Never Say Never (Resetter Series Book 2)

by Brenda Barrett

  He walked stiffly to his car and then drove out.

  Sky slumped on the wall and sighed. "Such a pity he is borderline dangerous. I think he is a good electrician. He's the only one who knew how to fix my fridge. Thank you Dr. Jefferson."

  Travis nodded. "No problem. That's what boyfriends are for and he is dangerous."

  "You heard the conversation?" Sky groaned, "I am so sorry. I couldn't think of anyone to use as my imaginary boyfriend. I saw your van and..."

  "No worries." Travis wheeled back to his apartment. "Goodnight Miss Porter."

  They were back to her being Miss Porter.

  "Goodnight Dr. Jefferson." She straightened up from the wall.

  ****

  For a full month Sky watched as he swam in the mornings. She watched as he pulled himself out of the water and into his special chair. She was fascinated with him. She had turned into a low-key stalker.

  She could probably memorize his schedule by now. He swam every morning at six without fail. Her back patio gave a clear view of the pool.

  She could time the squeak of his wheelchair as it progressed along the pool lounge area. There was a special place at the end of the pool where he stopped and lowered himself from his chair and into the water.

  The first morning she saw him entering the pool she got anxious like a mother hen, waiting to see if he could manage all by himself. She didn't have long to wait. He was an expert at it. She felt ridiculous after that.

  When had she gotten so invested in him?

  The following morning she observed a couple of details as she watched him. His chair was different from the one he rode to class. He wore black swimming trunks, his legs were skinnier than his upper body, but his upper body was rippling with muscles.

  When he hauled himself from the water with the help of the rails he always gave a glance at her section of the apartment like he knew she was watching.

  She dismissed that idea after the first week. He didn't know she was watching. He didn't have the same kind of madness that was infecting her.

  He had breakfast at seven thirty, she heard him in the kitchen banging around. He liked to listen to the BBC World News for half an hour and then he played music. He liked stuff like Enya, Sail Away and Sail On by the Commodores. He played it constantly.

  She could hear it especially when he opened his patio doors. She concluded that he had a thing for sailing.

  He left for school at nine, most days, except for Wednesdays.

  She watched him at school. She couldn't believe that she had not seen him before her class with him. He was truly a lovely looking man.

  And she was reminded of that every class because she had not quite managed to shake Emma who seemed to be as obsessed as she was becoming about him.

  Wherever she sat, Emma was there with little tidbits of information.

  "I found out his age!" Emma announced in mid-January. "He is thirty-one."

  A week later she announced, "I know how and why he met in the accident that crippled him," Emma had told her almost panting with glee at the announcement. "I have all the scoop on him. All the scoop!"

  Sky had pretended that she didn't want to hear but she had found herself traipsing behind Emma as she headed to the cafeteria like an obedient puppet and playing nonchalant as Emma scarfed down her burger and fries and told her some nonsensical story about a party that had gone wrong.

  "About Dr. Jefferson?" Sky snapped in the middle of Emma's telling. "I have to go to another class."

  "Dr. Jefferson." Emma looked at her smugly. "You came here for Dr. Jefferson didn't you? Not to have lunch with me."

  Sky would have gotten up then and stormed off, but her curiosity was heightened. She had wondered more than once how he got injured, so she swallowed the retort at the tip of her tongue and glared at Emma.

  "Yes I want to hear about Dr. Jefferson." She didn't know if her voice could be anymore longsuffering.

  Emma cackled. "Good girl. It is time you admit that you think he is the finest lecturer here, wheelchair or not."

  "I admit it." Sky growled.

  "Now before I give you any details, you have to promise me something."

  "What?" Sky looked at Emma, her eyes narrowed.

  "Please, please, please let me come over to your place for the weekend. My current roommate is driving me nuts. She talks too much, she has boyfriend issues and she is constantly hogging the phone. I just want a break. Besides, I can get to see gorgeous Dr. J. all weekend. What does he do on the weekend?"

