Chapter Twelve
“Damn it, I want to go home,” Liz muttered to no one in particular. “This is stupid. I’m fine.”
A raised eyebrow from Jake, who was slouched in a chair next to the examination table with his eyes closed, made her want to throw the tissue box beside her at him.
She winced again as she shifted on the bed, her head throbbing.
The ice had done wonders, and the saline sinus rinse had stung like a son of a bitch, but her nose was clear now.
New tape across the bridge itched. All they were waiting for was a doctor to discharge her and tell her it wasn’t completely broken, of which she was already aware.
She’d broken her nose before, and this wasn’t that.
“You aren’t terribly patient for a horse trainer,” Jake remarked, and she turned to him, narrowing her eyes. His tall, wide frame barely fit into the chair, and as she glared at him, she remembered what it had felt like falling into that frame.
Shit. She’d already been lightheaded. Then—
“Seriously?” she muttered. “What would you know about it?”
Jake opened his eyes at that point, the brown depths much calmer than she felt, and she looked away.
“I dated a girl who owned a jumper farm in the Hamptons. Got the basics for sitting on a horse from her.”
“She used English saddles and jumped, then?” Liz asked. “Like at Spruce Meadows.”
“No idea where that is, but if they do that there, then yes.”
They lapsed into silence, the sounds of the clinic echoing around them.
Her head throbbed as she shifted, the ache radiating outward.
It was going to hurt more later, and she sighed, already feeling behind, knowing that tomorrow she would likely be relegated to work she could do from a desk instead of working all the horses they had in.
Summer was busy season, and every day mattered.
“Where is that damned doctor?” she muttered, and hopped off the edge of the table, holding the side for support. Her eyes caught Jake’s for a moment, and he tilted his head.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” she snapped.
“You say that a lot,” he replied, and sat up, quirking another eyebrow. “You don’t like relying on other people, do you?”
She gave him a dirty look, then leaned against the table, examining her hands. “No.”
“Me neither,” he said. He was doing the same, but then looked up at her, letting out a chuckle. “I hated it when people would wade their way in and help. I didn’t want it, would push them away, be a big dick.”
“Look, I’m sorry about earlier today. I really am,” she muttered. “My brain and my mouth don’t always connect.”
“Me too. All this—” He gestured around but was cut off when the door opened and a doctor poked his head in.
It was her ex, Darren. Of all the shittiest shit luck.
She frowned as his face went from amiable doctor to pressed-together lips and tension.
She knew he was not pleased to see her because his forehead was wrinkled in the way it did when he was frustrated by something.
He stepped into the room and closed the door.
“Well, Liz, who’d you beat up now?”
“Really?” she snapped, and folded her arms on her chest. “Could you not?”
Jake was looking back and forth between them, obviously surprised at their reactions to one another.
“Darren, this is my . . . Jake West. Jake, this is Dr. Darren Hollister.”
“Ah. The long-lost West brother we’ve all heard so much about,” Darren said as he stuck out his hand, and Jake sighed, stood, and shook it.
They nodded at one another the way men do when gauging if there was to be a territorial dispute or not.
Darren was bristling, his shoulders up, his stance wary.
Jake hadn’t changed his demeanor except his eyes had taken on that piercing quality both his brothers had when they were thinking too hard.
“Dr. Hollister,” Jake replied after a moment, his analysis of Darren done. He stood back, hands sliding into his jeans pockets, his body visibly relaxing when he added, “Can I take my prizefighter home?”
They both chuckled, breaking the tension as Darren motioned to Liz to sit back on the table. He took out his pocket light and turned to her. “I’ll just take a peek and then you should be fine to go.”
The idea of letting him touch her brought her shoulders up and she stiffened, leaning away from him. Darren sighed, Jake muffled a laugh, and she gave them both dirty looks.
“Just let me look, for god’s sake,” Darren muttered, and turned on the light.
“Be quick. I want to go home,” she snapped back.
“So, what does the other guy look like?” Darren joked again as he tilted her chin up and shone the light up her nose, peering through the magnifier.
“You’re lucky, there’s a cartilage crack, but it isn’t bad.
A good bash in the face that’ll mend on its own.
