Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
T he heavy stomps of my boots bounce off the walls and cluster in my ears as I stride down the narrow corridor of Caramine Care. My heart is thrashing in my chest, still panicked about my earlier phone call with Daniel. Although he downplayed the seriousness of the situation, I’ve still arrived at Caramine Care within twenty minutes of his call. My grandmother means the world to me. She’s the woman who raised me, and the woman who owns a vast majority of my heart. All but the little snippet enlarging to accommodate Clara.
The instant Daniel’s message sounded through Clara’s ears, she slid off my lap and secured my shirt off the floor. She stood at my side biting her nails as I returned Daniel’s call. I didn’t need to speak for her to know the urgency of the situation. The concerned expression on my face told the whole story. I was gutted.
Although Daniel assured me my grandmother was comfortable and resting, I knew the twisted feeling in my stomach wouldn’t settle until I saw it with my own eyes. That sick feeling spread from my stomach to my heart when I suggested that Clara come with me. I tried to smother the panic in her eyes by pretending it wasn’t about her meeting my grandma, that it was just killing two birds with one stone. She could visit her friend while I checked on my grandmother’s condition. The soulless gaze that filled Clara’s eyes the night she was mugged returned stronger than ever.
She blinked back tears before mumbling, “Friend? What friend?”
Her chin quivered, exposing she knew exactly who I was referring to. Deciding to play stupid, I said, “The person you were visiting the day I bumped into you at Caramine Care.”
Any walls I crumbled between Clara and me the past twenty-four hours reformed before my very eyes. She took a stumbling step backward, her retreating strides only stopping when she crashed into the kitchen counter.
“I can’t visit her today,” she mumbled, her voice the weakest I’d heard. “I can only visit her the first Sunday of the month. It’s not the first Sunday of the month.”
“Visiting hours are whenever you want them to be,” I replied, my eyes drifting between her haunted ones. “You don’t have to stick to a schedule.”
Worry churns in my stomach when her pleading eyes stare into mine, begging for me to drop it. Her face is ashen, and her eyes are pained. I draw in a deep breath before briefly nodding my head. Relief fills Clara’s eyes. Although I want her to open up to me, I know if I push her too much, her retreating steps will reach my front door. Willing to do anything to ensure she will still be at my apartment when I return from visiting my grandmother, I simply drop the conversation and act like I can’t smell the fear oozing from her pores.
It is a fucking hard feat.
M y grandma’s rheumy eyes lift to the door when a creak announces my arrival. She sighs softly before shifting her gaze to the window illuminating her room with an orange hue from the afternoon sun beaming inside. My brows tack together when Penny—the nurse my grandma tried to set me up with—exits the bathroom adjoining my grandmother’s room.
Penny smiles a greeting as she saunters to my grandmother’s bedside. Any concerns about my grandma conjuring up a ruse to force Penny and me together dampen when my eyes zoom in on a bruise on my grandma’s wrist while Penny carefully checks her pulse.
After completing a set of observations on my grandmother, Penny mutters something quietly into her ear before gesturing to talk to me in the corridor. I lift my index finger in the air, requesting a minute. When Penny enters the hallway, I walk to my grandma. The twisted, sick feeling in my stomach intensifies when my eyes zoom in on a bruise on her right cheek.
Being mindful not to touch her bruise, I press a quick kiss onto her cheek before muttering, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
When my grandma’s gaze remains on the window, I spin on my heels and make my way into the hall. I cross my arms in front of my chest, hiding the shake of my hands before asking, “Is she okay? What exactly happened?”
Penny locks her green eyes on me. “We’re not exactly sure. Your grandma is a very spirited woman?—”
“Stubborn would be a more appropriate word,” I interrupt, mumbling.
Penny smiles softly. “We believe she took a tumble in the bathroom a couple of hours ago. ”
My heart beats triple time. “Hours ago?” The shortness of my reply doesn’t hide my anger.
Penny nods. “Yes. We only discovered the incident when another resident arrived at her room for an afternoon game of gin.”
“I thought you had protocol for stuff like this? Isn’t there an aide button installed in her bathroom?” I gesture my hand to my grandma’s door.
“Yes, there is. Grace refused to use it.”
I run my hand over the stubble on my chin. I shouldn’t have expected a different reply. My grandmother is so determined not to grow old gracefully. She refuses to use any device with the stigma of age attached to it. Her phone? The latest fandangle device Hunter could design. Her watch? A brand spanking new Apple Watch. No, I’m not kidding. The day I see my grandma shuffling behind a walker will be the day I announce I’m never tattooing again. It will never have a chance of happening.
Penny brushes her hand across my forearm. “Go easy on her. She’s still a little fragile after being informed her care is being upgraded from minimum to high.” My personal bubble pops when she takes a step closer to me. “We would really appreciate it if you could talk to your grandma about the possibility of having some grab bars installed in her bathroom.”
I jerk my chin up. “Yeah, I’ll have a talk with her now.” I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know what good it will do, but I’ll give it my best shot. Thanks, Penny, for all your help.”
“No worries,” she replies, her voice low and throaty. “If you need anything, Brax, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me.”
My brow arches. Even in the seriousness of my visit, there’s no way in hell I could miss the sexual ambiguity hidden in her statement. It is like seeing a pair of tits on a bull—obvious and shocking. Although Penny is no doubt beautiful, my cock didn’t stir the slightest from her offer. Not even a twinge. Twenty-four hours ago, I would have been panicked my cock was broken, whereas now, I’m beyond ecstatic it wasn’t riveted by Penny’s offer.