  Sky gritted her teeth. "No."

  "Yes." Emma grinned. "Because I am not telling you what I know until you help me."

  "Okay." Sky closed her eyes and then opened them. She was going to regret having Emma over for the weekend. All the reasons why she had a problem with her roommate were identical to problems she had had with her. "Okay."

  "Well," Emma said moving into storytelling mode, her eyes lit with glee. "I called a friend of mine in Kingston who knows everything about everyone and I was telling her that I had a crush on my teacher, Dr. Jefferson. And girl, let me tell you, I have enough information to fill a magazine."

  "Really?" Sky asked skeptically.

  "Don't interrupt." Emma grinned. "You'll love this. So, hear this, Travis Jefferson is rich. I mean rich, like crazy rich. His father is Miguel Jefferson of the pharmaceutical Jefferson's. The guy has a Caribbean empire. Anyway, Travis is his prized only son. He has like two or three older sisters or something.

  "Anyway, Travis was reportedly wild. You know the kind of wild I am talking about—lots of girls, drinking and all of that jazz. He was on his father yacht one day, a couple of years ago, and some friends of his challenged him to a water ski race. Rumor has it, that Travis was drunk; the guy who challenged him was drunk too and they had some sort of love rival or something.

  "They raced then collided. Rumor has it that the collision was not an accident, that somebody tampered with the jet skis. Anywho, Travis was crippled and his frenemy and love rival damaged his brain. That is why Dr. J Hotty is in a wheelchair."

  "Oh," Sky nodded, "thanks for telling me."

  "There's more," Emma said rubbing her hands together, "a juicy bit more."

  "What?" Sky was so interested she was leaning toward Emma like a dutiful puppy waiting for the next morsel.

  "He and a professor had a thing last year and they broke up."

  "Which professor?" Sky asked feeling odd. Why hadn't she thought of him having relationships?

  "The economics lady, the one who looks a little like Malinda Williams in that movie, A Thin Line Between Love and Hate. And she dresses like a runway model. Always matching."

  "Miss Perkins," Sky whispered. "And I haven't seen the movie yet. It's not out in local theatres yet. How did you even watch it?"

  "Doesn't matter," Emma said smugly. "What is important here is that Dr. Jefferson is functional. Miss Perkins looks like the type that would care about that."

  "You are something else." Sky got up.

  "See you this weekend." Emma winked at her. "I am taking my bathing suits."

  Chapter Five

  "This one or this one?" Emma came to her room door and held up two bathing suits. "I am going to meet Dr. Hotty at the poolside."

  Sky peered over the sheet at Emma and groaned. "Go away."

  "You know you want to join us." Emma chuckled. "Yesterday you watched him like you were starving. I saw it, don't deny it. I can't understand why you are so shy."

  Sky covered her head with the blankets and listened as Emma walked away. She heard the door to the patio open and Emma's flirty laugh as she approached the pool.

  She had arrived for her weekend stay from Friday. And had spent all the weekend trying to chat up Travis at the pool. When she wasn't trying to get Travis' attention, she was eating all her groceries for the week.

  Sky inhaled ruggedly. That's what she got for being curious about Travis Jefferson. Emma would thankfully be gone in six hours. She had a group meeting
for a project. Then Sky would have the apartment to herself. She was never going to bargain for information again. She closed her eyes trying to shut out Emma's laugh as she recounted some story or the other to Travis.

  He never laughed back and the conversation seemed one sided. Good. Sky thought jealously. She wished she was as bold as Emma but she was not. She would never be. She was cured from all girlish nonsense like crushes.

  Her last crush, Rusty, had been a disaster.

  Not only had he been her mother's secret lover but things could have ended up much worse if her cousin had not changed events. She could have given up her virginity to Rusty. The very thought was horrifying.

  Rusty was the man who would have killed her father had Addi not intervened.

