She finally lowered the phone and shut it. Her shoulders slumped. Her back slouched and expanded as if she’d taken in a deep breath before she slowly turned towards him.
“Why did you do that?”
Why did he do that? Was she for real? He reacted to what she did first. She answered her cell phone while a grown man stood crying before her. It wasn’t why did he do that, but why did she?
“I’ve had enough. You take personal calls all day long, no matter what you’re doing. Or whom you’re serving. This is my place of business, and if you can’t respect that, then at least stop being so rude to people who are right in front of your face. No one, not anyone, talks to a spouse once an hour, all day long. It’s ridiculous and it’s no wonder you don’t work anywhere. Look, this might fly when you’re at home, ordering your servants around, or sitting at the country club, or whatever the hell else you do, but it will not fly here! I might be just a country vet, and not the same caliber of sophistication that you and your spouse are used to, but I will not have you treating my clients, or the people I care about, as if the death of their beloved cat is not as important as your stupid cell phone call!”
Her face paled and she took one step back, then another. Her mouth trembled. “I’m sorry. I—I’m sorry.”
She flinched when he moved forward, so he stopped dead. He didn’t even consciously notice he was taking a step. She ducked her head, and braced her weight over her legs, in a strange stance, almost as if she were getting poised and ready for something. What though?
What the hell?
He let out a long sigh. “This isn’t going to work. This is my place of business, and you are hindering it. You can’t handle this. I know the death of a cat seems trivial to you, but it was that couple’s child, literally. Their own child doesn’t talk to them, so they put all their love and caring into their twenty-plus-year-old cat. I know to some people, it seems stupid and trite. So what? It’s just a cat. But to most of my clients, their pets are like children to them. Their feelings for them are very real. And so, to simply ignore that, while a grown man is crying before you, well, I just don’t see how this can work out any longer. You simply don’t get it.”
She raised her head up to him, and he stared, waiting. And waiting. Had she nothing to say? Something? Anything? Either to apologize or just get angry? How could she have no reaction? He wasn’t being very nice to her. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and wrinkled her brows down. Finally, she said softly, “I get it.”
His frustration made him want to groan out loud. She was so aggravating. Fight back! Defend yourself! Just do something. But her utter lack of response to his anger was unnerving. His adrenaline started to diminish and he was left with simply wanting her gone. It wasn’t even worth insulting her over.
He turned and started for the door to his office, ready to call it a day.
“H—he doesn’t know I work here. Or at least, that I’m attempting to work here.”
He stopped dead in his tracks and glanced over his shoulder. “He?”
“Elliot. He doesn’t know I’m filling in for Jessie. I haven’t told him. He’s a stickler about me answering his calls, so I do. Otherwise, he’ll catch on that something is up.”
So what if he caught on something was up? So what if he got mad she skipped one of his incessant, ridiculous calls? “So what if he does?”
She wrung her hands in front of her. “He’ll make me stop.”
“He’s half a world away.”
“Yes, but he’ll make me stop.”
Noah shook his head. How could she be so browbeaten that she accepted his strange, total dominance over her?
“And you don’t want to stop?”
She shook her head, and her shoulders dropped. Her chest rose and fell quickly, as if she were breathless. “No, I know I’m not very good at, well, anything. I know that. But it’s the first thing I’ve done in five years beyond working in my house. I don’t think you know how… limiting it is to go for days without seeing anyone. I admit, I’m rusty. But maybe, I could get a little better. I’m just so nervous, and that’s why I screw up all the time.”
Lindsey’s request weighed heavily on his chest. Obviously, the sister was under the strange influence of her husband. Jessie was right: he was an asswipe. But what, Noah wondered, did he owe Lindsey? Why should he have to suffer with Jessie’s incompetent sister?
When he didn’t comment, she continued, “I do care very much that their cat died. I do think it matters. Any grief matters, despite the cause. All pain matters. I just, I can’t miss any of his phone calls. It might not look that way, but I didn’t mean to appear so heartless. I really would like to continue working here.”