X-rays on your orbital socket were clean. ”
He shone lights at both her eyes, tilting her head left and right.
“Follow my finger,” he said, and she rotated her eyes to keep track of it as he moved from left to right, up and down. He tilted her chin up again and checked her jaw with light circles, frowning as he did, his entire body inches from her.
She held her breath, barely listening to him as he murmured “okay” and “fine” under his breath.
How many times in the past had he stepped close to her and tilted her chin up right before he’d kiss her?
She closed her eyes, wishing for the memory to go away, the hurt throbbing just under the surface.
All those times he’d been so sweet, the perfect boyfriend, but behind her back . . .
She jerked her chin out of his fingers the minute he finished, and glared at him, shoving her anger up like a shield.
His forehead wrinkles deepened and he stepped back, not meeting her eye.
Obviously it had affected him, too, which irked her even more, because it had been over a year now since he’d . . . since they’d split.
“I read that you had an accident at work, any specifics I can add? Were you kicked?” he asked as he looked at his clipboard again.
“Something about a horse’s nose bopping her full in the face,” Jake supplied when Liz didn’t answer, not trusting her voice. “She fainted, but she’s clearheaded, so I assume no concussion?”
“No, no concussion.” Darren sighed, tapping her chart on his leg impatiently.
“If there’s nothing else?” she spat back, and stood up again, anxious to get the hell out of the room.
Darren pressed his lips together into a thin line, and she waited for the profound Darren-ism that would always make her feel like the stupidest person in the world, the hayseed in a room of educated dicks. Not worthy of anyone with a brain in their head. Not worthy of him.
“She’s free to go. I’d like to say she should rest for a day, but I know she won’t. She never does,” he replied, turning to Jake.
“Oh my god. Seriously. Standing right here, asshole. You can talk to me, not him. He isn’t my keeper,” Liz snapped as she gathered up her sweater, and Jake gave her a sharp look.
“Liz,” Darren intoned, and gestured at her tiredly. “You never listen, so I’m hoping the new guy here will. He seems to give a crap about you, so maybe you won’t push him away like you do everyone else?”
With that, he stepped out of the room, and Liz closed her eyes. Shit. There it was.
“So, how long did you two date?” Jake asked quietly. “That looked strained.”
“We were engaged,” she practically snarled, and pushed past him out the door.
* * *
“I filled up the tank on the car before we came home.”
Jake found Peony in the massive living room after he’d stowed the car back in the garage.
It had been interesting to drive that land yacht, the size and thrum of the motor very different from any car he’d ever driven.
As he’d slid in behind the wheel, he’d caught a whiff of cigar, stale in the interior.
His father, no doubt. With Liz angrily avoiding talking, both all the way there and all the way home, he’d been able to simply listen to the car, the wheels on the road, and wonder about the man who drove it.
Another dose of Brett’s presence. He had so many questions echoing out into this place where he felt so foreign, and it seemed like there was no one to answer them.
New places were supposed to feel strange, but not with the edges of personal history he didn’t know.
His entire life had been in one city, and now he was reconciling another part of it that he had absolutely no memory of.
A life he’d been taken from, and been told was awful.
As he had driven home in the last of the day’s light, eyes following the tar-filled cracks on the highway, he wished he could be somewhere familiar so he could process it all better. The newness of his situation at every turn was muddling it all up.
He leaned on the door frame and Peony looked up from her book, her legs curled under her on the couch, slippers forgotten on the floor.
She was the picture of comfort, and it drew him in, wanting the same relaxation after a tense evening.
He lowered himself into one of the chairs, and she placed her bookmark between the pages with care.
Peony could be a ballbuster, he decided; everything she did was precise and careful, with complete confidence.
He wondered how much of it right now was out of wanting control over their situation.
“Thank you. Before she stomped off to her house, she told me she was fine and to not bother her,” she replied, and then smiled. “She’s headstrong and stubborn, my girl.”
“Her ex was the on-call,” Jake said.
“Well, now. That can’t have been fun.”
“Nope,” he replied. Silence enveloped them, and the clock on the mantel quietly ticked away. He could hear the birds outside, evening settling over the gardens around the house, putting the day to bed.