No Good For Anyone (8 page)

“You’re not okay,” Chace said. “You need to see a doctor. Your wrist is hurt.”

“I’m
fine.”

“Stop trying to stand up!” Chace said. “Jesus Christ!”

She sat.

“Good,” he said. Then he reached down and put his arms around her, guiding her up off the floor. She smelled like strawberries and peppermint, and something else, something that was just Lindsay. He was hit with a wave of longing, remembering the night they’d spent together, how she’d looked that morning when she came downstairs wearing just his t-shirt. Her hair had been tousled and long, her eyes rimmed with last night’s make up. She’d looked sexy and gorgeous, innocent and vixen-like at the same time.

The strength of the emotion shocked him. It was a year ago that had happened, a year since he’d let himself feel anything even close to what he was feeling now. He knew he should take a step back, but he couldn’t think of anything but the fact that he needed to protect her.

“I’m fine,” Lindsay kept saying, repeating it over and over again, like if she said it enough it would be true.

“Oh, yeah? Let me see your wrist.” She held it up. It hung there limply, and it was already starting to swell.

“I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I just landed on it the wrong way. It’s just a little sore.”

He ignored her, grabbing his coat off the hook behind the kitchen door, then leading her into the dining room.

“Can I have your attention please?” he said to the preservation society ladies.

“We’ve had an emergency here. This poor woman – ” he pointed at Lindsay “--has fallen and hurt her wrist very badly.”

A murmur rushed through the crowd as the old women looked at each other.

Emergencies were something they understood.

“Finish your meal,” Chace told them, “and it’s all on the house. Chuck will help you with anything you need.” He looked behind him to where Chuck was standing by the kitchen door.

Chuck nodded.

There was another excited ripple through the crowd as Chace guided Lindsay outside.

But as soon as they hit the parking lot, someone began calling after them.

“Hey! Hey! Wait!”

He turned around. Shit. It was the crazy mother. Chace had forgotten all about her.

“Oh, Lindsay!” she wailed, rushing toward them. “What
happened?”

“It’s okay, ma’am,” Chace said. He remembered Lindsay telling him about her mother’s tendency to overreact, and how it annoyed Lindsay and only made her feel worse. “Lindsay hurt her wrist, but I’m taking her to the emergency room.”

“Lindsay hurt her wrist!” the woman exclaimed, like Chace had just told her Lindsay had been in a knife fight.

“Yes,” he said patiently. “But I’m taking her to the doctor now. It’s going to be fine.”

“Oh, my God!” The mother twisted her hands in front of her, then fluttered them like she was some kind of bird. “How is she going to type? She has a mortgage now, you know. I was always telling her she should have gotten that disability insurance, it’s the kind of thing young people never want to think about, but with her insisting on being self-employed, I told her she really– ”

“Yes, well,” Chace said, wondering why she was talking to him as if Lindsay wasn’t standing right there. “Lindsay will call you as soon as she’s done.”

He didn’t wait for her answer, just steered Lindsay toward his truck and opened the passenger door. Lindsay got inside, and he shut the door behind her before heading for the driver’s side.

“You doing okay?’ he asked as he slid in next to her.

She nodded, but her face had gone white. “Do you think it’s broken?”

“No.” It was true. He’d been on the soccer team in college and had been involved in enough “adventures gone wrong” -- bar fights, dares, stupid ideas – to know what a broken bone looked like. “If it was broken, you’d be screaming.”

“It hurts,” she said, “but not enough to scream.”

He handed her the bottle of water that was sitting in the cup holder. “Drink this.”

“Thanks,” she said, taking a sip.

He didn’t deserve her thanks. If he hadn’t been messing around like that, making fun of her for working at Bob’s Big Boy, none of this would have happened. She would be safe and sound in the booth of the restaurant, her biggest worry being how she was going to get rid of her annoying mother.