“I’m sorry, but I have to know: why do you want to work here so much?”
She jerked her shoulders back and stiffened her spine. “Because, as you already noticed, I don’t do anything. I haven’t for years. Jessie asked this of me and I want to succeed. I want to do this right for her. And ease her mind. And I want to prove to you that I am not totally stupid.”
He let out a breath. Yes, she was kind of stupid. She was stupid about answering her phone and incompetent with all the tasks that needed to be done. But how could he outright ignore her when she only wanted to please him?
She took another breath, and Noah wondered why she always seemed like she had to steel herself before confronting him. “I know I’m not Jessie. But, maybe I could improve.”
He nodded to the phone in her hand. “Not with that still here. You figure out how to not use it every hour, on the hour, and I’ll give you another chance.”
Her head dropped, yet again. She was too quick to adopt a submissive stance, posture and tone of voice. “I can’t figure that out.”
He waited a beat, then asked, “Is he that opposed to you working?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Noah tilted his head in consideration. It wasn’t the nineteen fifties, after all. Didn’t Lindsey get the memo? What woman nowadays let a husband, or anyone really, tell her what to do? His sister would kick his brother-in-law’s ass up one side and down the other if he ever dared to forbid her from doing anything, even if it was in her best interest or safety. She would never tolerate being told to do so.
“Because we don’t need it. It’s not how our ‘set’ of people run their lives. Most have kids, and all the wives stay home. As I do.”
He ran a hand through his hair, his anger totally dissipated now. He leaned back into the counter. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I just know I’m running a business and I need someone who can do the job. And it might be nice if that someone weren’t so afraid of me. Besides, I can’t tolerate your answering your phone every time it rings.”
“I used to have a job.”
He scratched his eyebrow. What the hell did that have to do with anything? And how the hell was that possible? How could she do anything of value with her indecisiveness, incompetence and insecurity?
“I used to be an officer in the United States Army.”
Even tougher to imagine. No soldier he knew flinched and shook and shuffled and wrung her hands over stupid things like making coffee or punching numbers into a computer or answering more than one phone line.
“I used to know how to do things. I just… I lost it all. One day, I was Lindsey Bains, soldier, and my father’s beloved daughter. Then, I found Jessie lying in a bath where she cut herself on purpose. After that, she and Will told me about what happened to her. And how my father ignored it. Then, later, everything… I learned everything. All the things I missed for twenty-five years of my life! Suddenly, I saw how wrong I was about everything. I was so wrong. And now, I can’t shake that I’m still always wrong. It overwhelmed me to a level that I can’t even explain. I doubt everything I do now. And well, Elliot is very exacting, so I don’t like to disappoint him. Or you. Or anyone. I just can’t remember the general’s daughter that I used to be. She, I’m sure you would have liked. You would h
ave respected her.”
He stared at her. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her express one genuine, real, emotional thought or feeling that wasn’t scripted or what she thought was expected of her to say. He knew the story, how Jessie was always so abused, and Lindsey so cherished. How they were divided for twenty-four years of their lives: one shielded by her father’s love and the other yearning for it. He knew Lindsey spent a long time ignoring what Jessie had to live through. He witnessed it firsthand on the one visit he took to North Carolina, when Jessie had her final run-in with the general. He smacked her and threw her from a car, and she had bruises to prove it. Only then, did Lindsey realize what everyone else knew, that Jessie was assaulted by her father. However, it literally required practically hitting Lindsey over the head before she got it.
Noah never once considered how shattering it must have been for Lindsey. Everyone, he included, always felt so sorry for Jessie, but poor Lindsey had to learn her entire life and love was a complete and utter lie. And such an ugly, mean, horrible lie that must have twisted up her insides and everything she held to be true. Suddenly, nothing she previously believed in and relied on was real: who she was, what she was, or what she could do. Noah tried to imagine if Penny suddenly started describing their childhood in the horrifying terms Jessie thrust onto her unsuspecting sister. He assumed it would have changed his entire life’s memories. Maybe, he too, would have temporarily forgotten everything he knew and was.
