“You know, before you? I never would’ve considered being caught dead in the drive-thru of those places.”
“So is that a yes? Or are you saying I’m bad for your health.”
“You better not be bad for my health. I’m counting on you to help me live through this hellhole.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad,” I said.
“Nope. It’s only as bad as walking across a bed of fiery coals.”
“Is your humor always this dark?” I asked with a giggle.
“If it makes you laugh, then yes,” he said.
I chanced a glance at him and I found his eyes staring at me. There was a small grin playing on his lips and it was hard to take my eyes off him. I settled for Wendy’s and pulled into the drive-thru, then Hayden did something I didn’t expect.
He leaned over my body to look at the menu.
He was pressed against me. Tightly. I could feel the chiseled features of his body as his hand rested between my legs to prop himself up. I felt my cheeks flushing furiously. I could feel his body heat radiating against my skin. His other hand settled on the chair behind my head, and I was eye-level with the sculpted muscles of his arm.
I resisted the urge to lean my cheek on it.
“For someone who wants me to eat well, this is a hell of a menu to offer,” Hayden said.
“Then order a salad,” I said breathlessly.
He slowly turned his head to meet my eyes and I could see a playfulness in them. Something I hadn’t ever seen before. A life in his eyes that made him even more beautiful than usual. I wanted to smile. To acknowledge that I saw it and that it was a good thing.
But I was too busy focused on his hand planted on the seat between my legs. Because if he moved it-- even a little bit-- we were in trouble.
“Welcome to Wendy’s, can I take your order?”
“Ah, yes,” Hayden said. “I would like two spicy Caesar salads, two medium French fries, and two small chocolate frosties.”
“Will that complete your order?”
“Is there anything else you want?” he asked.
I panned my gaze over to the menu as my palms began to sweat.
“Nope. Nope, I’m uh… I’m good,” I said.
“I’d like you to be great if we’re going to end this night with a game of Russian Roulette with my health,” Hayden said.
I just needed him to back away. To move and get out of my personal space. Because every time he talked, his lips moved. And every time his lips moved, I thought about all the places he could put them.
And that was wholly unprofessional.
“Then I’m great. Outstanding. Absolutely wonderful.”
“Yes,” Hayden said as his face grew closer to mine. “Yes you are, Grace.”
My eyes snapped over to him. My name. The sound of my name and how it dripped from his lips. I felt myself weakening to him. I felt myself leaning into him. My body was shifting and I felt my thighs grace the side of his arm. Our eyes were hovering. Holding one another in the damn drive-thru of a Wendy’s.
“That’ll be $17.42. Drive around, please.”
The voice from the box pierced the moment and Hayden settled back down into his seat. I cleared my throat and smoothed my hair from my face, then drove around to pay. I handed our food to him and he sat it all in his lap, and the rest of the ride back to his place was silent.
Which was fine with me.
Because my mind was screaming.
Chapter Twelve
Hayden
It was easy to open up to Grace. And ever since that movie we went to, I found myself wanting to do it more. Instead of cooping myself up in my room, I started enjoying more routine things with her. Quiet banter over morning coffee. Topical banter over lunch. And while her dinners were growing more and more terrible, I enjoyed winding down my days with her at the table. She really must’ve put her all into that first dinner she cooked for me, though. Because that meal had been spectacular.
My arm had finally healed and I was able to wheel myself around without pain. We had stopped the physical therapy on my arm completely and it was nice to feel a little more human. But the physical therapy in my hip was almost unbearable. I knew I had to prepare for my upcoming surgery, but it was rough. Thirty minutes of physical therapy and the pain alone had me sweating through my clothes.
Grace was an angel. Though that was something I wouldn’t admit to her. Didn’t want to fluff up that ego and kick up that attitude she had anymore than I already was. I took over cooking dinners from her so we could eat something a little more palatable, and she seemed to be grateful for it. The first night I cooked I whipped up steak and potatoes. The second night was a seafood linguini with a homemade white sauce, and the third night was a nice, juicy roast.
After that, she started assuming I was cooking dinner.
And the routine was nice.
We fell into a distinct dance. One that became more familiar and more enjoyed as the days rolled on. We woke up and had coffee before I would go clean myself up, then the two of us would sit together and read in the library until it was time for lunch. She’d pull out some things for sandwiches and I would grab some sides, then we would sit down and talk about the books we were reading. I found that she was a fan of old-school love stories. The kind where the man was a man and the woman was beautiful and succulent. The kind where a man knew exactly how to sweep her off her feet and the woman had no problems falling into his arms.
Her eyes lit up whenever she talked about them.
After lunch was an episode of NCIS to allow my food to digest, and then physical therapy was upon us. It was an hour of absolute torture, but I tried to focus on Grace’s hands. How they meandered up my leg and steadied my body as she rotated my hip joint. How her fingertips would slide into the band of my sweatpants and slowly pull them down my body. If I was lucky, her skin would graze mine, and that healthy flush her cheeks sometimes held would kick into overdrive.