His jaw set as he pulled out of the parking lot. It was the first time he’d had someone he cared about in the car with him since… well, in a long time, and it was making him anxious.

Ten minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of Cape Cod Hospital, and he got Lindsay out of the car and inside.

The ER was surprisingly deserted.

A bleach blonde receptionist handed them a clipboard with forms to fill out.

Lindsay insisted on trying to do it herself, but since she was right-handed, and that was the wrist she’d hurt, the clipboard kept falling to the ground.

“I’ll fill them out,” Chace said finally.

She opened her mouth to protest, but he shot her a look that let her know he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She nodded, then recited the information to him so he could write it down.

When the nurse came out to call her in, Chace stood up.

Lindsay looked at him. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.” Right. Of course he wasn’t going in to see the doctor with her. That would be ridiculous. So even though every fiber of his being was screaming at him not to let her out of his sight, he sat back down.

She was gone for what seemed like forever. He paged through a copy of Sports Illustrated, but he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was reading. All he could think about was Lindsay.

When she finally emerged, she looked much better. Her face had returned to its normal color, and her wrist was in a splint.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Now he could get her home and take care of her.

And then he saw the look in her eyes. It wasn’t one of gratitude that he was there to drive her home, or even one of anxiousness about her injury. No. All that flashed in Lindsay’s eyes now was pure, red hot anger.

***

Her wrist had only been sprained, which was a relief. A broken wrist, the doctor told her, would have required a cast and a six week rest period. There was no way she could afford to take that much time off, not with the deadlines she had and the fact that she wouldn’t get another check until she turned her book in.

She was given a splint to wear, with strict instructions not to use her wrist for two days. She was supposed to ice it every few hours, and take a double dose of ibuprofen every six. Once she found out she was going to be fine, the shock of what had happened began to wear off. And along with it went her gratitude to Chace for taking care of her.

Now she was just pissed. She wouldn’t have been in the kitchen in the first place if Chace hadn’t been messing with her. Of course, it had been her decision to go back there, but still. He was so antagonistic. Like how he’d just shown up at her house last night, accusing her of stealing his dog. And this morning! Chace had come over demanding she let him fix her fence, and then took his shirt off right in front of her! What a show off.

He was one of those ridiculously good-looking men who thought they could get away with anything because of their looks and charms. God, it made her angry.

She stormed into the waiting room, intending to give him the silent treatment for the rest of her life. He was sitting exactly where she’d left him, a magazine open in his lap. When he saw her, he stood up. He looked so concerned and worried that she almost believed it.
Almost.

She stomped over to the receptionist window and paid her bill, then walked right outside to the parking lot. She waited by the passenger side of his truck, and as soon as he unlocked the door with the key fob, she pulled on the handle with her left hand and got in.

She didn’t need to be taken care of. She wasn’t some damsel in distress, or some silly schoolgirl he could just have sex with and toss away, like that girl he’d brought home the other night.

He got inside and started the car, guided it out of the parking lot and onto the main road.

She decided to forget the silent treatment and start yelling at him, but she didn’t know where to start. She ran through a bunch of different openings in her mind, but none of them seemed fitting.

“I’ll pay the medical bill, of course,” he said after a few moments.

“You’re damn right you will.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, saw his face harden and his grip on the steering wheel tighten.

“What did the doctor say?”

“He said I could sue you if I wanted.” It was a lie. Doctors obviously couldn’t give legal advice, but she wanted to get him all riled up, and this seemed like the easiest way to do it.

“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“Doctors don’t say things like that. They’re doctors, not lawyers.”

“Well, this one has a brother who’s a lawyer,” she improvised. “A big time personal injury lawyer. The doctor sends all his injured patients to his brother, and then the brother sues them for millions of dollars and wins.”

Chace shook his head. “That’s illegal.”

“It’s not illegal,” she said, not having any idea whether or not it was true. “It’s just, you know, a grey area.”