“My husband will insist I go home if he knows what I’ve been up to. He is very controlling. I don’t want to go home yet. I want to stay here. I haven’t wanted anything so much in a really long time. So, you see, I have to answer his calls.”
Her mouth was turned down and her face became ashy white. She pressed her lips together. Telling him such personal stuff was not easy for her. That was blatantly obvious.
The front door opened. Startled, they both turned towards it. Hannah. Shit! He forgot she was coming there before they went out. Everything, it seemed, time included, was suspended with their discussion.
“Hi, Noah. Are you ready?” Hannah smiled deeply, and her eyes shone in greeting. He stared at Lindsey a second longer. He wished they had the time to finish this. It was the first time mannequin Lindsey vanished and a real, breathing woman replaced her. But his manners won out and he smiled warmly at Hannah. “Yes, just let me grab my coat.”
Quickly shrugging off his white lab coat, he looked at Lindsey, who stood there, frozen. He passed her and threw her his set of clinic keys. She caught them mostly out of reflex or reaction than realizing what she was actually doing.
“Clean exam room one. The instructions are written inside the third cabinet. Follow it to the letter. Finish the bill for the Drummonds and make sure you mail it, along with a condolence card. All the signed ones are in the second drawer of your desk. Add something nice and personal to it. Then, be sure to put the bill and the card in separate envelopes. Set the answering service following the instructions in the file that Jessie made for you. Set the alarm. Lock the door behind your desk, as well as the front door after you leave. The rest of the building is already locked. And leave the light on in here.”
Her mouth dropped in astonishment. She slowly raised her gaze to his while Hannah waited with the door half open. She tapped her foot impatiently. She had no clue of the source for Lindsey’s stunned shock. Lindsey had never cleaned an exam room; that was something Jessie always did. She never handled a bill completely on her own either. Noah had never given her his keys with the responsibility of closing up because he did not trust her. He still didn’t trust her, but after hearing her monologue, she must’ve gotten to him. He would give her one more chance. And after what she said about her exacting husband and not knowing how to do things, maybe if he tried something different, it would work better. Maybe he should have been expecting her to get things done, instead of asking or coddling her. And if he gave her the time to figure it out, maybe she could do what he asked of her.
“Got it?” he prompted when she stood stock-still.
She swallowed and slowly nodded her head. “I got it.”
Their eyes met in a brief look. She finally nodded. She got what he meant. And it was far more than just closing up.
She licked her lips. “Thank you.”
He nodded back. “Goodnight, Lindsey. I’ll see you at seven tomorrow morning.”
“Seven?” She usually didn’t start until almost noon. Jessie only worked from twenty-five to thirty hours a week. Maybe Lindsey needed forty hours to do the same amount of work as Jessie did. “Yeah, you got my keys. I open at seven-thirty. So, I’ll see you, right?”
She nodded quickly. “Yes, yes, you will.”
He started after Hannah, before pausing and saying over his shoulder, “This job is more than paperwork. Start wearing more casual and appropriate clothes. I need for you to handle some of the more physical chores. No more heels. No more skirts. Got it?”
She slowly smiled. “No heels. No skirts. Got it.”
He nearly fell over when she smiled. She was, as his sister perceived, breathtaking.
Chapter Eight
Will stepped out onto the back deck and sat down next to Lindsey, who was staring out at the dark sky and land before her. The stars shone in brilliant, pristine dots and the land was swallowed up in emptiness. It was such a secluded, private spot where her sister now lived. Neither Jessie nor she had ever lived in such rural, remote surroundings. They’d always spent their childhood on Army bases around the world. They were never alone either.
