before she embarrasses me some more.”
“We’ll talk later, missy.”
Jasmine saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Smart ass.”
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked when they were outside of Mrs. Morris’s hearing.
“Long enough to know I was right when I assessed you as a great nurse.”
“Thanks.”
He hesitated. Ask. The only thing she can say is no. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“I’m due for a break so we’ll go to the cafeteria. I have to give some medications first. You can sit in the waiting room.”
“If it’s all right, I’ll stay here.”
“Okay.”
He enjoyed the gentle sway of her hips as she went to a machine where she removed medications before heading into a patient’s room.
He still had difficulty comprehending how this same woman could have such a capacity for violence. And yet her kindness knew no bounds. He had no right to expect any of it from her after the way he’d treated her the night of the fight. Now he felt ashamed for staying away for so long.
“I’m going to the cafeteria,” Jasmine told the other two nurses.
“Or you could go to the nurse’s room. I’ll guard the door, but don’t be too loud.”
Jasmine chuckled. “That’s enough, Lydia. We’re going to talk.”
“If he watched me as intently as he was watching you, I’d be doing other things with that fine man besides talking.” The other nurse’s false whisper came through loud and clear to Sean and he couldn’t resist smiling.
Jasmine threw him a look over her shoulder.
Yes, I heard every word.
She cleared her throat. “I’ll be back soon.” Was her face flushed when she reached him? “I’m ready.”
“Me, too!” came a shout from one of the nurses.
The laughter followed them all the way to the elevators.
“Sorry about t
hem.” Jasmine pointed behind her. “They can get a little out of hand,” she said.
Her smile melted his heart. Why had he stayed away from her for so long? Oh, yeah, she’s vicious when goaded. “No problem.”
The huge cafeteria had a few people sitting at the various tables. They both got Cokes and sat at a window table. “What brings you here, Sean?”
He moved his can around on the table. “I wanted to observe you working.”
“Really?”
“I needed to see--” He stopped and scrubbed both hands over his face. “On our date Saturday and at your Grandmother’s place, you were so sweet. I was shocked by the skills you displayed during the fight. Can I even call it a fight? More like a massacre. You took those guys down as if you were Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You were just so different from who I thought you were.”
She nodded.
He gazed into her eyes. The unfathomable depth he’d noticed prevailed and he took a sip of his drink so he wouldn’t get lost. “I needed to see how you interacted with patients to see if my instincts about you were wrong. Do you understand?”
Jasmine didn’t hesitate. “Yes. What did you learn?”
“You’re who I thought you were. The moments with Mrs. Morris were unguarded.”
She tilted her head as if anticipating more.
“I also wanted to apologize for not saying anything to you on Saturday. I was in a state of shock. Actually, shock is a subtle word for what I felt. Surprised, stunned, afraid, and astonished are words which, when combined, could’ve described me.” He’d decided to be honest with her. “My pride had also taken a pounding, so I was embarrassed.”
She raised an eyebrow. He didn’t care for this silent side of Jasmine too much.
“I’ve been in a few fights in my life so I know I can handle myself,” he said. “On Saturday as I went to hit the guy, he blocked. Then he punched me in the stomach. It hurt like a bitch, but I swung and connected with his jaw. Other than him being built like Rambo, we were pretty evenly matched.” Sean flicked his hands so his palms faced upward. “Somehow, he got the upper hand. The next thing I knew he had his hands around my throat. Then here you come, all Buffy-like, knocking him unconscious as if it took no effort. My pride was shredded.”
