April Embers_A Second Chance Single Daddy Firefighter Romance Page 38

  And how eerily silent it was.

  The onyx floor was a strict contrast to the white staircase that followed the wall on either side of the foyer. There were two hallways that jutted off in either direction. The right hallway looked like it dumped into a sitting room of some sort. I could see the corner of a fireplace and what looked like a bookshelf, along with a very comfortable-looking couch. The walls were a very pale blue, which lended a brightness to the entire house.

  But I was supposed to go left, so that was where I headed.

  I walked down the short hallway and was quickly dumped into a luxurious kitchen. Stainless steel appliances that didn’t look as if they’d ever been touched. A double-oven embedded into the wall and a hibachi grill where the stove would’ve naturally been. There was a kitchen island and the countertops were this beautiful gray-and-cream marbled color. The backsplash was almost mirrored, echoing the beauty of its kitchen in the blurry outlines of the reflection.

  “On the table.”

  I jumped at the sound of the harsh voice.

  I peered through the open doorway and saw a man in a wheelchair sitting in front of some windows. No, not windows. Large patio double doors. His leg was in a cast from his knee down and his arm was casted and slinged against his body. He was favoring his right side, bending over so his arm was resting against the arm of the chair. The left side of his face was bruised. Swollen with blues and yellows and blacks. He had a contusion on his head that still had stitches in it, and the nurse in me was clawing at the forefront of my mind.

  And my gosh, he was ridiculously attractive.

  Beyond the bruises and the swelling, there was a set of pale blue eyes. His jaw was strong and his shoulders were broad. He had long legs that were stretched out beyond the foot props of the wheelchair, and even in his shirt and sweatpants I could tell how strong he was. His chest was pushing against the fabric of the white shirt, exposing the slanted lines of his muscles. His casted arm was still throbbing with veins. His nose was prominent and his skin was tanned.

  It was hard to not look at him.

  “Are you going to put them down?”

  I shook myself from my trance and walked through the arched doorway. There was a dining table behind the man. Ready to seat ten or twelve different people. I walked behind him and set the flowers on the table, taking in their scent one last time.

  Then my curiosity turned back to the man staring out the window.

  From this angle, I could see more of his beautiful backyard. At least, I thought it was his backyard. There was a stone walkway that matched the stonework on the front of the house. It led into an arch of drooping purple flowers before dumping out into a beautiful white swing made for two. The florist in me wanted to get out there. To survey it all and tend to the garden and water the flowers and even plant more.

  But my eyes gravitated back to the man in the wheelchair.

  His shoulders were chiseled with strength and there was a hint of a tattoo poking out from beyond the sleeve of his right arm. His forearms were thick and his back was straight, even as he sat against the sloping back of the wheelchair. Confidence oozed from him, and his booming voice lended to the power behind his pale blue eyes.

  Behind his thick black hair.

  Behind his strong, powerful features.

  “You can go now.”

  Damn it. I was staring again.

  “You should get that cut on your forehead looked at,” I said.

  I watched his reflection in the window as his empty stare hooked onto mine.

  “It’s on the verge of becoming infected,” I said.

  “I’ll take it into consideration,” the man said.

  “Are you adjusting your cast every week?”

  What in the world was I doing?

  “No.”

  “Well you should. In order to ensure your arm doesn’t lose its circumference of mobility.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  Yep. This was definitely his home. He looked like a businessman, stared off into space like a businessman, and talked like a businessman.

  He was even cold and distant like a businessman.

  “That code for ‘no’?” I asked.

  His eyes flickered back to mine in the window and I could see the heat flowing through them. The want to cast me out physically without having the means to do so. I nodded curtly and walked past the man, my legs carrying me as swiftly as they could.

  I knew when I wasn’t wanted.

  “No,” the man said.

  I stopped in the middle of the kitchen and turned back towards him.

  And I found his gaze peering right into mine.

  “Not necessarily,” he said.

  I nodded my head before heading back out to my car. I pulled the door open and shut it behind me, letting out the breath I had been holding. My hands were shaking and my knees felt weak. I had to lean onto the railing of the steps just to get down them.

  I was ready to get out of this place and get back to work.

  But I would be lying if I said a part of me didn’t want to be in there helping that man.

  Helping him to reclaim whatever life he was already convinced had been taken away from him.

  Chapter Three

  Hayden

  “We need to find a new nurse,” Cara said. “The one the center keeps sending over can’t keep up with Hayden.”

  “This’ll be the third nurse in two months,” my mom said. “We can’t keep switching them out because you don’t think they’re adequate.”

  “The first nurse was flirting with him, the second was stealing, and the third can’t keep up with the demand because she’s not spry enough to handle Hayden. Those aren’t terrible reasons for requesting another nurse, Mom.”

  “Then maybe we need to find another agency. You mean to tell me your father worked his entire life at that company only to be able to provide measly medical service for his own family?”

  “The next center that deals in this kind of physical therapy is over an hour away,” Cara said. “And Hayden’s got another hip surgery soon!”

