by Dale Mayer
“Unlike people,” she said soberly. “We lose trust in one, and we tend to judge every other one the same way.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” he said sadly. His gray eyes were penetrating as they studied her. “There was a note of personal truth in that statement too.”
“I’m sure everybody here has a story,” she said, laughing.
“We all do,” he confirmed. “And the person I was ten years ago is a very different person from who I am now.”
“In what way?” she asked curiously.
His eyes lit up. “Because you’re new,” he said with a wink, “you haven’t heard all the stories about me. But I was a very angry war vet. My body wasn’t working, and my heart was sure that the world had forsaken me. My soul was more than ready to jump off this planet and take a plunge into whatever came after this. I was suicidal, depressed, and certain that the world had forgotten me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said gently. “Nothing quite like those kinds of feelings, is there?”
“No,” he said. “The only thing that kept me going was Dani. She wouldn’t give up on me.”
“She’s very special,” Brianna said.
“Dani is definitely a special person. But she’s who she is also because of what I put her through,” he said sadly. “If I could go back in time and change it, I would.”
“Maybe she wouldn’t want that,” Brianna said quietly. “Maybe she understands how much better she is now. Plus, together you two created this masterpiece out of that chaos. So something very magical and wonderful came out of that hardship.”
He nodded. “And you might want to apply that logic to yourself,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Not sure what the darkness is in your life, but it’s there. I approached you because you are still giving off this I-want-to-be-alone signal, telling people to stay away.”
She looked at him in surprise. “I wondered about that,” she said. “I figured it was me and my insecurities, not wanting to join other people.”
“Except for Jaden,” the Major interrupted, followed by a wink.
“Except for Jaden,” she repeated, nodding her agreement. “But I’m always at a table alone. And, when I turn around, I see everybody else with full tables.”
“Often I don’t think we’re really aware of how others perceive us,” he said with a chuckle. He started to stand up, and the big cat jumped onto the table once more. “Looks like Thomas wants to stay with you. I’ll go grab something to eat.”
“Well, I had Dennis make me a sandwich,” she said. “It was delicious.”
“Good,” he said. “Maybe I’ll grab one myself.” He stopped as he walked past the table, then looked down at her and said, “Maybe, if you just feel a little easier about that problem inside, you’ll find other people approaching you.”
She sat back and thought about it. She glanced around and realized that seriously every table was full except hers. She had come and approached Jaden that day not too long ago, and the two of them had clung together. Yet, without him, here she was, alone.
Was she still putting up walls and pushing people away because of what happened with her fiancé? Is that really how she wanted people to perceive her now? She groaned, picked up her dishes, and walked them over to one of the big carousels where they placed all the dirty dishes. Then she refilled her coffee, called to Thomas to follow her, and walked downstairs to see the other animals.
Instead of going to the pool—because she could already feel herself not being welcome there because Iain was with Jaden for a visit of their own, and that was a time that she knew Jaden really wanted—so she headed inside to the vet’s office.
The receptionist looked up, smiled, and asked, “May I help you?”
Self-consciously, Brianna shrugged and said, “This is the first time I’ve been down here. I’m Brianna, a new nurse upstairs, and I’ve been here about six weeks but have yet to make my way down. Only Thomas came to visit me over my lunch hour, and he reminded me that I had yet to make everybody’s acquaintance down here.”
The woman looked at her, then Thomas, and smiled and said, “Well, you picked a great time. It’s empty right now.”
And, true enough, as Brianna looked around the reception area, she saw no patients or animals. “You often get quiet times like this?”
“Almost never,” the woman said cheerfully. “And I’m Sherry,” she said, pointing to her name tag. “You probably know Stan, our resident vet already.”
“I have met Stan, yes. Are there any animals to visit with?”
“Well, there are always the ones outside,” she said. “We have a massive rabbit that I’m about to take out and put into a pen. We’ve been working on his special place for the last week or so. Iain came back today and was bringing the enclosures and a trapdoor to put in. Come follow me and see for yourself.”
With a smile, Brianna walked outside with Sherry to see a rabbit that had to be on steroids. “Oh, my gosh,” she said. “He’s huge.” His pen wasn’t finished yet. It was clearly open on one end. However, the bunny seemed to be content to stay right here, beside what had to be Iain.
“He’s also a big baby,” Sherry said. “Iain is here right now, completing this run.”
Brianna nodded, noting the man was installing some hardware. “Does this give the rabbit his own pen now?”
Iain nodded and turned to face the women. “His own pen and his own hutch and his own access to the vet clinic,” he said. “So he can come inside and outside on his own, and yet he’s safe to do so alone. That way the clinic staff are freed up a little more.”
Iain had inset a pet door into an existing side door, for the rabbit to come and go. They probably had to get a large doggie door to accommodate this fluffy rabbit. Brianna wondered how much of him was deceptive fluff and how much was true poundage. Regardless, now he had his own run. “That’ll make for a happy rabbit.”
“Gets him outside into the fresh air and gives him fresh green grass too.”