“A grey area?” He shook his head. “Listen, if you’re thinking about suing me, you should just say, ‘hey, I’m thinking about suing you.’ Don’t go making up some bullshit story about a nefarious doctor and his shark lawyer brother.”

“It’s not made up!” God, he was infuriating. “And I am thinking about suing you.

For lost wages, and pain and suffering.”

He looked at her, his dark eyes meeting hers. “You don’t look like you’re in much pain.”

“That’s because they gave me some ibuprofen.”

His forehead wrinkled. Somehow, it made him look sexier than ever. “They gave you over-the-counter pain relievers and yet you’re in so much agony you feel the need to sue me for pain and suffering?”

“That’s for the jury to decide,” she said ominously, hoping she sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

He shook his head and drove the rest of the way to her house in silence. When they pulled into her driveway, Lindsay reached over her bad right hand and opened the door with her left.

When she got to the front porch, she could feel him watching her from the truck, just waiting for her to struggle so he could swoop in and save her. Well, he was going to be disappointed. She didn’t need anyone to save her, least of all Chace Davenport.

When she finally got inside, she threw her purse on the kitchen table and then collapsed onto the couch. Suddenly, she was exhausted. The day had taken its toll. She knew she should call her mother and tell her what had happened -- she had three missed calls from Sylvia on her cell phone.

She would rest her eyes for one minute, she told herself, and then she’d call her mom.

But a few seconds later, Lindsay was fast asleep.

C
hapter
S
ix

When Chace got back to The Trib, he found the place in complete disarray. The Boston Ladies for the Preservation of Cape Cod may have thought of themselves as fancy and refined, but they’d made a huge mess. Dirty dishes littered the tables, napkins had been tossed on the floor, and tables had been haphazardly pushed together and never returned to their rightful places.

It was going to take hours to get everything cleaned up, so Chace cancelled the dinner service and spent the evening with Chuck, the two of them working to put the restaurant back together.

When he finally got home, Maximilian was waiting for him on the porch, an accusing look on his face. Chace dropped the leftover steak he’d brought as a peace offering into the dog’s bowl and gave him a scratch behind the ears as the dog gobbled up his dinner.

Chace opened the fridge and surveyed the ingredients. The pickings were slim, but he did have some chicken breasts, and he always kept the pantry well-stocked with pasta. He decided to make himself a chicken parm. It was a dish his father had taught him to make, a recipe his dad had been extremely proud of, even though they weren’t Italian and his dad owned a seafood restaurant.

He began to bread the chicken, looking out the window toward Lindsay’s house as he cooked. Her lights were off. She was probably sleeping, exhausted from the events of the day. He hated thinking about her over there, alone in that house, unable to use her arm. What if she fell again?

It didn’t matter, he told himself. She’d made her feelings toward him perfectly clear. And honestly, it was better that way. For her and for him.

He finished breading the chicken, fried it briefly on each side, and then popped it into the oven. He took a shower while it was baking, letting the hot water beat against his shoulders as he tried to wash off the day.

He was back downstairs and had just finished draining the pasta when he looked out the kitchen window.

He peered closer. What the
hell?
Surely he couldn’t be seeing what he thought he was seeing. Lindsay was outside in her pajamas, heading down the driveway toward her car.

***

Lindsay had woken up to find the house dark. Her wrist was throbbing, her throat was dry, and her face felt grimy. She desperately needed some ibuprofen, a hot shower, and some food.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have ibuprofen or food.

There was a gas station a couple of miles away, up on the main road, and she knew she could probably pick up what she needed there.

She was pretty sure that when the doctor said she wasn’t supposed to use her wrist at all for forty-eight hours, it included driving. But what was she supposed to do? She needed food. She needed painkillers. And it was only a few miles. What could happen?

So she shrugged into her coat, grabbed her purse and keys, and headed outside.

She’d opened the car door and was about to slide into the driver’s seat when a hand reached out and slammed the door shut.

She whirled around, expecting an intruder. Instead, she found Chace.