Chapter Three
Kelsi
“What are you doing here?” My tone is admittedly irritated, though I’m not sure why. In reality, I’m over the moon happy to see Brooks standing in the hospital room doorway, even if I do look like a steaming hot pile of trash. Seriously, I’m on day three of not washing my hair, I’m wearing no makeup, and hospital lighting doesn’t do a girl any favors.
“I’m makin’ sure you don’t do anythin’ else stupid,” he groans lowly, sending a tingle up through my spine and down again.
Why does this gruff man do it for me? There are nice men everywhere. Men who won’t enter a room quite so aggressively. Men who whisper sweet nothings. I need one of those men.
“Stupid?” I sigh. “Really?”
“Yeah, stupid. Like runnin’ back to L.A. to shine Johnny’s shoes.”
“Oh God, we’re doing a thing.”
“We’re still doin’ a thing,” he repeats and steps into the room with a box from the bakery and a grocery bag from the market. “You had a list in the truck. Not sure if it was old or not, but figured everyone could use bread and lumberjack cinnamon rolls.”
“And the flowers?”
“Oh,” he glances down at the handful of daisies in his hand, “I saw these along the way and thought you’d like ‘em. Well, the old you would’ve liked them. I’m sure you’re used to gettin’ designer bouquets from all the men out in California now.”
Daisies are my favorite. He used to pick them for me on his way home from work at least a couple times a week. There’s something about a hand-picked bouquet that’s so much sweeter than anything store bought.
“You really think those guys in L.A. are out to get me?” I take the flowers from his coarse hand. I forgot how rough they are. “I’ll always prefer wildflowers. Thank you.” I breathe in the soft scent and try not to smile, but it’s useless.
I’m thankful for something that covers the sterile stench of bleach and alcohol surrounding me, though I’m not sure what to do with the big feelings I’m having. It’s so good to be back in his presence again. It’s not that I can’t take care of myself, I’ve been doing it for years now, but there’s something so comforting about having this great, big, rugged man next to me. It’s like anything could happen and he’d be there to make everything okay again.
“Well,” he brushes his hand down over his salt and pepper beard, “you’re gorgeous.”
“And na?ve,” I quip.
“And na?ve.” He grins and hands me the box of cinnamon rolls with a cup of coffee. The strong vanilla and cinnamon scents center my mind. They don’t make food like this in California. Heck, I’m not sure they make food like this anywhere else. The sugar is sweeter, the portions are bigger, and the way every flavor fills my soul is perfection.
“Well,” I say, biting into the cream cheese covered roll, “believe it or not, the men in California don’t do it for me. Everyone I’ve met is a real tool, to be honest.”
He tilts his head to the side. “It’s understandable. You were used to real men.”
I laugh. “Real men? Who was the real man I was used to?”
“Ha. Ha. Cute. How’s the food?” He bites back a grin that makes my heart beat faster. Why does he have to be so gorgeous and perfect? Why does he have to have that deep voice, that scent of the woods on his skin, that slightly broken look on his face that makes me want to fix everything that’s wrong about his life?
I have issues. Issues that cinnamon rolls are not currently fixing. Lord, help me.
“It’s delicious. You want one?”
“Ate two on the way here. I’m good. They do x-rays yet?”
“Sure did. Just waiting on results. You don’t have to stick around. I’ll be okay.”
“You need a ride home after all of this. What are you gonna do with your dad’s truck?”
I drag in a deep breath and let it out slowly as I try to conjure the words I’ll say to my mother to let her know her prized possession is destroyed. “Not sure. My mom is pretty emotionally attached to it. I mean, it still smells like him. It’s a time capsule. She goes out to sit in the truck just to feel close to him. I don’t know what I’m gonna tell her.”
“I’ll have it hauled to one of my buddy’s shops. He’ll at least give us an idea of what can be done.”
“You have a buddy who does everything, don’t you?”
“I’ve lived here my entire life. If someone owns a shop up here, I know ‘em. I’m sure he’ll help us figure it out. If he can’t get it street legal, I’ll fix what I can on it so you can get something out of it.”