Lindsey often sat out there because she liked the quiet and the vast emptiness. She also liked the fact that nobody could see or judge her. Soon, her breath came easier.
“How’s Jess?”
Will leaned back against the bench as he stretched his legs out. “Still whining that she can’t eat sugar.”
“She’ll be okay, Will. She isn’t like she used to be. She can handle this.”
“I know. Most of the time. There are moments, however, when that look comes into her eyes and I wonder where she’s gone. To Mexico? To her first child? To her father? Sometimes, I forget the hardships that brought us to where we are now. I told myself for a long time we could not even attempt to have kids. It would be too much for her. I couldn’t do it to her. But then, I thought, doesn’t she deserve that? So here we are. And why I pressed so hard for you to come.”
“You deserve it too, you know. She is better. She’s happy and stable. All she is now, Will, is a grumpy, pregnant, budding new mom, who craves sugar, but isn’t allowed to indulge her desire.”
He smiled finally and the grim, serious look left his face. “And you? How are you, Lindsey?”
“Why worry about me? I’m great.”
Will sighed deeply. “I’m not stupid. I know Elliot dislikes us. I know he let you come only on the condition that I support his campaign.”
Her smiled slipped. “How did you know?”
“Because he emailed me and asked me. He also reminded me what a sacrifice it was for him to let his wife be away from him for so long. I speak Elliot, Lindsey.”
She shut her eyes in horror. “I’m sorry, Will. I was planning to broach the subject eventually.”
“I’ll do it. For you. Only for you. Is he… is that what you want, Lindsey? I mean all of it? This political stuff he’s launching, and his grandiose plans? His strange compulsion to call you twelve times a day? If there’s anything you need, or want, you know you can trust me. After all you did for Jessie and me, I’d do anything I could for you.”
She turned her head, suddenly glad of the dark. She could tell him, but Will would probably leave her sitting there; and the next thing she’d hear was that her husband was dead by some mysterious means, and no one had a clue who did it. No one would ever know. She was confident Will would make sure of that. Will didn’t take kindly to men who beat up women. Men who beat her. But, no. Jessie needed Will. Her tongue grew thick. Why couldn’t she jus
t tell them? Or anyone else? But she couldn’t bear the thought of them realizing that the kick-ass officer who once helped rescue Jessie, now cowered in shame and indecision, allowing her husband to kick, hit, beat, and rape her, while remaining silent about it all. She could not tell anyone.
“Will, I know you and Elliot are different types of men. He’s a good man. He is planning to do great things for the world. And yes, I’m part of that. I’m okay. Really.”
“You don’t seem the same.”
“People change. Jessie has. So have I. My father wanted me to be the perfect daughter. Now, I want to be the complete opposite of the capable, competent officer he trained to always take a blind eye while he pimped my sister. So you know what? Of course, I’m different now.”
Will nodded. “Okay, that’s fair. I just wanted to check.”
“And you? Is all this okay?” She waved her hand to encompass the house, barn, and land surrounding them. “Is being out of the Army a big adjustment for you too? Working at the nine-to-five managerial job was not exactly something you ever planned on, was it?”
He shrugged. “No. I never planned on that. But then, who could ever have planned for Jessie Bains? Anyway, I still do the Reserves and that helps and gives me something of my former life.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Yes.” His answer was immediate and strong.
“Does Jessie know that?”
“Yes, of course.” He tilted his lips into a half smile.
“Do you regret giving it up?”
“No. I don’t. I wanted Jessie more than I wanted a lifestyle. Besides, your sister is about the most exciting person I’ve ever met or been around, so it’s not like even the ordinary is ever ordinary with her around.”
Lindsey smiled. “No, she’s never been dull.”
“She’s fun, Lindsey. Being with her and around her is always fun. I like it so the rest: where we live, and what I do, is okay. It should continue to get a little more okay as I get more used to it. But living without Jessie, or losing her, is definitely not okay for me.”
The Good Sister (Sister Series, #2) Page 9