Private Property: a Contemporary Romance Novella (5 page)

Tabitha snapped back to reality.  What was she thinking?  She was acting as though there was some kind of future to be found here.

The phone rang, breaking through her erratic thoughts with a jolt.  Jared interrupted his dish cleaning activities and smiled at her, wiping his hands off on a kitchen towel.  “Guess the phone’s working again.” 
Tabitha realized that she had just taken for granted that the electricity was back on and had been throughout the day.

He picked up the receiver, made a couple of curt grunts and monosyllabic answers and hung up.  He came over to where she still sat pressed up against the table.

“That was Travis.  The Weather Channel just showed another wave of thunderstorms bearing down on us.  Looks like we’ll have to wait until tomorrow before he can get to the car.”  He moved to the window and scanned the heavily burdened skies.  From her viewpoint over his shoulder, it didn’t look good.

What did look good were his shoulders.  He had on a
light colored
T-shirt that molded to his V-shaped back and a pair of loose-fitting jeans.
T
he natural slope that brought the vision line downward had her scrutinizing his rear end in no time.  The jeans accented his small waist,
slender
hips and taught butt.  He even sported the dents she adored so much in the derrieres of physically fit men.  She was still admiring it when he abruptly turned around.

Tabitha shoved her eyes downward to hide her embarrassment and focused on wiping minute amounts of crumbs from the table onto her palm.

“If you would like to call someone and let them know what’s happened, I have no problem with you making a long-distance phone call.”  He handed her the cordless phone.  “I’ll be right back.”  She knew he was giving her some privacy, but
who
would she really call anyway?  Her parents?  Hell no. 
Not yet. 
Tabitha stared at the phone trying to figure out if it would be worth it to call her best friend, Kristen, or not.  She would get a kick out of the mess Tabitha had managed to land in but it probably didn’t justify ringing up a
significant charge on his
phone bill.  Kristen could talk like no other.

Tabitha decided she should at least let her know everything was going to be fine.  On the second ring, Kristen picked up.

“Hey, it’s me.”  Tabitha said, bracing herself for the conversation.

“Hey!  How’s work going
today?  I was so worried last night, knowing you were plowing through those storms, but what a trooper!  You made it just fine.  I tried calling last night, but all I got was voice mail.  Did you get my message?”

Tabitha wanted to laugh and insist Kristen take a breath.  “Um, my phone’s not working.  The battery has no juice.  About the job…
” 
There was an expectant silence on the line that made Tabitha more uncomfortable.  “I had an accident last night and – ”

“
What?!
  Oh good Lord, are you
alright
?  Where are you?”  Kristen’s voice had risen to a shrill octave and she was yelling into the phone.

Tabitha grimaced and pulled the phone away from her ear.  “I’m alright.”  Kristen kept barreling questions at her.  “Kris, I’m okay.  Hey, calm down and let me explain.  No!  You are not driving out in this weather to check on me.  I’ll be okay.”

“What do you mean you’ll
be
okay?”  Kristen sounded
belligerent.  God, Tabitha
loved having a friend care so much.

“Let me start from the beginning.  I was driving out here on 290 and my car blew a tire.  It ended up in a ditch, well half in a ditch and half around a pole, and I had to walk to a nearby house to get help.”

“Oh God, Tabby, you had to walk when you were all banged up from a serious wreck?”

“No, I wasn’t hurt from the wreck.  The car kind of slid into the pole, so I may have a bruise or two but nothing else.  It was the dog that chewed me up.”

“Dog?  What dog?”  Kristen was frantic.

“Jared’s very large, very scary watchdog.  There were signs posted at the beginning of the drive warning against a guard dog, but what choice did I have?  Tornadoes were breaking out all over the place and I wasn’t about to huddle outside in the rain or hide in my accordion of a car.”

“Jared?”

“Yeah, he’s the guy that owns the house I stayed at last night.”

“Tell me where you are, I’ll come get you right now.  You’re not staying with some strange guy who let his dog attack you.”  Now Kristen was playing the big sister role.  Tabitha stifled a giggle.

“He didn’t
let
his dog attack me.  In fact, by the time he got to us, he was protecting Sam from me.”

“Sam?  You’re calling the ferocious dog by name?”  Kristen let out an exasperated sigh.  “So how bad are you hurt?  And
what about
the job, weren’t you supposed to start today?”

“Hold on, you’re getting ahead of me.”  Tabitha tried to remain calm, but the truth was she was dying to begin squealing like a teenager with the dramatic recantation of her tale.  “I have some stitches in my leg and arm, and I look a whole lot worse than I feel.  But that’s probably because of the pain medication Jared gave me.”

“Whoa
.  You took prescription drugs from some stranger?”  Kristen’s voice sounded close to hysterical
again
.

Tabitha thought it best to answer her friend’s question in due time.  “I managed to keep the job because of Jared.  He called for me and explained the whole situation t
o my boss, about how my car is wrecked
and I can’t walk for at least a week.  Mr. Parker said that the job would be waiting for me when I got better.  Isn’t that great?  So, as bad as it seems, there’s a small silver lining on this perpetual dark cloud of mine.”

“Some man you don’t know saves you from his attacking dog, gets you to a hospital for a little skin sewing, takes you back to his house for the night and manages to smooth things over at your new job?  Why is this not computing in my brain, Tabby?”

Tabitha let out a laugh at Kristen’s synopsis of her tale.  “I forgot to mention he’s a doctor.  Well, surgeon, actually.  He stitched me up here because the weather wouldn’t let us out the front door.  And that’s how he managed to save my job for me.  He told Mr. Parker that he was my doctor and would not allow me to work for a week.”