  Worse than that, she had spent her future obsessed with him. What could be more dismal and psychologically screwed up than obsessing over the guy who killed your father?

  She hadn't said this to anybody but she was concerned that she couldn't trust herself to make good decisions. Since she heard about the decisions that she had made in another time, she was teetering on the edge of clinical self-doubt. So this fascination with her neighbor, her current lecturer was probably another bad idea.

  But when she closed her eyes his face came up in her mind's eye. She was tormented about him. It was like madness. She wasn't sure that this was on the scale like a crush she briefly had for Rusty.

  She got up and held her head in her hands. She assessed herself honestly. What was it that she found so fascinating about Travis Jefferson?

  He was handsome, yes. A fairly good lecturer, yes. He was really strict with assignment dates and he had a sadistic streak where he gave them surprise exams. There was something about him that she found attractive. She didn't know what it was and it was driving her nuts.

  Maybe it was just regular teenage hormones chipping in after a long four-year break. Her nineteenth birthday had come and gone at the end of January and she had escaped the usual pitfalls of attraction to another person.

  And what a person she had chosen to be fixated on. A man that was unavailable. A man that was older than her by quite a bit, not that it was majorly significant but still...And she couldn't forget that he was physically disabled. She had never taken much notice of people in wheelchairs before Travis Jefferson.

  This, whatever it was, would pass.

  It had to.

  She turned on her radio and headed for the bathroom. She needed to wash her thoughts away, sing at the top of her voice, start the day fresh. She usually felt energized after doing that.

  Sunday morning oldies belted from her radio. She sang aloud to The Supremes, Baby Love, and then You Can't Hurry Love.

  She exited the shower and wiped the steam from the glass and picked up her brush pretending to be Diana Ross. You can't hurry love oh you just have to wait...

  A little mad streak had her dancing along and pretending she was eight again and entertaining the family with Addi as her faithful sidekick.

  She finished with her antics when the song ended. She dried off and headed for the closet, which still housed some of Yvette's clothes. Clothes, which Yvette had casually, said Sky should wear or give away.

  She had turned Sundays into Yvette's Clothes Day. Some of the outfits were very nice, others were weird, like the black jumper suit that was littered with pointy sequins that was dangerous to handle. Where had she worn them?

  Sky took out a simple soft gray cashmere dress, which hugged her body in the right places and actually made her look like she had curves. It had long bell sleeves and stopped at her knees. This would be today's dress, though it was nice enough to wear to school.

  She let her hair down and put some moisturizer on it, hoping that it wouldn't dry out and become frizzy. Her hair hung down her back in little red brown curly tendrils. Her real hair color was growing back from the roots with a vengeance and snaring at her attempts to hide it.

  She gave her hair a little flash and headed to the living room.

  Emma came racing in, her eyes dancing in excitement.

  "He invited us to breakfast!"

  Emma squealed. "I don't know why you but he said you should come along. I tried to tell him that you were sleeping but unfortunately you were singing so loud that the whole Malvern could hear you. Why were you singing at the top of your voice like that?"

  "Breakfast?" Sky was on her way to the settee.

  She froze. "In his apartment?"

  "Yes." Emma ran to the guest room, "I am going to dress to the nines!"

  Sky sat down abruptly. Breakfast? She was finally going to see inside his apartment. Eating with him. What kind of stranglehold did Emma have on Travis Jefferson that she could wring this kind of invitation from him?

  ****

  Travis closed his eyes in exhaustion when he entered his apartment after his swim. He had never had such a stressful morning in all of his thirty-one years. Fending off a chattering, perplexing teenaged female had all but wrung him out. The chattering he could handle, but when Emma had walked into his apartment, apparently looked into his fridge and then declared that she would come over and fix him breakfast.

  That had been too much.

  He had actually considered yelling for security or squeezing the panic button that was on his chair.

  Thankfully, he had come to his senses before overreacting. He had managed to see the light side to Emma's behavior. She wasn't sinister in anyway. She probably weighed a little over a hundred pounds. Coupled with her overly bright smile, she looked like a pixie.