“At least for the moment,” Brianna said with a frown. She had some serious doubts as to how long any allotted grass would last with this fellow around to eat it up. “I get the feeling this guy can eat it up in no time.”
“We’ll split up this run of his in a little bit,” he said. “It’s along a fence, so we can keep going as long as we need to. But we are putting some offshoot runs in as well, so we can section off areas as needed to recover the grass, if the rabbit eats too much.”
“If?” Brianna repeated. “From the size of him,” she said in astonishment, “I imagine he’ll eat a ton.”
He grinned up at her. “I’m Iain.”
She smiled and said, “You weren’t on my roster, but I’m one of the new nurses, Brianna. I started just a bit before you left.”
He nodded and said, “Nice to meet you. How are you enjoying this place?”
“It’s such an interesting system here,” she said. “We get first-hand relationships with some of the patients, when we’re part of their medical team, but we miss out on some others. Like I did with you.”
“Exactly,” he said. Then he looked at the rabbit. “Anyway, this guy’s name is Hoppers.” He stepped into the pen and reached down, then scooped out the great big rabbit.
She watched his prosthetic limb bending and holding him easily. “That prosthetic looks pretty cool,” she said.
“It is. I came in to get a couple adjustments made here, as this one is new to me. A group of friends of mine have quite the prosthetic designer with them in New Mexico, and I had this one commissioned.”
“Is that titanium?”
“Stainless steel with some robotics involved, but, all in all, it’s a heck of an improvement over the peg leg I had previously.” And he laughed at that. “Obviously it wasn’t a wooden peg leg, but it wasn’t a whole lot better either.”
“Well, I’m happy for you,” she said. “It looks stunning, and it’s remarkably mobile.”
He held out his arms, filled with
the mondo rabbit, and asked, “Do you want to say hi?”
She reached over and gently rubbed the rabbit’s nose. “I figured you’d be visiting with Jaden.”
“He’s gone to a couple of his appointments,” Iain said easily.
She nodded. “I thought he was at the pool.”
“He was. We’ll meet up later,” he said. “I’ll be here for the day, while I work on fixing this up.”
“Lucky Hoppers here.” She gently stroked the superlong ears to go with the supersize giant rabbit. He must have been a hefty armload for Iain to carry, but he didn’t appear to be in any stress over it. “I gather he’s now a permanent resident?” she asked, looking back at Sherry.
She shrugged. “We have a lot of those, so why not one more?” At that, a small dog came out on wheels. “This is Racer. Generally we keep him fairly close with us because he can get into trouble with his wheels.”
“Like what trouble?”
Iain laughed. “I caught him going up the stairs, dragging the wheels behind him, but, when he got to the very top, there were people. So, he was stuck with his wheels under the lip. We managed to free up the wheels and get him safely to the top floor. It’s much easier if he uses the ramp, but he’s stubborn.”
“That’s because he probably doesn’t realize he has a disability,” Brianna said with a laugh.
“Isn’t that the truth.”
Sherry excused herself, taking Racer with her, and left them to touch base with Stan and the clinic’s waiting room.
Brianna could feel something in Iain’s gaze. She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Something bothering you?”
“Nope,” he said, “but Jaden and I are good friends, and he told me how you and him have been spending a lot of time together.”
“When our schedules allow, yes,” she agreed with a laugh. “He’s a nice guy,” she said, wondering if something else was behind that penetrating gaze of Iain’s.
“He is. He’s also honest and loyal and honorable.”
Her cheeks warmed up immediately. “He told you about my history, huh?”
He shrugged. “In a place like this, everybody has a history. But he did mention that you had an issue from your past.”
“Yeah. I just had the Major bring up another issue connected to that one too.” She groaned. “It’s hard to think everybody knows.”
“Not everybody knows anything,” he said. “Jaden shared with me, knowing I won’t tell anyone else. And the Major is very astute. So is Dani. So, if you’re hiding anything, you can count on her finding it out.”
“Yeah,” Brianna said, “but she already knows. I explained my situation before she hired me and how I wanted to make a fresh start here.”
“And the Major is a people person, so, when he finds certain ones off on their own or doing something that he would feel was antisocial, he’ll get right in there and help you out of your shell.”
“I didn’t think I had one,” she said.
“Well, you won’t after you’re here a few more months,” he said, chuckling. “I can guarantee you that.”
“I felt comfortable from the very first with Jaden,” she said. “My walls weren’t up, as the Major pointed out earlier today. Jaden and I were both new here at approximately the same time, and that seemed to give us some common ground.”
“Indeed.” Iain smiled and slowly lowered himself and the great big rabbit to the ground. Hoppers didn’t appear to care one way or the other. He moved around, sniffling and checking out the grass in his new pen. She and Iain stood and watched as Hoppers explored all that newly opened-up space just for him.
On the far side of the fence, two horses arrived. She looked at them, smiled, and said, “Wow. This is such a special place.”
Iain immediately stepped closer and reached out a hand and gently brushed the midnight-black horse’s nose. The horse lifted up his head, obviously looking for an under-the-chin scratch. Iain chuckled and gently stroked the neck and the jaws of the beautiful horse. “This is Midnight,” he said. “He’s Dani’s personal horse, but he’s a big baby.”