Kristen
expelled a breath
into the phone and then began to giggle.  “Only you, Tabby.  Only you.  So, what does your knight in shining armor look like?  Is it a total fairy tale, with prince charming being more handsome than humanly possible?”

At any other time, under more isolated circumstances, Tabitha would have blathered on to her life-long best friend about how physically beautiful her unbelievable host was, but this wasn’t the time or the place.  “He’s nice enough.  I don’t know how I’ll ever repay him.  If I have to add him to the list of bills to pay off, it’ll be years.”

“You totally dodged my question.  I get the hint.  Are you going to call your parents?”

“No.”  She didn’t even have to think about that answer.  Her mother and father assumed she was at a campsite, making money for a change, and would be home in eight weeks.  She was supposed to write her mother, but that could wait another day or two.

“That’s probably a good decision.  Are you sure you’re okay?  I can leave now and be there before dark.”

“No, Kris.  I’m fine.  Stay where you are.  I’ll call you tomorrow to let you know how bad the car is.”

Hanging up the phone was like disconnecting her only lifeline and a momentary pang of sadness swept through her. 
Using her good hand and good leg, s
he
push-pulled-
wheeled herself to the edge of the kitchen counter and replaced the handset on its base.

The house was quiet, t
he sound of the rainfall echoed
off the tin roof and windowpanes.  Tabitha lost herself in solitude, thankful for the drugs coursing through her veins, numbing her physical and mental pain.

The phone rang loudly, and since she still had her hand resting on it, she picked it up and simultaneously called out for Jared.  A tinny voice came through the earpiece and to her
horror,
Tabitha realized the phone automatically answered the call once it was removed from the base.  She grimaced and responded by pressing the disconnect button and abruptly ending the call.

“Yeah?”  Jared came in, wearing a pair of glasses that made him look distinguished and intellectual.

“Um, nothing.”  Tabitha sat the phone in her lap and began to pull at the wheels of the wheelchair.  The sharp trill of the phone sounded again.  She held the handset out to him.

Jared scowled at the Caller ID window and went stomping down
the hall as he answered it.  The
gruff ‘hello’ carried his deep voice back to her.

Tabitha headed to the kitchen sink for a glass of water. 
Embarrassment usually made her mouth go
dry and she found that she was near parched by the time she maneuvered her way around the kitchen.

The kitchen sink was a large double-sided contraption of stainless steel with a small section in between for the garbage disposal. The right side of the sink was filled with soapy water and what looked like material.  It dawned on her that it was probably the couch coverings she’d bled
on
the night before.

With a quick thought
, Tabitha decided to earn her keep any way possible and formulated a plan for scrubbing the stains out of the material he had soaking.  It took some time to drag a bar stool from the e
nd of the counter, plus her own body
in the God-awful contraption he’d sat her in, and situate herself next to the sink.  Jared had left a scrub brush and cleaning supplies in the windowsill above her and she readily began setting herself up to begin diligently scrubbing away.  Her body had a different plan; however, and she instantly knew that it wasn’t going to be easy work.  Her muscles were beginning to scream in agony again and everything felt stiff and swollen.  The pain pill
s were
wearing off.  Plus, she’d have to do the work one-handed.  There was no way she was going to get her injured arm to move the way she wanted it to.

“What are you doing?”  Tabitha had been so intent
on getting herself from the chair to the stool
, she didn’t hear Jared come into the room.  Not that t
he man made much sound normally, which for his size really stumped her.  Tabitha, for all her pint-sized frame was worth, couldn’t manage to enter
a
airplane hangar without running in to a corner or knocking something over.

“I’m trying to figure out a way to clean this mess up.  I made it after all.”  She pivoted around to look at him, snatching out at the counter for balance.

“The hell you are.”  His tone was formidable and he was glaring at her with a look of malice.  He had gone back to the
bad place – t
he place of rudeness and attitude, distance and aggression.

Tabitha mentally back paddled, not sure exactly what she’d done to deserve his hostility.  She was starting to regret not letting Kristin come get her.  She pushed off the barstool onto her good leg and hobbled over to the wheelchair and plopped down.  “I was only trying to help.”  She muttered.

Jared
snatched a milk carton from the fridge and
slapped some pills down on the table.  “There’s your antibiotic and pain medication.  Take it with some milk.”  And he stormed back out.

Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief, not really sure what she should do now.  She took the pills as he directed and decided to go lay down.  She was in the process of wheeling herself down the hallway when a sharp pain snared her right arm above the elbow.  She screeched to a halt, instinctively reaching back to rub the bandaged area.  That only made the pain flare up worse and she huddled in the chair.  She was close enough to the wall to lay her head against it until the waves of nausea and discomfort subsided.  Tabitha was right outside Jared’s door and began to overhear a conversation he was having with someone
,
presumably on the telephone.

“Of course
I do, Amanda.”  Jared’s voice sounded as though he were straining for tolerance.  “No, that’s not a good idea.  Why?  Because I’m up to my elbows in caseloads and there’s a lot of things to be worked on here that I haven’t gotten around to because of the weather.”

Tabitha tried to wheel the chair past his doorway with one arm, but all she managed to do was tilt the chair outwards.  If she tried any harder, she’d end up turning the thing around in a circle.

Jared began to speak again.  “Yes, I would like to see you, but right now is not a good time.  Look, I have to go now, Amanda.  I’ll call you later, okay?”  He paused a moment, stated a cursory goodbye and barreled out of the room, brought up short by his surprise at seeing her just outside his door.

Tabitha burst into tears.  She had made him steaming mad, disrupted his weekend plans, and couldn’t even manage to get out of his hallway.  “I’m sorry.  I was trying to get to the guest room and my arm is killing me.”  She lifted her uninjured palm upwards in a gesture of complete loss and then covered her face with it.