I love that about Brooks. If he doesn’t know how to fix something, he figures it out. Men like that don’t exist anymore, and they’re certainly not in California.
If I were categorizing L.A. men, which I’m not, I’d say they’re a specific breed. They’re the kind of men that like themselves most of all. That would never work for me, not even for a night.
“I don’t know. That thing was pretty smashed to hell.” I take a sip of the coffee as the doctor steps into the room. He’s a short, balding man who wears a pinstriped shirt with a pocket protector. I don’t recognize him, which lets me know how long I’ve been gone. There was a day when I knew every face in town.
“Good morning.” The older man smiles as he says, “Kelsi, I know your mom. How’s she recovering from that stroke? I keep meaning to drop by with some banana bread, but the days get busy here.”
“Oh! Yeah, she’s recovering nicely. Thank you. It was only a minor event, thankfully. I’m just here to make sure she takes it easy for a while.”
“That’s nice.” He glances down at his clipboard. “Well, you’re going to need to remain stress free for the next forty-eight hours. There’re no major issues, but we’re going to treat you as though you have a concussion.”
Flashes of every movie I’ve seen about concussions come crashing into my psyche. I wonder what would happen if I lost my memory? Would Brooks replay a video for me every day and take me on a series of first dates? I bet he would. In fact, I bet he’d like the challenge of trying to get me to remember. Still, though, I hope it doesn’t come to that.
“No, you should look again. I feel totally fine. I don’t even remember hitting my head.”
“Well,” the doctor sits on a rolling chair beside me, “you had a significant accident. The CT scan shows a bit of swelling on the brain. Most of the time, that swelling goes down, but sometimes, the swelling increases, and you can experience temporary losses in memory and motor function. You need to have someone caring for you the next couple of days. You have to keep things low key. Nothing exciting. No heavy activity, no screens, no—”
“No screens?”
“The screens cause strain on your eyes, which could increase the swelling.”
“Okay,” I grin nervously, “but I have a script to finish for the new Johnny Nicholson movie. It’s kind of important.”
Brooks stands and pulls a paper towel down from the dispenser beside the bed. I’m thinking he wants it for himself until he reaches onto my face and wipes it clean. “Sorry, you had frosting drippin’ from your chin. It was distracting.”
Awesome! The humiliation keeps multiplying!
“You should listen to the doctor,” he grunts. “Johnny Nicholson can wait.”
“No, Johnny Nicholson can’t wait! The production company needs these changes or I’m gonna lose my job.” I glare toward him, studying his heavy brows as I lecture him. “Do you know how many writers there are in the world? Everyone wants this job. The fact that I got it is a miracle.”
He shrugs. “You’re rewritin’ someone else’s ideas. This isn’t what you wanted, baby. You wanted to write your own novel. You wanted to be published, and to be in the New York Times.”
“Oh my God!” I shout, then drag in a deep breath as the doctor steps forward.
“You really do need to remain calm, Kelsi. Your blood pressure can’t be going up and down like this.”
“Well then, you’re going to have to tell that guy to leave because he doesn’t know how to shut his mouth. It’s the reason I left in the first place.”
“Really?” Brooks hisses. “I’m the reason you left?”
I roll my eyes and hang my head as I try to steady my breathing. I shouldn’t have been so harsh. I think he’s trying to me nice, in his own way, and I didn’t really leave because of Brooks.
The doctor lands his hand on my shoulder. “Do you have anyone who can care for you for the next forty-eight hours?”
“No. I lost most of my ties here when I moved, and my mom is recovering herself.”
“Well, you can stay here at the hospital for the next two days, but I should warn you that insurance typically doesn’t cover that kind of treatment. You’d be looking at some major hospital bills. Could be close to forty grand.”
“ Forty grand! For two days? I could go to space for that amount of money. Are you kidding? How are you screwing people over like that?”
“We’re not screwing people over. It’s the price the insurance sets. I’m sorry.” The doctor glances toward Brooks. “I’ll give you two a moment to figure things out.”
My eyes close and I let go of a heavy breath. “I think you should go.”
Brooks laughs. “Okay. Who do you want me to call to take you home?”
