5. Dean
Chapter 5
Dean
My feet are planted on the floor, eyes scanning the entirety of the room before me.
Narrowing my eyes, I spy the big gray and black lump lying prone on the coffee table, looking innocent. His tail flicks back and forth. His annoyance at my mere presence on display for all to see.
“Where are my keys, you big jerk?”
Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I am not blaming the furball for stealing my keys without merit. It’s a game he likes to play at the most inconvenient time.
I’ve checked the usual hiding places: his cat house, the cat tree, the little box.
“Where did you put them last night when we came in?”
I turn to find Ness coming into the room, a bright yellow harness in her hands. She mutters to herself while she hunts for the lead that goes with it.
“I thought—I was sure—I put them in the bowl on the entry table. Maybe they fell to the tabletop? I really don’t remember. I had a half-naked woman in my arms, if you remember. I was rather preoccupied.”
She laughs softly. “Oh, I remember. I, too, don’t remember much after walking inside. They have to be here somewhere though. It’s not like they have legs and can just walk off on their own.”
“I am willing to bet money on your four-legged hell spawn being the culprit here.”
“Why are you harassing my cat?”
“He’s usually the guilty party here, love.”
Her face goes from slightly annoyed to amused. “Well, you may have a point there.”
I go back to looking around the house. I check the floor under the entry table and follow our normal path to the bedroom from there. I even went back out to the car to make sure I hadn’t simply left them in the ignition. It’s a valid option with my mind being on getting her up to the bed.
To say I had been distracted last night would be putting it lightly.
When I come back downstairs, I’m beyond pissed. I need that keyring. It has my room key, my office key, and the key for the supply closet in my office on it.
Paying to have more keys made for the office isn’t a big deal, except the fact that the key to my supply closet, which cannot be reproduced, is on it.
Glancing at my watch, I curse. “I’m going to be late if we don’t find them in the next five minutes.”
“Take my car; I have a full tank of gas. I’ll keep looking for your keys when we come back inside. They seriously have to be in here. Somewhere. I’m going to take Stanley out to the barn with me. I want to give the feed room a last sweep.”
“Aren’t you scared he’ll run off or some big bird will come scoop him up for a snack?” He might need to be scared by a hawk. It might just teach him to behave.
Look, I love animals. I honestly don’t mind this jerk when he isn’t taking my shit and hiding it in his litter box. Biting me when I put my arm around Ness. Or best of all, not attacking me when I walk by him. A few months ago, he tried to rip my junk off. That’s another reason he is no longer allowed in the bedroom. Imagine spending hours in bed, making love to your girl.
It had been a glorious night.
Until it wasn’t.
I’d gotten up to take care of the condom and to get a wet cloth to clean her up when the big idiot, who was laying on the long counter in the bathroom, waited until I was cleaning myself to reach out, his mitts outstretched. The second those claws dug into my flesh…I might have cried a little. I wasn’t happy with the shriek that left me either.
“I’m putting him in his harness. I have a thirty-foot lead; it’ll give him freedom but not let him free roam.”
“Too bad...” If the tone of my voice is a little snippy, so be it. Ness gives me a look, but I ignore it.
I watch her pick the big furball up and slip his harness on over his head. The effortlessness isn’t what has my full attention. It’s the keys laying on the table.
“Stanley!” She looks at the cat then at me.
The fucker had been laying on them this whole time. Watching me run around like a lunatic. I hurry to the coffee table and grab the keys.
“Damn devil cat! I swear you’re asking to be a barn cat.”
“He’s sorry.”
“No, he’s not. I gotta run.” I give her a quick kiss before heading toward the door. “Love you, be back in a few hours.”
“Love you too! Don’t drive like a maniac!”
Just before the door shuts, I hear her scolding the cat. If only that would work.
Chuckling, I head to my car and climb in. I have just enough time to get to campus and into my room. The faculty meeting, which normally met on Tuesday in the faculty lounge, needed to change this week to a Saturday thing. I’m not a fan of going in when I don’t have classes, but a few others will be there as well. The things we do to make others happy is never ending.
“Ness?”
I shut the front door, drop my messenger bag by the entry table. I almost drop my keys into the bowl that sits, ready and waiting, but change my mind. I turn to the closet that is just behind the front door. I put my bag into it and hang my keys on the hook that adorns the inner wall. It’s the same place where the keys for everything else hang. They should be safe there.
“Ness? Sweetheart, are you here?”
Her car is in the drive, so I know she’s home. I don’t see the devil cat on the couch or in his cat house. Maybe they’re still outside. I hurry upstairs, ready to change to go out and help. I stop in the doorway, the handle of the door still in my grip. My lips tip up into a smile. Ness lays sprawled out on the bed, naked as the day she was born. I try to be quiet while opening the door thinking she is asleep. Her shoulders are red, her back, where the tank top she wore earlier exposed skin, is red too. Not bad, but she isn’t as tanned as I am.
“Don’t just stand there.” She grimaces and rolls so she is looking at me. “I need a second opinion on something…”
Normally something like that would have me stripping down and volunteering to inspect her body with my mouth. Something in her voice though, it’s not right.