Little by little, Grace was chipping away at the hard outer material I’d covered myself in after the accident.
After physical therapy was another clean-up session, only that one she would help me with. She would pull my shirt over my head and help me into a bath, and then I would discard my boxers once the water and the bubbles were covering my body. I wanted to pull her in with me. Strip her of her clothes and hold her against my body. I wanted to stroke my fingers down her neck and flutter them down her spine. I wanted to feel the curves of her body fill the crevices of my defunct one.
Just once.
Just one time to feel as if I was a man again.
I started dreaming about her at night. I’d see her innocent smile and her twinkling eyes and I’d wake up in a cold sweat. I’d reach for her in my dreams and end up pulling my pillow next to my body. She was permeating my entire existence, and it all started with that one damn dinner.
Why had I come out for that dinner?
It wasn't like me to be this captivated by a person. I made it a point to keep women at arm’s length for this exact reason. Women were distractions. And I couldn’t afford distractions with the company I was running. I finally had things back on track with the build in the Caribbean and my COO, Mike, had gone down there to set the record straight with that contracting company. I’d finally gotten Alicia promoted to Project Manager and I had just hired another receptionist that was being trained.
Things were finally looking up, and the last thing I needed was a distraction like Grace.
But every time I tried to push her away again, it didn’t work.
Suddenly, my mind was wandering to all sorts of things. We’d be sitting in the library and I’d look up and wonder if she’d let me sit beside her. We’d been doing physical therapy and I’d wonder if she would allow her hand to travel just a little to the left. To fall into the dip of my thigh. Whenever we were drinking coffee in the morning and she was staring off into space, I’d wonder if she would want this.
If a life in my
penthouse apartment was something she would accept if offered to her.
She could wake up every morning and stare at the sun rising over the city like she did. She could fall asleep in my arms every night after I carried her to the bed myself. She could experience the feeling of being the woman she wanted to be instead of having to lose herself in those books simply to experience it.
I could give her the man she wanted.
The man she needed.
The man she craved.
But when I was back to being a billionaire with a company to run and constantly on-call and taking business trips, would she want all that? Would those kinds of moments be enough when I was called away during dinner dates or personal vacations or in the middle of arguments?
Would it be enough for a woman like her?
I saw the stolen glances. The moments where I thought she wasn’t paying attention. I knew she had her eyes on me. She played a good hand in trying to keep it concealed, but there were moments where she simply couldn’t. Moments where her hands would tremble as they massaged my bare thigh and moments where she would help me into the bath and I could feel her holding me a little longer than usual before putting me into the water.
She craved me. And I her.
Then, it changed. One morning I woke up and Grace wasn’t out there making coffee. In fact, the coffee pot looked like it hadn’t been touched. No mugs were out and no lights were on. Her favorite part of the morning was already beginning to wane and she was nowhere in sight.
And the panic that gripped my stomach was unbearable.
I wheeled through the house, throwing open every door to try and find her. The laundry room. Her bedroom. Her bathroom. My bathroom. I checked the library and behind the couches. I checked underneath the breakfast table and around the bend that separated the living room from the bedrooms.
Then I rolled myself to the bottom of the stairs and prepared to throw myself onto them.
If Grace was upstairs and she was hurt, I was going to get to her. Whether or not my fucking leg worked.
But before I could, I heard a key slip into the front door. I whipped around in my chair as my eyes hooked onto the door swinging open. And there, with her hair piled high and her makeup running underneath her eyes and her baggy clothes wrapped tightly around her body… was Grace.
Holding two cups of coffee.
“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “We’re out of coffee and I didn’t know. I hope that place up the street is good because that’s where I went.”
My heart slammed heavily against my chest as the panic began to recede.
Grace was okay.
She wasn’t hurt.
And I was way too attached.
“Hayden? You okay?”
Her voice snapped me out of it and I began rolling myself into the kitchen.
“We can go to the store later and get some more,” I said.
“Hayden, you seem upset.”
“Does the coffee have cream and sugar?” I asked.
I whipped my head around and saw Grace cock hers at me.
“Not yours, no,” she said.
“Good. Come sit. I’ll get us some fruit.”
“Hayden, are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“I never said I was or wasn’t. Come and sit, Grace.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you if I did.”
“You didn’t,” I said quickly.
I drew in a deep breath as my eyes closed tightly.
“You didn’t,” I said as I let out a sigh.
“Okay,” Grace said meekly.
And it was the truth. She hadn’t worried me. She scared me. Frightened me.
Made me vulnerable.
And I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
Chapter Thirteen
Grace
The consultation appointment for Hayden’s surgery was today and I was a nervous wreck. And I wasn’t really sure why. It was just a consultation appointment for a hip surgery. Probably a replacement would be necessary to regain his full mobility. It wasn’t that big of a deal and Hayden seemed to be in great spirits, so why was my mind flying out of control? The nurse in me was taking over. Fumbling through every hiccup that could go wrong on the table. From fat embolisms that produce fatal heart attacks all the way down to nicked arteries that force him to slowly bleed out over the course of forty-eight hours.