My mind rattles through the number of people I know out here, hoping someone I hadn’t thought of before skips into mind, but a big fat zero is all I see. I could call a friend from L.A. and fly them in to take care of me, but everyone is busy, and I hate being a burden.
“Like it or not, I’m your only choice,” Brooks grumbles.
“And what about my mom? Who’s going to watch her? She’s still at risk for another stroke.”
“I’ll stay at your place.”
“You’ll stay at my house with me and my mother?” My brows narrow as I try to figure his angle. Surely, he doesn’t want to get back together after all the arguing.
“Of course.” He grins as he says, “You’re desperate, and I like the scent of desperation. It means you’ve gotta do something to make it up to me.”
“Oh God,” my clit throbs despite my outward disapproval, “I’d rather take my chances with the brain swelling.” I kick my feet out of bed and pull off the monitors, sending a series of beeps into the nearby nurse’s station.
“You’re not riskin’ your life because you’re stubborn. I’ll sleep on the couch for a couple of days. It’s no big deal. I’ve got a ton of work to catch up on, anyway. There’s this MC group that moved into town and wants to open another bike shop. I’ve gotta figure that out, and then sign off on all the final paperwork for this playground everyone’s been working on. There’s just one thing. You’ve gotta tell me I wasn’t the reason you left.”
I roll my eyes, ignoring his request. “Oh yeah, you’re thirteen jobs. I remember. How’s all that going for ya?” I grin and reach for my street clothes on the counter behind the bed.
“It keeps my mind off the things I don’t wanna think about.”
“That’s the way you like it, isn’t it?”
“Just say what you want to say.” He stands, his massive body beside me as the scent of pine emanates off his skin. “Why don’t you get it all out, so we don’t have to do this passive aggressive thing the entire time you’re tryin’ to recover.”
“We don’t need to talk about how you bury every feeling you have in a million tasks, so you don’t have to feel anything. And that maybe… if you’d stopped doing that, you’d see what it is you really want out of life, and you wouldn’t have to be jealous that your brother has a wife and kids.”
He laughs. “Oh, please. I’m not jealous, and I told you what I wanted. You knew I needed you, and you ran off anyway, because you thought there was better.”
“Oh my God! I worshiped you. I would’ve done anything to make you happy, Brooks. I left because I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime, and you didn’t come because you couldn’t leave Rugged Mountain.”
The weight of his body shifts back, and his arms cross over his chest. “Look at me, Kelsi. I’m not built for tiny sidewalk chairs and city apartments. I’m a giant. I wouldn’t fit in California. All I know is that I went to bed one day lovin’ you and woke up the next to you gone.”
“It was not that simple. We fought for weeks, months maybe. You didn’t want to get married. You didn’t want kids. You didn’t want anything other than work.”
“Yup,” he rubs the back of his neck and glances toward me, “remember it how you will. We were in love, Kelsi. You wanted to move for work, and I wanted you to stay here and focus on your dreams. You felt trapped, and you left.”
“Right.” I laugh under my breath as the doctor pulls back the curtain. I wonder how much of our conversation the entire medical staff is absorbing.
“We make up our mind on where we’re going?”
I exhale loudly, frustrated with this entire morning. “Not—”
“Yes,” Brooks interrupts. “I’m taking her home. She’ll be safe with me, and she knows it.”
“Are you okay with that, Kelsi?” The doctor’s words sound kind, but they’re tinged with a bit of annoyance. At least I think it’s annoyance. I could be projecting given that I’m annoyed, though my annoyance is coming from a different place than it usually does, and I’m not fully sure how I’d classify all of this. It’s more of an emotional discomfort. A reality check that I wasn’t expecting, which is well… annoying.
I glance toward Brooks. He’s leaned against the door frame, nearly filling it up. Why does he have to be so insanely hot? The man is a god. Tall and broad. Inked and bearded. Rough and rugged. He’s everything I’ve looked for in everyone over the past five years, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him again.
Sure, the last few hours have been stressful and we’ve both built some pretty solid walls over the past five years, but there’s an attraction between us. A pull. A chemistry beneath the surface that we’re both fighting.
“Yes,” I finally say to the doctor, unsure of what I’m getting myself into. “He can take me home.”