She shifted so that she could walk up on the side and gently introduced herself to the horse. “I’ve never been around animals of this size,” she murmured. “It’s a little intimidating.”
“Since my childhood in Kentucky, I’ve loved horses,” Iain said. “I love all animals. You could say they were my first love. Then it was the navy.”
“More similarities that you have with Jaden.”
“Yep,” he said. “Both of us are good people.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“Do that,” he said. “He’s a good man.”
With that, she gave a half smile and a wave and turned and walked toward her apartment. She needed a few moments by herself after the Major and now Iain had seen through her “shell” to see her soft vulnerable part. She thought she had locked that hurt down. She thought she had been putting on a brave front while she dealt with those sad memories that still seemed to pop up at work or when she was lonely in a crowd or other inopportune times. Not like she could control them. Or at least she hadn’t been able to yet.
But they were easier and easier to dismiss now. She knew she and her ex were not well suited. Not for the long run obviously. And now that she had met Jaden, she realized how little she and Gerald had shared of each other’s lives, even at the very beginning of their relationship. How sad. They had no true communication. And, yes, she wasn’t just commenting on his affair with her maid of honor. They really didn’t talk, not like she and Jaden talked. When Jaden speaks to her, he’s coming from his heart. And he’s this big Navy SEAL, a wounded warrior—neither of which her ex could claim to be.
So if Jaden could open up and could lay himself bare to her, why couldn’t Gerald? She sighed. No matter. He would never be acceptable in her eyes. She had a new bar to measure her next relationship by. Jaden. And she wouldn’t accept less.
So she was a little shocked to hear the Major addressing her “shell” and now Iain speaking about her obvious distrust that still lingers within her. And here she hadn’t thought she had been putting out any stay away signs. Yet, according to both of them—and all in the last hour too—obviously, to them, she was.
Also it sounded like Iain was promoting Jaden as being a good person. She already knew that, but still she wasn’t in the market. At least not for a while. That last attempt had been more than enough for her.
The short visit with Iain during a PT session had been great, but now Jaden wanted to get to his room for a shower so he could meet up with Iain during his downtime and spend some time with his friend. Jaden was in a completely different mind-set than when he’d first arrived. Because originally he’d been afraid that all this hoopla was for naught and that his friend was delusional. But now that Jaden saw what Shane had showed him and how far down that road to recovery that Iain himself had gotten, well, that was a whole different story. As Jaden escaped from his last appointment, he pulled out his phone and texted his buddy. You still here?
Yep. Come on down to the pen and take a look at Hoppers.
Jaden grinned and, using his wheelchair, took the elevator down and outside. There, the great big rabbit was sprawled on its side, out in the fresh grass. “And the hardware worked?”
“Sure did. Look at that guy. I also put dividers in one part of the pen so that they could close off part of the run to help the grass recover.”
“What about fresh water?”
“He has water inside his pen,” he said. “It’s already automatically plumbed.”
“Wow, that’s fancy,” he said.
“Well, this guy can probably live about seven years or so. He’s only a year old now.”
“Is he even full-grown?” Jaden asked in fascination.
“I think so,” Iain said, “just like the rest of us here, we really don’t know when the growth stops, do we?”
“I don’t think it ever stops,” he said. “I think it
’s a case of full speed ahead all the time.”
“I met your girlfriend,” Iain said.
Jaden looked at him in surprise. “Did Brianna come down here?”
“Yes. I also heard her up on the lunchroom deck with the Major. She looked a little bit disoriented, but the Major can have that effect on people.”
“It’s funny,” Jaden said. “I see her as really friendly and outgoing, but I’m not seeing other people having the same relationship or interaction with her.”
“Yeah. It’s all the walls that she keeps up,” Iain said, looking down at the rabbit, then he smiled at his buddy. “But she has doors for you to get in and out.”
“Is that a good thing?” Jaden asked.
“I don’t know,” Iain said with an intense look and an even bigger smile. “Maybe that’s a question you should answer.”
“It’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned,” he said carefully, “but only if it’s a two-way street.”
“And that’s why she’s got walls for the other people, and the doors are for you—because it’s definitely two-way.”
Chapter 6
In the back of her mind, Brianna knew she was waiting until she saw Jaden again.
Dani came to the doorway of Brianna’s office and studied her.
“Problems?” Brianna asked in a light tone.
Dani shook her head. “Just wondering if you need a meeting to see how you’re getting on. See how you’ve adapted?”
“Well, I guess I’ve been here about six weeks,” she said with a smile. “So, if you feel like we need a meeting, I’m good with it.”
“How are you getting along with the people?”
At that, Brianna sat back in her chair, studied Dani, and said, “Did you want me to come to your office?”
Dani gave a nod. “Good idea. Let’s make this official.”
She quickly closed the folders she was working on, then picked up her cup of coffee, and followed Dani back to her office. There, behind closed doors, she said, “Do you have a reason to ask about me getting along with people?”
