by Dianne Drake
“Get your damned dog off me,” he said. “That’s the other part of this arrangement. You do the laundry and the cleaning, and you keep your dog away from me. If you can do that, we’ll get along.”
Carrie smiled as she coaxed Bella away. Amidst the shock of losing everything, and the fear of what was ahead for her, she was actually happy. And if it had been appropriate in any way, she would have thrown her arms around his neck and given him a great big kiss. Again. But the first time he’d called it inappropriate and had said they couldn’t do it again. So she wouldn’t. Although she really wanted to.
* * *
“I haven’t done as much with it as I hope to in the future, but it’s clean, warm and the roof doesn’t leak.” Jack stood back and let Carrie enter her new bedroom. It had a bed and a table lamp but no table. There was a stack of hangers in the closet, a mirror on the back of the door and a plastic bin with drawers, possibly for her undies. He’d intended this room for a study, after he got his own decorated, but he hadn’t done that yet. It was pretty much the same as this one, without the storage bin and the mirror. Most of his clothes were folded in cardboard boxes and his table lamp had a crack in its porcelain base.
None of that mattered, though, as his goal was to exist, not to live. Except now he did wish he had a little more to offer Carrie.
“This is nice,” she said, dropping her bag of new clothes on the bed, along with the two scrub outfits she’d borrowed from the hospital.
“Not really. I don’t need much, and I don’t care what I surround myself with. So I keep it basic. But if there’s anything you need...”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m a lot like you in that I don’t have a lot of needs either. You don’t get to have needs when you’re bounced around the way I always was. So this is good.”
“Well, there’s an extra set of towels in the bathroom...sorry, we’re going to have to share the bathroom. But, please, stay away from the coffeepot.” They would get along, he decided. They had to. Because in Carrie he captured a glimpse of something he’d never had, but had always wanted. Optimism. She simply bounced back no matter what. He didn’t, and he hoped some of that might rub off on him.
“You don’t have to rub it in,” she said, dropping down on the bed. “I know my limitations. But I overcome them, Jack. One of these days you’re going to be telling me how I make the best coffee you’ve ever had.”
“You’ve got a long way to go on that one, Carrie. To be honest, I don’t predict good things.”
“Yeah, well, just wait. And, in the meantime, I saw the log pile outside. Which means we heat by wood?”
“Not sure yet. The house doesn’t have a central heat source, and right now a wood fire works, but I may have to upgrade. Believe it or not, I like my creature comforts.”
“Better watch yourself, Jack. You’re giving away too much of yourself to me.”
He chuckled. “Trust me. You know nothing.”
“Trust me, I know more than you think.”
Which scared him. But not as badly as it might have a few days ago. “Only if I confirm what you’re thinking. Which I won’t.”
“Whatever you say, pussycat. So, can I go chop you some wood?”
“You know how to handle an ax?”
“I’m a tactical paramedic. I’ve had to knock down a few doors in my time. So, yes, an ax was required.”
Jack suddenly smiled, picturing his intrepid little paramedic with an ax. It was a cute image. Carrie all serious and determined, carrying that thing at her side, looking like a miniature lumberjack. His pulse picked up a beat or two, not in a sexual sense but, rather, in the sense that she was finding her way in more and more. And in such unique ways. “Well, I’ve got logs out back that need splitting, if you’re serious.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I’d love to split your logs.”
That little bit of a flirt was more than he could stand. He had to get out of there. Go somewhere to regroup. To work. Yes, working would take his mind off, well, everything. So he hopped into his truck, sped away from his house, away from Carrie, taking care not to look in the rearview mirror lest the light in the guest bedroom window pulled him back. And he did want to be pulled back. Which was why he wouldn’t allow it. Because no matter how his heart picked up a beat or two when she was near, no matter how much he was attracted, intrigued and caught up by her, he couldn’t have what he wanted. That was his lot in life now. He accepted that, even in his weaker moments when he allowed Carrie to get in. There was no battle here. Nothing to win.
* * *
“Sleep well?” Jack asked Carrie, as he passed her in the hall the next morning. He was on his way out of the bathroom, hair still wet from his shower, towel wrapped around his middle, bare-chested, wondering if he should have dressed since he now had a roommate. In deference to that, he had donned the towel.
She was wearing an old T-shirt of his. It hung to her knees, was several sizes too large, and fell off her left shoulder. Sexy as hell. Something he didn’t want to see, didn’t want to tempt him, but he couldn’t help himself. He was tempted. And more.
“Two hours wasn’t enough,” she said, giving him a bold stare. “Could have used a couple more, but you take what you can get when they call you in early.” She tilted her head as she did an obvious scan of his body. “You’ve got abs, Jack. Great abs. Do you work out?”
Evangeline had always teased him for being a little on the soft side. Told him she liked her men a little tighter. But he’d never done anything about it then. Only after her death... “I did in Phoenix. Health club several times a week, all that kind of thing. Here, I just work harder.”
“Well, hard work pays off.” She smiled as she slid past him. “Now, for an attempt at coffee.”
“Please, no,” he groaned.