It was all tumbling around in my head as we drove to the hospital.
The car ride was silent, and I was glad it was. I knew Hayden had a lot on his mind, and I had a lot on mine. I white-knuckled the steering wheel as we pulled into the parking lot, my nerves getting the best of me.
“Grace?”
“Yes?” I asked.
Yikes. I’d said that a bit too loudly.
“Are you all right?” Hayden asked.
“I’m fine. Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Keep yourself up all night worrying about me?”
I looked over and saw the shit-eating grin on his face and felt my cheeks flush.
“Not necessarily,” I said.
“You’re a terrible liar, Nurse Grace. Now, let’s go figure out what the doctor can do to get me to walk again.”
I rolled my eyes as he unhooked his seatbelt.
I pulled his wheelchair out of the back of my car and set it up. Then I helped him into it before we approached the hospital entryway. He was getting very good at wheeling himself around, especially since his shoulder and his ribs were completely healed. I had problems not staring at his muscles, however. His arms had grown and his veins bulged more and more everyday, and it was hard not to imagine his arms wrapped around me.
I shook my head as the two of us stepped into the elevator.
“I have a feeling I know what the surgeon’s going to suggest,” I said.
“Then enlighten me with that mind of yours,” Hayden said.
“They’ll probably suggest a hip replacement. It’s the easiest solution, but it does come with serious recovery time. If you get the best hip replacement joint, it’ll last you about twenty years. But you’ll have it replaced again at least twice in your lifetime.”
“So this won’t be the only time I go through this,” he said.
“No. I’m afraid it won’t be. But it’ll get you up on your feet within a few weeks, and after two or three months you’ll be walking around unassisted like it never happened,” I said.
“Great,” he said flatly.
I knew he wasn’t happy with my answer, but in my eyes there was no other option. The elevator doors opened and Hayden wheeled himself out, whipping around the corners with the anger that flowed through his veins. I closed my eyes and tried to prepare myself for the surgical consultation. There would be a lot of questions about his care thrown my way and I knew Hayden wouldn’t enjoy all the answers I had to give to the man.
I was hoping things wouldn’t go drastically wrong with this.
Hayden knocked on the door and a gruff voice asked us to come in. He opened the door despite me trying to reach over and do it for him, and he shot me a look before he wheeled in. Great. Hayden was angry. I told him he’d be walking in a few weeks and somehow I was the bad guy.
Wonderful.
“Mr. Lowell, it’s an honor to meet you. I’m Dr. Campbell, and I’ll be the one performing your surgery. And this must be your in-home nurse, Miss… Grace Hunter?”
“That’s me,” I said with a smile.
“Very nice to meet you. Take a seat,” the doctor said.
“It’ll be nice when that statement’s directed at me,” Hayden said.
I looked at the doctor and apologized with my eyes before he started flipping folders open.
“So I was taking a look at your accident and the damage you sustained was pretty extensive,” the doctor said. “How are you doing with your recuperation?”
“Shoulder’s fine. Wrist’s fine. Ribs are healed,” Hayden said.
The doctor shot me a look and
I rolled my eyes. He chuckled and I saw Hayden shoot his gaze over to me. I crossed my legs and tried to suppress a smile, but Hayden’s eyes were boring a hole into my forehead.
“Nurse Hunter, how has his overall care been going?” the doctor asked.
“I can answer that for you,” Hayden said.
“I need a little more than clipped comments. I need to make detailed notes about your nutrition, your ability to stay with your medications and your physical therapy schedule. I also need notes on your mental status.”
“I’m fine in all those areas,” he said.
“I get that you’re ready to do this surgery,” the doctor said, “but I need more than that. Your nurse understands how this has to go because it will affect the procedure I use to get you up and moving.”
“Wait, what?” I asked.
I watched Hayden’s eyes light up as he turned his head back towards me.
“There are different procedures we can use to get Mr. Lowell up and walking, but a lot of that depends on how he’s been for you. So, let’s start with his nutrition.”
“What kind of procedures?” I asked.
The doctor looked at me as he furrowed his brow lightly.
“Answer my question, please.”
“Sorry. Um… well, his nutrition’s fine now. I’ve gone to great pains to keep good fatty meats and fresh foods to prepare for Mr. Lowell.”
“Though I took over all the cooking a couple of weeks back. Grace is terrible at it,” Hayden said. “We frequently have salmon. Steamed vegetables. Fruit salads. Freshly-pressed juices. Things like that.”
The doctor grinned at me as I sank a little into the back of my chair. And of course, now that there were ‘other procedures’ on the table, Hayden was more than willing to cooperate.
Spoiled brat.
“Nurse Hunter, how is he with medication?” the doctor asked.
“He’s fine with it, to a point. Sometimes I can’t get him to take his pain medication because he’d rather suffer through the pain then risk addiction, I suppose. But when it becomes unbearable, I can get him to take it.”
I watched the doctor make a note as his eyes flew up to Hayden.
April Embers_A Second Chance Single Daddy Firefighter Romance Page 44