Reluctantly in Love

by Niecey Roy

  “I’m just setting the stage,” I hissed back.

  She shined her flashlight in my face, blinding me. “No, you are purposely freaking me out.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “I can’t talk to you when you get like this. Quit shining that in my eyes.”

  Gen opened her mouth to snap at me, but the sudden creak in the floorboards was loud. And close. Really freaking close.

  I grabbed hold of her arm. “Holy shit, I think this place really is haunted.”

  The three of us huddled in the middle of the hallway while my heart thrummed an erratic beat in my chest.

  “Did Mrs. Potter give you permission to be in here?” Gen’s grip was like a vice around my forearm.

  Richard pointed his flashlight up at his chin, illuminating his widened eyes. “Oh man, are we trespassing? Did you steal that key? I knew I shouldn’t have ditched work.”

  “No, Richard, I did not steal the key.” I dug the key out of my pocket and dangled it in front of him. “The owner gave me the key.”

  “Oh, right.” He sounded relieved.

  “Really.” I shoved the key back into my pocket. “I make one mistake—one—and everyone thinks I’m some kind of renegade criminal.”

  “You maced me,” Richard said.

  “On accident,” I reminded.

  “And you tased that broad,” Richard said.

  “Okay, this is not the time to rehash the past, Richard. Geesh.” I propped my hand on my hip. “I was under a lot of stress that night, you know.”

  “No one thinks you’re a criminal.” Gen’s eyes skittered around us. “How can you be so dramatic right now?”

  She was right. This was no place for dramatics. “We’re freaking ourselves out for no reason. The house is old. Old houses make noises.”

  Huddled into my side, Gen said, “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Let’s just get to the master suite. Look around a little, and then we’ll go,” I said.

  “Shouldn’t this place have electricity?” Gen whispered as we crept down the hall.

  “It does,” I said. “There’s just no air conditioning.”

  Gen’s and Richard’s flashlight beams stilled in the darkness while mine jostled with my footsteps—they’d stopped walking.

  I turned around.

  Gen flashed her light in my face again. She did not look happy. “You’re joking. This place has electricity and we’re walking around in the dark?”

  “How do you expect to get the full haunted house experience with the lights on?”

  “I swear, one of these days I’m going to strangle you.”

  “There’s no point in getting violent.” I shined my flashlight in her eyes since she was shining hers into mine. She squinted from the beam. “It’s not so pleasant having a light blinding you, is it?”

  “Knock it off.” She averted her flashlight beam from my eyes.

  I wiped the back of my hand across the sweat beading on my brow. “Listen, if it makes you guys happy—”

  A muffled thunk from somewhere in the house shut me up. The noise sounded both near and far at the same time, and I forgot to breathe. When Gen grasped my arm, I expelled a breath and shuffled closer.

  “What the hell was that?” Gen’s whispered demand did nothing for my nerves. She tugged on my arm. “We need to find the lights.”

  “Yeah, lights would be good.” Richard’s voice twitched with fear.

  “It’s nothing,” I soothed, but I didn’t sound so certain.

  Something crashed to the floor in one of the rooms near us and a squeal screamed through the house, sounding like a person being tortured. The ear-splitting scream that came of Gen’s mouth jerked a scream from my own mouth. And then Richard screamed. The three of us bumped into each other as we made a mad dash for the staircase.

  Running in heels was a skill I’d never honed. Mostly because I’d never had a reason before. It looks so easy on TV . . .

  Even with the banister as my guide, my descent down the staircase was awkward. My left arm flailed in the air to keep my balance. Gen, who was more of a flip-flops kind of girl, and Richard in his sneakers, both made it down the stairs six steps ahead of me.

  “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” My breaths came in heavy spurts with each lurching step downward. My heart pounded like a drum in my chest and drowned out whatever Gen yelled back at me. Richard flung the heavy front door open and sunlight poured in through the opening, shooting across the foyer.

  I slipped once, but made it to the door where Richard and Gen waited on the other side of the threshold. The door drifted back toward the frame and my heart skipped a beat. The ghost is shutting me in!