“It’ll be good.”
“It’ll be good...at the hospital.”
She stopped, then turned around. To get a better look. He knew that. Knew exactly what she was doing, even though he couldn’t see it. But he could feel it, feel the burning scrutiny of her eyes, and suddenly it aroused him. Visibly. In his towel. He was glad his back was to her, not his front, as he didn’t want her to see her effect on him. “Just pour some orange juice, OK?” he said, heading down the hall to his room, hoping the sweat didn’t start beading on his forehead until he was out of her sight. “I’ll meet you outside in half an hour, and we can go get your truck. And maybe some good coffee.”
“Don’t judge my coffee, Jack, until you’ve tried it.”
Was it him, or was she being suggestive? He was so out of practice he didn’t know. But he didn’t hang around to find out. Instead, he ducked into his room, shut the door and leaned his back against it, willing his pulse to even out. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.
* * *
“It’s only a scratch,” Carrie reassured the curly-headed little boy called Jamie, who would not look at her. He’d kept his arms folded tightly across his chest, staring at the floor, refusing to say a word for the fifteen minutes she’d been working with him in the ER. “All I need you to do is let me wash it, put some cream on it and then a bandage.”
He shook his head, and Carrie looked over at Jamie’s mother, who was so wrapped up in something on her cell phone she was totally unaware of what was happening with her son. “Mrs. Albright, I really need some help getting Jamie to cooperate,” she said, fighting the urge to yank the phone from the mother’s hand and smash it on the floor. Her real mother had been that way—never in the moment, never involved. And it made Carrie feel bad for Jamie because she knew what it was like to be ignored.
“Just a minute,” Mrs. Albright said, waving Carrie off.
“I don’t have a minute,” Carrie said, her irritation now turning to anger. This whole procedure should have been finished ten minutes ago and she should have been on to her next pati
ent by now. There were three in the queue, waiting for her. But here she was, stuck with a mom who didn’t care and a scared little boy. “I have other patients who need my assistance, and you’re taking up their time.” She bit her lips to keep from saying what she wanted to say, that the woman was being an insensitive cow. Back in Chicago she’d have said it—and more. But in Marrell...she had to be different here. Had to be better. People expected that of her. Jack expected that of her.
The woman held up a finger this time to put Carrie off, and that was when the Chicago in her got riled. Instead of saying anything, she marched over to Mrs. Albright, removed the cell phone from her hand, clicked it off, then handed it back. “Cell phones are not allowed in the ER due to all the equipment we use,” she said, forcing the politest voice she could muster.
“With all due respect, Nurse,” the woman began, as her face turned red.
“I’m not a nurse. I’m a paramedic. And with all due respect to you, ma’am, your son needs your attention. I want to bandage his arm, and he’s refusing to let me.”
“If you can’t handle putting a bandage on a ten-year-old boy, maybe you don’t belong here,” Mrs. Albright retorted.
Carrie bristled, and fought to keep herself from jumping way off the professional spectrum to take this woman on personally, but she didn’t. Instead, she swallowed hard, drew in a deep breath, and forced a painful smile to her face. “What I need is to have you convince him to let me take care of his arm. It’s a scratch. Not deep. No stitches required. And it will take me two minutes. After that, you can get out of here, and as soon as you’re in the lobby, you can use your cell phone again.”
That seemed to be the convincing argument, because Mrs. Albright stood, crossed over to Jamie, took hold of his arm and held it out for Carrie. “There,” the woman said. “Fix it. Now! I have a phone call to make.”
And that was what Carrie did. Within those promised two minutes, she bandaged the scratch and Mrs. Albright and Jamie were out of there. She watched Jamie being pulled down the hall by his mother, and her heart went out to the boy, remembering the many times she’d been pulled like that.
“I heard she was giving you problems,” Jack said, stepping up behind her.
Carrie’s hands went into the air in mock surrender, and she smiled. “Promise, I didn’t hurt her. Didn’t yell, didn’t slap the phone out of her hand. In fact, I acted quite...Marrell.”
“As opposed to acting what?”
“Chicago. There’s a difference. In Chicago, you get to be a little more...forward. People expect it, tolerate it. In Marrell, well, I haven’t been here long enough to know, but I’ll bet they expect proper manners most of the time.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, last time she brought Jamie in, I did break her cell phone. I didn’t mean to, but as I was trying to persuade her to hold Jamie down, she wouldn’t let go of the damn thing, and I accidentally bumped her and it hit the floor. Which worked out to her advantage, because the one I bought her was much better than the one she had before. So, as long as she walked out of here with the new one intact, everything’s good. And she’ll be the worst one you’ll encounter tonight. Promise.”
“I’m a cop, remember? I’ve encountered a lot worse than Mrs. Albright and, on occasion, brought them to their knees.”
“Is that a threat?”
She laughed. “Nope. Just adding a notation to my résumé.”
“Bringing someone to their knees. Yep, just the qualifications I’m looking for in my rescue team. So, about that...” He held out a bag for her. “Your books. I replaced them.”