  She wouldn't do him any bodily harm; she just had no concept of boundaries. She barreled in where others were afraid to go.

  He didn't want the security thinking he was a wuss that couldn't handle a girl with a crush.

  The other option was to tell her firmly to leave him alone but that had not worked yesterday. She had gone blessedly silent and then started talking again.

  So instead of vinegar he was trying honey. He had actually invited her to breakfast, told her he liked to prepare it himself and asked her to bring Sky with her. Sky was supposed to act as a buffer. In the six weeks that Sky was his neighbor he had not had any occasion to complain about her.

  She was silent as a mouse except when she sang in the shower. She had a pretty nice voice he couldn't complain about her singing.

  Except for that encounter with the persistent electrician, a couple of weeks ago, he hardly saw her outside of class.

  Last week was the first time he had seen her on campus. She was sitting in the Greens on a picnic blanket talking animatedly to a mixed group of people. There were more guys in the group than girls. He hadn't missed the look that the guy to her right was giving her. He had been staring at her with adoration. Sky seemed to have that effect on men.

  He had actually stopped and watched her for a while. If he were to be honest he was curious about her. He had greatly misjudged her based on her looks. He had instantly summed her up as a party girl who probably had more than one boyfriend.

  Sky had debunked his theories—he had given his class two exams so far and she had completed them with grades in the nineties and she had no visitors, male or female.

  Emma had just chirpily told him that Sky was dating her books and that she had more than the usual course load this semester.

  He hated when people judged him based on the fact that he was in a wheelchair and yet he had had no problems summing up Sky after an initial meeting. He was remorseful about that. One thing was for sure, he was quite happy she was his neighbor and not Emma Brown.

  He wheeled himself into the shower and turned it on warm.

  His whole apartment was refitted for his needs; he had bought the place and extensively remodeled it. Counters were to his height; the shower was retrofitted to accommodate a wheel chair. His whole life was on a different level literally.

  What would take him ten minutes before when he was on his feet, like taking a bath and getting dressed, now took him at least
thirty minutes.

  He showered quickly and pulled on a pair of specially designed jeans and then his grey sweater. It had been the usually cool morning. By the time he had brushed his hair and teeth and wheeled into the kitchen, it was eight o'clock.

  He wasn't terribly pleased to hear Emma knocking on his patio door shortly after he had decided that cereal, toast, eggs and orange juice was all he was willing to exert himself over this morning.

  His helper cooked him good wholesome dinners in the week, on the weekends he didn't pretend that he was a chef. Takeout from a lovely mom and pop restaurant around the corner usually sufficed and barring that he went light with his selections.

  He reluctantly wheeled to the door and opened it, letting in an over eager Emma who was dressed as if she was going to a party. She was in a short pink dress and sky-high heels with a face full of heavy makeup.

  He suppressed a groan. What he should have done after the swim was, come inside and lock the door and not answer the knock when he saw that it was Emma. He changed his mind almost instantly as Sky appeared behind her.

  "Good morning, Dr. Jefferson." She held up a bottle of juice, the same type he was about to remove from his fridge. "I brought juice to contribute to... er... this invite."

  "Good morning, Sky," he smiled at her taking in her simple dress her make up free face that was beaming with health and her flip-flops. She was a breath of fresh air compared to Emma.

  "So TJ what are you fixing?" Emma had gone straight to the kitchen, flitting about as if she owned it.

  He looked at Sky. "Don't tell me she is going to be living next door?"

  Sky shook her head. "Five hours till leaving time".

  "And no more weekends, please," Travis whispered. "Or I'll have to call security or take out a restraining order."

  Sky laughed.

  "What are you two whispering about?" Emma came around her high heels clicking on the floor.

  Travis wheeled toward Emma and scowled. "I know you are hard of hearing but if you call me TJ ever again, you will pay."