  They argued all the time. Everyday. Like I wasn’t even fucking there. I stared out over the backyard, wondering when the hell I was ever going to walk through it again. It had been my father and I’s passion project before he died. He always wanted a garden to walk through and read in whenever he needed to get away from work. Or life.

  Or Mom.

  Fuck, Mom’s voice was beginning to grate on my ears.

  “We need to make a decision,” Cara said.

  “We need to stop fighting about this,” Mom said.

  Hell yeah, they did.

  I sat there, listening to them bickering behind me. It was true. The nursing staff that had been provided for my care was less than subpar. And the second nurse wasn’t stealing. Not anything that made a difference, anyway. Just some silver forks and a couple of delicate china plates.

  Who the hell cared about that shit anyway?

  I only cared about it if it was going in one of my luxury hotel chains.

  It had been two months since that fucking accident, but I still wasn’t healed. And I was waiting for my fourth surgery to take place. I had a follow-up hip surgery that was required of me in order to walk again. In order to function again.

  In order to get out of this damn wheelchair.

  I hated the fucking thing. It was a symbol of everything that had been ripped from me that day. Of the luxury hotel that fell through and the losses my COO cut when I couldn’t come back to work. It had sank my company’s reputation and I was stuck with no other decisions I could make to come back. The fucking luxury chain that was supposed to start up got put on pause and things resumed normally. Despite the contracting company that tanked the project.

  Despite the money I had to schmooze out of the investors.

  Despite the sleepless nights trying to keep behind everyone on it.

  From a business perspective, I got it. Mike mad
e the right fucking call. But from a personal perspective? From a ‘forwarding the company’ perspective? It was a shit call. One that boiled my blood as I listened to my sister and mother continue to bicker behind me.

  I wished they would shut the fuck up.

  “He hasn’t left the house in two months, Mom. We need to get him a nurse that can help him with his daily physical therapy.”

  “Cara, he isn’t going outside because he can’t move. He isn’t going outside because he’s depressed. That’s why we need a new nurse. The ones being sent to us aren’t filling him with any kind of hope of recovery,” my mother said.

  “That isn’t their job. They aren’t therapists. They don’t care about his feelings. Hell, Hayden doesn’t care about his feelings half the time,” my sister said.

  “Keep your voice down. He’ll hear you.”

  Seriously? They were standing seven feet behind me.

  And they were right. I hadn’t left the house since the accident. Why the fuck would I? The last thing the press needed were snaps of the CEO of the best luxury hotel chain in the world in a goddamn wheelchair. Being pushed around by some homely-looking nurse who had to flex his fucking legs every two hours. Why the hell would I go out in public like that? Why the fuck would anyone?

  I hadn’t left my parent’s house since the accident, and I didn’t plan on it until I could walk again.

  I couldn’t care for myself on my own. I couldn’t cook for myself. I couldn’t even fucking drive myself places. I couldn't shower on my own or reach the damn toothbrush on my own or get up the fucking stairs. It was the most miserable and isolated I’d ever felt in my life. I couldn't show that kind of image to the public. My company was already stalemating. Governing it from my parent’s dining room was bad enough. Knowing it wasn’t going anywhere until I got back was bad enough.

  But risking demolishing the strong reputation my family had built over the decades?

  Nope. Not fucking happening.

  I closed my eyes as the wind began to whip around outside. I tried to imagine what it would feel like on my face. My mother and sister were still going at it behind me, trying to make a fucking decision.

  And not once asking me to weigh in on it. Which was fine. It wasn’t like my opinion mattered any longer. It didn’t matter anywhere. I had to fight twice as hard to get bullshit stuff done at work. I had to yell twice as hard to be heard in the video conferences my investors wanted. I had to wave my one good arm twice as hard to get my mother’s attention.

  It wasn’t worth the effort.

  Not with them, anyway.

  The doorbell rang out and neither one of them moved. They continued to debate over whether or not to hire a new nurse, and I was getting sick of their voices. The daydream of walking through the garden with my father was no longer providing me the comfort it used to, so I wheeled away from the window and headed through the kitchen.

  Down the hallway.

  Away from their voices.

  I wheeled towards the door and reached for the handle. I pulled it open and was met with the familiar scent of orchids and lilies. The same arrangement six times a week that kept me company at the kitchen table. The same arrangement I had carried to my room whenever it was time to go to bed.

  Delivered by the same beautiful girl every fucking time.

  She really was an attractive woman. Long, brown curly hair I would enjoy wrapping my fingers within. A full lower lip that begged to be nibbled. A soft smile that accented the peaks of her flushed cheeks. Tits that spilled over her confining bra and hips that filled out her tight ass jeans. Delicate hands that wrapped around the thick vase the flowers always came in.

  And beautiful brown eyes, strewn with yellow that peeked through the flowers to see where she was going.

  “Delivery,” she said.

  “Over on the table’s fine,” I said.