“You didn’t have to. I have a little money, I could have—”
“Like I keep telling you, I’m serving my own interests here, Carrie. I want you to succeed because I want to keep you here. Hence the books. Oh, and I have an outfitter coming in tomorrow. He’ll get you set up with the equipment you’ll need.” He bent low to her ear. “And I’ve paid for that, too.”
“Jack, this worries me. I don’t want to get in so deep, in case I don’t work out.”
“Do you ever not work out, Carrie?”
“In everything I’ve ever wanted...no. I don’t. Haven’t even come close in a lot of it.”
“Well, unless you do something stupid to screw up this opportunity, it’s going to work out. You’ll get what you want, I’ll get what I want...”
But what she wanted was clearly changing. Into what, she wasn’t sure. But the inclinations were getting stronger, and she wondered if there was any way they could work. She didn’t know. Didn’t have a lot of hope either. Because she didn’t think his intentions were the same as hers. Maybe they had been at first. Not now, though, as hers were certainly on the move.
Nice dream, though, she thought as she showed her next patient into the examining room. One that, pretty much like everything else in her life, clearly wasn’t going to work out.
Chapter Seven
SHE’D BEEN STRUGGLING with the coffeepot for ten minutes—unsuccessfully—and Jack couldn’t help but smile as he hid near the kitchen door, watching her. Carrie Kellem was a lot of things—smart, funny, good at her job—but as far as having talent with anything domestic, she didn’t have a clue. She was fixing breakfast or, at least, trying to. She was making a mess of something simple, but he didn’t have the heart to stop her because, in the worst way, he wanted her to succeed, even though the prospect of that was slim. Still, the look of determination on her face was one he prized, one that told him she was going to be his best recruit.
She didn’t give up. Even now, when she was defeated, and knew it, she was still fighting her way through. Something even he wasn’t so good at. In fact, he was a quitter. That’s all he’d been about these past five years. Quitting, hiding, avoiding. But not Carrie. She tackled life head-on and didn’t let the obstacles slow her down.
That was what he liked; that was what he needed.
“You can come out from behind the door,” she finally said, without even turning around to look at him. “I know you’ve got that smirk on your face—the one where you’re doing a little gloating over the fact I can’t even make coffee—so you might as well show yourself.”
He chuckled. “I’m not gloating as much as curious,” Jack said, laughing as he stepped away from the door and walked across to the table where the plate of burnt toast lay. He picked up the toast, examined both sides of it, more to tease her than anything else, then took it over to the window, opened it and then turned to face her. “You don’t need to do this, you know.”
“See, that’s the thing. I have to do it and, one way or another, I’ll figure it out.”
“Suit yourself. But don’t do this because of me. You’ve got nothing to prove, since I’m already convinced.”
“What I do, Jack, I do for me. I wouldn’t mind giving you a decent breakfast, but for me it’s about learning how to do it, then doing it.” She shrugged. “It’s not an altruistic thing.”
“Well, altruism aside, you still don’t have to do this. I usually grab something down at Millie’s.” He turned back to the window and tossed the toast outside, to the birds. “In my world, eating’s not a priority. It’s one of those things you have to do to get by. So don’t sweat it, Carrie. I really don’t expect anything.”
“But I do, Jack. That’s the point. I always do.”
He turned back to face her. “Do you ever let up on yourself?”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, almost defensively.
“You know, give yourself a break? Take time off trying to prove yourself so you can enjoy what you’ve already proved?”
“That’s not fair. I work hard to get what I want. That’s what I’m about. Who I am. And when I find deficiencies, I try to overcome them.”
“But to what end, Carrie? Will you ever be satisfied with yourself?”
She shrugged. “I don
’t know. Maybe...someday. When I’ve found what I really want in life. But so far I haven’t. So I keep looking. And looking comes with proving. But at least I’m honest with myself about who I am and what I’m doing.”
“Which implies I’m not?” he asked, knowing he should take offense but not able to because she was spot-on. He didn’t have it in him to be honest about himself. Not any more. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to get it back, even if he could.
“Which implies nothing. We all make our choices. And while you think mine are too difficult, I think yours are.” She smiled. “So, on that note, either I can take another stab at breakfast or we can meet at Millie’s.”
How could she be so optimistic, given what she’d been through? He didn’t understand that kind of optimism or courage. But to look at her standing there, so bright, so eager to get it right, he had to admit he’d just lost a little piece of his heart to her. He only wished his heart wasn’t so hardened, because Carrie deserved more than that. “Millie’s sounds good. But I need to make a couple of house calls first. I’ve got some driving to do, so it’ll probably be closer to lunch.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll text you when I’m on my way there.”
“Good. That gives me time to get at your woodpile.”
Jack walked away smiling, shaking his head in amazement. She didn’t quit. No matter what, she simply didn’t give up. He’d forgotten what that felt like, but seeing it in Carrie made him realize, even more, that this should be his time, too. Carrie had certainly turned it into her time, but he wasn’t sure he knew how to turn it into his. And parts of him wanted to. But would the parts that didn’t want that overpower the parts that did? Because, for the past five years, the parts that wanted to hold him back had won. Too easily.