“What happened?”
She sighs and buries her face back in the comforter. She’s talking, but I can’t hear her. It’s like she’s become that voice of the teacher in the old Charlie Brown cartoons.
“Hey, how about you turn that pretty face so I can see it?”
She does, and I get to see her face.
“What the fuck happened?”
The left side of her face is already bruised. There is a goose egg at the temple, and her eyebrow is busted. It’s then, looking down at her, that I see she has scrapes along her arm. There is a cut along her hip. And her knee is busted up pretty good too.
“Roll over on your back, baby. Let me see what else is wrong. Tell me what happened.”
“I had a moment of grace about a half hour ago…”
Vanessa
My utter embarrassment is suddenly washed away by the concern in his eyes.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. I went from vertical to horizontal with a side of the world spinning around me so fast.”
“All right, what were you doing when that happened?” He is inspecting the cut on my hip.
I know that isn’t too bad. It bled for a minute then stopped. I think I caught it on a nail. I know he is going to make me go to the emergency room. The head injury is bad, but I don’t think I have a concussion or anything. My vision is fine, and other than the pain of the fall, I’m not experiencing anything else. The scrapes and the cut from a possible nail or two have me worried. I can’t tell you the last time I had a tetanus shot.
“I was trying to sweep out the back stall. There were leaves and debris in there. I had to go get the big shovel and a rake to help me out. I found the window above the stall ajar; I’m guessing that’s how things blew in. I got the other stalls clean before I started messing with windows. I got one side done with zero issues.”
My nose wrinkles up. That sends a sharp pain through my face. I grimace.
“Take it one thing at a time, yeah?”
“I was in the far-right corner. There were a few boxes of old magazines, newspapers; I’m sure they were used to line the chicken huts out back. It’s the kind of thing my gramps did when I was a kid. Anyway, I was pushing them to the side when?—”
A shudder rolls up my spine from my toes.
“What?”
I meet his gaze, frowning. “Freaking mice!” Another shudder runs through me.
“Some tough farm girl you are.”
“Hey, I am tough. I just don’t like rodents running at me. Anyway, I still don’t know what happened first.” Suddenly, I can’t hold back a chuckle. “It would have probably been one of those moments that would win the grand prize on America’s Funniest Home Videos .”
“Okay, so what you’re saying is, there needs to be cameras out there?”
I swat his chest. “No, God, just knowing I fell and busted my ass is embarrassing enough. I do think we need a barn cat or two, especially once we start getting animals.”
“We can do that. I’m sure there is an animal rescue or a pound somewhere close by.”
“It would be best to find kittens that will only know this place. Cats can return home. They know where they belong. Even if it takes them weeks. We had that happen at my Uncle Joe’s once. He gave a cat to another farmer who lived on the opposite side of the county. The cat returned two weeks later in bad shape, but he was happy to be home.”
“Okay, kittens then.” He runs a finger along my jaw. “But you still need to tell me what happened before I take you to the ER. They’re going to take one look at you and assume I did this. I need to know exactly what happened.”
“You wouldn’t do this to me.”
“You know that. I know that. They will not. Too many women walk into medical facilities with bruises and breaks because they ‘fell.’ Trust me, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
How could—no, scratch that. I know he’s right. There have been a lot of abuse cases that have popped up in the media as of late that have been going on for years. They’d come in because they fell, or they said they’d run into a doorframe. It was all utter bullshit.
However, I will be one of those women today. Just when I say I’d hit a wall, it would be true.
“I tripped on a box. My face hit the frame of the stall door. That metal piece where the lock goes. I scrambled up and that was when I tripped over Stanley. He’d come running in, ready to defend me, but that lead got wrapped around my foot. The ladder broke my fall when I knocked it over. That’s when my knee got knocked around. I don’t know where that cut on my hip came from. The metal doorframe, a rusty nail, the ladder. God himself is the only one who knows.”
He’s checking around my temple and then behind my ear as I speak. I hiss in pain as his fingers find another sore spot. His fingertips have a smear of blood on them.
“Dammit. I don’t know when that happened.” Frustrated tears prick at my eyes.
“It’s okay. Come on. Let’s get you dressed into something comfy. I hope they’ll take one look at you and get you straight back. Your face is darkening by the minute here. Do you hurt anywhere else?”
“My elbow is sore, but I don’t have any breaks in the skin that I could see. I hit it on the wall of the stall. I think.”
“We need to get you a work excuse. No way you’re going to work on Tuesday like this.”
“Afraid they’ll blame you?” I tease. Only half-heartedly.
“I don’t care about that. I just mean you’re going to hurt like hell tomorrow, but Monday you’ll feel worse. You’re going to need a few extra days off to recoup.”
“I look like I was in a bad car wreck.”
“That you do, baby.” He moves to the closet and pulls out a tank top, a pair of my leggings, and one of his t-shirts. The Green Day t-shirt is old but one of our favorites. He helps me get dressed.
The walk to the car is long; I know the next few hours are going to be nuts.