  Lunging for the door and daylight, for Gen and Richard, for whatever hadn’t made the gut-wrenching scream, I yelled, “Wait for me!”

  The heel of my foot slipped sideways off the back of my sandal and my ankle turned. Instead of Gen’s hand, I grabbed a handful of nothing before my forehead smashed against the solid oak door.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I came to, my head ached. I blinked—once, twice.

  Gen and Richard’s faces came into focus. They were hovered over me, their faces lined with worry. Rolling my head to the side, I gazed at the mansion’s front door, now closed.

  “Hey, Rox,” Richard said and snapped his fingers in front of my face.

  I turned away from the door and back up to the faces hovering over mine.

  “I think we pissed the ghost off,” I murmured. “How long was I out?”

  “A minute, maybe,” Richard said.

  “Maybe two,” Gen added.

  “Not bad.” I had no idea why I said that, as if I’d had something to compare it to. I’d never been knocked unconscious before.

  “What is . . . ?” Gen leaned down to brush my hair off my face. “Oh my God, your forehead is bleeding.”

  “Oh, sick.” Richard’s face paled.

  I pressed my hand to my forehead. The sticky warmth against my fingertips made my legs go numb from the knees down. And my elbows were numb. I wrote paranormal fiction, for Pete’s sake. I watched hospital dramas and vampire shows, blood spraying all over the place from big ass arteries. Since when did I have a weak stomach?

  Then again, those shows were fiction, and the blood wasn’t mine.

  “I don’t feel so good.” My vision blurred. Rapid blinking helped, but when they took me by the arms to haul me to my feet, my vision clouded over again. That’s weird.

  “You don’t look so good,” Richard said.

  My heart raced in my chest, and a thought occurred to me. “I have a concussion. Possibly a subdural hematoma.”

  “What?” Gen asked, huffing under my weight—my legs weren’t moving.

  “I saw it on TV. People get them after suffering head injuries.” I imagined the blood draining from my body through the cut on my forehead, some of it pooling inside to fill up my skull. “There’s a lot of pressure in my head!”

  At least, I was certain there was pressure. I was numb all over now. Like I might pass out, even. Gen and Richard half dragged, half carried me across the cobblestone driveway toward my SUV parked in front of the house.

  A few feet from my vehicle, Richard dropped my arm. I toppled to the ground, and Gen tripped over me.

  “Richard, what the hell?” Gen stumbled as she dropped my arm.

  A piece of gravel poked me between the shoulder blades. “Ow.”

  “Warn me next time you drop her,” Gen said.

  “Oops, sorry,” he muttered.

  “Or how about we just not drop me at all?” I suggested. I blinked up at Richard who was busy unbuttoning his plaid shirt. “I don’t think this is a good time for stripping.”

  “We should wrap your head.” Richard shrugged out of his shirt.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I said.

  “Especially not good if you have a subdural hematoma,” Richard added.

  “I don’t
even know what that is,” Gen said, her fingertips pressed to her temples.

  I gazed up at the blue sky beyond the big oak tree above. “The sky is so blue.”

  “You better not be screwing around, Roxanna Leigh,” Gen said, a note of panic edging into her voice.

  Richard knelt next to me then looked up at Gen. “Help me sit her up so we can wrap her head.” When she didn’t reach for me, he glanced up. “Oh man, there’s a lot of blood.”

  “She barely hit her head! Barely!” Gen said, sounding as if she were trying to rationalize the amount of blood.

  Except, I was pretty sure the thwack I heard when my head hit the door was more than a “just barely” thwack.

  “Hard enough for a brain bleed,” I said as they helped me sit up.

  “You need to quit watching those hospital dramas. Don’t you know that self-diagnosis is bad?” Gen shook her head, holding me in a slump.

  Richard wrapped his shirt around my head.

  Gen continued, “I mean, you hardly bumped your head on that door. You didn’t hit it enough for a subdural hematoma.”

  “You don’t even know what a subdural hematoma is,” I argued.

  Actually, I felt a little better now that I had something wrapped around my head, because now I couldn’t bleed out as fast. They hauled me to my feet again and led me to the car.