My cock only has one blonde on its radar.
Penny isn’t her.
After bidding farewell to Penny with a dip of my chin, I amble into my grandma’s room. She tries to maintain an irritated attitude, but her composure slips the instant I sit in the reclining chair next to her bed. She quirks her vibrant, red-painted lips as her world-assessing eyes bore into mine. My brow cocks when she inhales a big, undignified whiff through her nostrils. Her eyes widen as they bounce between mine.
Before I can ask what her odd behavior is about, she blurts out, “Joy by Jean Patou.”
I stare at her, shocked and confused.
“The smell of the perfume on your clothes. It is Joy by Jean Patou.” She inhales a quick breath, her expression astounded. “The last time I smelled that scent was when you came to visit me months ago. When you were in my room with Clara McGregor.”
I move my lips, preparing to speak. My words become trapped in my throat when my grandma cuts them off with a fierce glare.
“Don’t think you’re too big for me to take over my knee, young man. I may be half your size, but that won’t stop me from punishing a liar.”
I wave my hands in front of my body, calming the dragon. “I wasn’t planning on lying,” I mutter. I’m not that stupid. I have no doubt she’d spank my ass if I were ever caught lying to her. Seventy-eight or not.
“I was just going to say we aren’t here to discuss why I smell like women’s perfume…” I won’t lie, I’m grinning like the Cheshire cat at the fact I smell like Clara, “… we are here about your turn.”
“Turn, ha!” she says, spitting her words off her tongue in a malicious snarl. “The only thing that is going to have a turn is your backside when I give it a good walloping before marching you right out that door.”
Her eyes snap to mine when I mumble, “Do I need to start scrutinizing your reading material? What’s with your sudden fascination with spankings?”
She tries to keep her eyes stern, but the corners of her mouth tugging into a lewd smirk gives away her real composure. There’s the grandma I know and love.
After releasing a deep sigh, she mutters, “I had a little tumble.”
Scooting across the cool leather, I sit on the edge of my seat. “Have you been feeling unwell? Dizzy?”
A heavy line of worry indents her forehead before she mumbles, “A little.”
I try to hold in my growl. I fail.
“Only a little bit. Nothing to worry anyone about. I’m fine. Look at me,” she babbles, gesturing her hand down the front of her body.
In her head, she believes she’s gesturing to a twenty-something-year-old female, but all I see is a little old lady who hates the idea of getting old. I’m all for enjoying every day life gives you, but that doesn’t mean I want to see her getting hurt for being too stubborn to admit she isn’t as young as she once was. Her fall could be the result of something life-threatening or as simple as a low blood-sugar count, but with her refusal to acknowledge she needs help, we’ll never know.
Like she can read my thoughts, she says, “I’ll have a blood test… on one condition.” She connects her glistening baby blues with my eyes. “You have to tell me every detail as to why you have arrived at my room smelling like Clara McGregor.”
I arch my brow. “Every detail?”
“Every. Sordid. Detail,” she replies, her voice slow and calculated. “It couldn’t be any worse than the books I’ve been reading,” she adds on with a cheeky wink.
F orty-five minutes later, I’m leaving my grandmother’s room with a less heavy heart but a more twisted stomach. Although I kept my half of our discussion on a clean and even playing field, my grandmother threw out curveball after curveball. It is lucky my grandfather passed away six years ago, or I would have never been able to look him in the eye. The only good thing about being told stories that will give a grown man nightmares is that my discussion not only has my grandmother agreeing to have the blood workup Penny requested, she will allow them to install a grab bar next to the toilet and in the shower. It isn’t because she needs them. It is for any ‘visitors’ she may have. That statement had me vomiting in my mouth for the eleventh time in the past half an hour.
Slipping out of my grandma’s room, I take a left instead of my usual right. I need to ask Daniel to have the railings installed in my grandmother’s bathroom before she can change her mind. My quick strides slow to a snail’s pace when I walk past the room I spotted Clara exiting nearly six months ago. I’m taken aback when my eyes zoom in on a young woman lying still in the bed. I was expecting to see someone close to my grandmother’s age, not a lady in her early twenties.
My bewilderment grows when my eyes scan her room. From the technical equipment attached to the motionless female, I can easily derive she’s on a life-support machine. And from her frail and withered body, I’d say she has been on it for a long time. My heart pains for the young woman. It is terrible to see someone who should be in the prime of their life more fragile than my grandmother.
My eyes drift away from the young brunette when my name is called from a deep voice on my left. Daniel is standing halfway between his office door and the corridor. Noticing my stunned expression, he pushes off his feet and heads my way.
“I was unaware you knew Sophia,” he says, nudging his head to the door I’m standing next to.
“I don’t,” I reply with a brisk shake of my head.
Daniel seems surprised by my admission. I guess it would appear odd that I’ve stopped to gawk into Sophia’s room without knowing who she is. The only reason I stopped was because I remembered Clara’s rattled composure the day I bumped into her in this very hallway. Now her demeanor that day makes sense. I don’t even know Sophia, and I hate that she’s going through this. I can only imagine how hard it is for Clara.
I swing my eyes to Daniel. “Her last name isn’t McGregor, is it?”
I’m filled with relief when he briefly shakes his head. “No. Her name is Sophia Remy.”
My brows stitch as I try to recall the last time I heard that name.
When the reality slams into me, the twisting of my stomach extends to my heart.