  “Well, I don’t think it’s still bleeding, if that makes you feel better,” Gen said as Richard pulled the back passenger door open.

  “No, that doesn’t make me feel better,” I said. She helped boost me into the back seat. “The worst bleeds are the ones you can’t see. They’re called brain bleeds.”

  I flung myself down across the seat, holding the shirt to my head. She shut the door behind me. A second later the front passenger door opened. Then the driver’s door opened.

  “I didn’t know blood made you queasy,” Gen said from the driver’s seat. “You watch vampire movies.”

  “That’s not real blood, Imogen Mae. This blood is coming from my head.” I propped my feet on the bench seat, my knees up.

  “I know it is,” Gen said.

  I closed my eyes as the vehicle rolled forward. “We’re so far from the hospital. What if I bleed out?”

  “You’re not going to bleed out,” Gen said. I could hear the eye-roll in her voice.

  “Man, that was my favorite shirt,” Richard said. “My mom got it for my birthday.”

  I opened my eyes and shifted so I could reach between the front seats to poke him in his arm—I got him right over the sleeve of his mustard yellow t-shirt.

  “Ouch! Your nails are like claws,” he moaned, rubbing his arm. He’d been working out with my cousin Leo for the last couple of months, and though he wasn’t exactly buff, he now had a little muscle tone. And some color, which meant he’d been getting out more instead of gaming his life away in his parents’ basement. He acted a lot more responsible now that he owned his own business.

  “It’s not my fault I’m bleeding from the head, you know,” I stressed. My statement went unanswered.

  Like they didn’t agree. As if they thought my bleeding head was all my fault. Under the shirt, my brow furrowed. “It’s the ghost’s fault.”

  “No, it’s your fault for taking us under the guise of solving a catnapping when in fact you were there to hunt for ghosts,” Gen said. “Is that what your new book is about? Ghosts?”

  It was best to keep mum. Also, I felt a little guilty about being sneaky in order to get them to come with me. But just a little. They would have spent all day being bored if I hadn’t invited them along. And, if it weren’t for the disastrous way things turned out, they probably would have thanked me for the excitement. I mean, if my best friends surprised me with a haunted house adventure, I’d love them forever.

  The vehicle made a very slow turn.

  “If she has a subdural hematoma, maybe you should pull over so I can drive,” Richard said.

  “There’s no need to drive like a crazy person and get a ticket,” Gen said.

  The vehicle slowed to a stop.

  “I saw an episode of Sunset Hospital where the woman had brain trauma and no one believed her.” After adjusting the shirt so it didn’t cover my eyes, I added, “Until she died.”

  “It’s a TV show,” Gen said. “They dramatize everything. Let’s not overreact.”

  “It’s a TV show based on real life cases.” Okay, so I wasn’t entirely certain the show was based on real life cases, but I was sure I’d read something to that effect online.

  “I’m taking you to a clinic that’s close.” Gen made another safe and excruciatingly slow turn.

  “A clinic?” I struggled to sit up, but she turned the vehicle around another corner and I fell back against the seat. “I don’t think a clinic can treat what’s wrong with me.”

  “Since when did you become a hypochondriac?”

  The humor in her voice didn’t amuse me. “Since when did you become Ms. Judgy-Judger-Pants?” I huffed. “I’m just saying it could be serious.”

  “It’s a specialty clinic,” Gen said. “If there’s something wrong with you, you’ll be in good hands. I bet they even have a neurosurgeon there.”

  “Oh.” I relaxed into the seat. “Okay, then.”

  It was more time-efficient to skip right to the neurosurgeon anyway.

  Gen parked the vehicle. “See? We’re already here.”

  “Thank God,” I said. “I’ve probably lost a pint of blood already.”

  They helped me out of the backseat and we hurried to the sliding front doors. With one hand on the shirt and the other on Gen’s arm, we entered the clinic and Richard announced, “We need a doctor!”

  “We’re not an emergency clinic,” the receptionist said, a note of panic in her voice. She stood, pushing up her wire rimmed glasses. She looked a lot like my old high school librarian, the one who always sniffed with disapproval with each paranormal book I checked out. “The ER is down on 70th, only about five minutes from here if you go the back way.”

  “The clinic is closer,” Gen said. “She just has a small cut on her forehead and—”

  “I could have a subdural hematoma,” I interjected.

  The receptionist’s gaze shot up to the shirt wrapped around my head. “I guess we do have a neurologist…”

  “Can you just call Dr. Walker?” Gen read the woman’s name tag, and then added, “Sarah?”

  Dr. Walker. I whipped my head to stare at Gen.

  “Dr. Walker isn’t the neurologist,” the receptionist said with a shake of her head.

  “I know, but I’m a friend of his,” Gen said.

  “He is finishing up with a patient, but I can see if Dr. Anderson is available.” She sat down to pick up the phone.

  “We can wait for Dr. Walker,” Gen insisted.

  I gaped. “I have an oozing cut in my forehead. If she wants to call Dr. Anderson, let her call Dr. Anderson.” I glanced at the receptionist, whose eyes narrowed with annoyance as her hand hovered over the phone on her desk. “Is Dr. Anderson the neurologist?”

  “It’s probably stopped bleeding by now,” Gen said, and I elbowed her in the side. To Sarah, she said, “It’s really just a tiny cut.”

  “I am not about to take chances with my head injury.” I turned my attention back to the receptionist. “We would love to see Dr. Anderson if Dr. Walker is busy.”

  “But we prefer Dr. Walker.” Gen flashed the receptionist a smile, and she blinked back at us as if we’d lost our minds.

  I would throttle Gen later, after my head quit bleeding. For right now, my mind was busy picturing Chase in all his gorgeousness. I couldn’t believe Gen’s nerve. This was not the time to play matchmaker. This was an emergency. Irritated, I stepped on her toe.

  “Ow, jeez,” Gen hissed at me through barely open lips. When Sarah looked up from hitting a key combination on the desk phone, Gen flashed a bright smile.

  “Dr. Walker,” Sarah said into the phone. “I’m sorry
to bother you, but there are people up front here who would like to see you for an emergency—a possible subdural hematoma.” There was a pause and then she said, “I know. I told them we’re not the ER.” Another pause while she listened. “They won’t leave.” She sounded frustrated by that fact. “It’s just a superficial cut.” She nodded. “Okay. Thank you, Doctor.” She hung up the phone and gazed at my makeshift bandage. “He’ll be right up.”

  “We should have gone to the ER.” I glanced around the waiting room decorated in rich earth tones. A wall fountain made of copper and slate hung above a plush brown leather couch, filling the room with the soothing sound of running water. The bronze plaque behind the receptionist’s desk read: Montrose Specialty Clinic. Chase had done well for himself.

  I turned to Gen. “I don’t think they want people bleeding all over the place.”

  The receptionist opened her mouth to respond, but a deep, amused voice from behind me cut her off: “We have an excellent cleaning service, so don’t worry about the carpets.”

  Gen’s lips turned up into a smile. “Hey, Chase.”

  “What happened?” His brow wrinkled as his gaze zeroed in on the wadded up shirt around my head.

  As great as he’d been with his shirt off, he was perfect dressed as a doctor in his white lab coat. I wondered how many of his patients came to see him because of real sickness. If he were my doctor, I’d come in for checkups all the time. Ridiculous as it was, I reached with my free hand to smooth out my hair not covered by the shirt wrapped around my head.

  Gen could have at least warned me she’d be throwing me at Chase today. I’d lecture her later. Right now, I needed to give him my full attention. After all, I could have a major medical condition.

  “Roxi might need stitches, but it’s not that bad.” She glanced at me. “At least, I don’t think it’s bad. Just a small accident.”

  “What happened?” There were worry wrinkles on his forehead.

  “We were ghost hunting,” Richard said, and Chase’s lips quirked in bemusement.

  “We were actually investigating a really important case,” I said.

  Richard nodded. “And ghost hunting. And then—”

  “And then I fell and hit my head,” I said. Telling Chase I was attacked by a ghost might lead him to believe I was crazy. And I didn’t want that. I wanted his full attention in a good way.