  She looked from beyond the flowers, acting like she was startled to see me. Her eyebrows rose to her hairline as I wheeled myself out of the way. There was no use in paying her any mind. It wasn’t like women were attracted to wheelchairs. To men who couldn’t stand and escort them anywhere. Or pick them up for dates. Or fucking get in a damn restaurant by himself.

  Or pick them up and fuck them senseless against a window.

  “You’re looking better today,” the woman said.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “How’s the new nurse working out?”

  “She’s not,” I said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  I grunted and kept my back to her as she settled the vase on the small table against the wall.

  “How’s the garden doing?” she asked.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Do you have it professionally tended to?”

  “Do you care?”

  I turned my head towards her and eyed her carefully, watching as she drew in a deep breath. She did this every fucking time. Came in and tried to make pathetic small talk. Tried to converse about the backyard like she knew what the hell she was talking about. She arranged flowers for a living. She wasn’t a horticulturist. And she didn’t need to hand me some sort of pity conversation.

  People were dealing without me just fine.

  So I could deal without them.

  “If you want to have thriving carnations, I suggest you line them by the hot tub instead,” the woman said.

  I furrowed my brow as my ears perked up.

  “They could do with a light misting. Those daffodils will get water-logged and rot after a while.”

  Then the front door opened and closed behind her beautiful body as she left.

  I wheeled my chair around and watched her figure through the window. The deep sway of her hips and the way her curly hair blew around her shoulders. I wheeled over and pulled the curtain back, shielding my eyes from the harsh sun as she got into her car. Her thick legs carried her tall and confidently, and the toned dip in her waist called to my fingertips.

  I watched her get in and drive away before I rolled over to the flowers she delivered.

  I reached up and plucked the card from the vase. I smelled the flowers, taking in their delicious scent. I opened the card she kept delivering with the arrangement and took in the cursive handwriting. It was obviously hers. Controlled. Fluid. Feminine.

  Like her.

  Be honest. Be nice. Be a flower. Not a weed.

  -Aaron Neville

  I stuck the card in my breast pocket to save for a rainy day. Every arrangement had a different quote about flowers that somehow seemed to reflect our prior engagements. I backed away from the flowers and relegated myself to the fireplace room. I sat with the books stacked along the shelves and closed my eyes, basking in the silence of the room.

  I assumed my mother and sister were still bickering.

  Pathetic.

  My mind drifted back to the woman. Apparently, she had a little more knowledge about flowers than I gave her credit for. The suggestion wasn’t a bad one, and it gave me something to think about.

  What would those carnations look like lining the outside of the hot tub?

  Maybe I’d give her a call when I was better. Upright. Walking. Able to do the things a man of my prominence should be able to do. I felt the card burning a hole in my pocket, waiting to get back into my room. I had a desk there with my laptop and an entire drawer dedicated to the cards she left me.

  For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to throw them away.

  “Hayden? Hayden!”

  “Where did he go, Mom?”

  “Hayden! Where are you, sweetheart?”

  I cringed at the sound of their voices.

  “He’s in here, Mom. Hayden, you can’t roll off like that. You scared the hell out of us,” Cara said.

  “Too bad I didn’t scare the shit out of you,” I said. “Because you’re full of it.”

  “Don’t talk to your sister like that,” my mother said.

  “Then stop arguing all the time,” I said.

&
nbsp; “We only want what’s best for you,” Cara said.

  “When it doesn’t include my opinion, sure,” I said.

  “If you had things your way, you wouldn’t even be doing this follow-up surgery,” my mother said.

  “Because I don’t think it’s necessary.”

  “Well it is. So hush,” she said.

  “Nice to know my opinion holds weight still,” I said flatly.

  “Now don’t take that attitude with me,” my mother said. “We’re the ones taking care of you.”

  “Ah, and now I remember why I moved out so young,” I said.

  “Shut up,” my sister said.

  “You first.”

  I turned myself around and wheeled into the adjacent room. I had just enough energy to reach back and slam the door behind me. It was a small room. Meant for nothing but entertaining and business. There was a small wet bar in the corner and a few leather couches. The smell of cigar smoke was still thick in here after all these years my father had been dead. The heavy wooden doors cut the room off from the library our house had and it was cozy. A place my father took many of his business associates to offer drinks, cigars, and opportune business connections.

  A room that hadn’t been used since he passed and handed the company to me.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the smoke-scented air. It was a smell I’d come to identify with my father. His suits were tinted with the smell of tobacco and he would constantly chew mint gum so my mother could tolerate kissing him after one of those meetings.

  Tobacco and mint.

  The essence of my father.

  I backed my wheelchair into a corner and stared blankly at the bar. I could see him leaning against it, clinking glasses with my mother as the two of them smiled. Happy and in love. Way before my father’s life was senselessly ripped away from us. A damn car accident on the other side of the fucking world. Burst into flames and charred his body beyond reason. We had to fly over there and have the rest of his remains cremated.

  There wasn’t enough of him to ship back to have buried.

  I was lucky, and I knew that. I was lucky to be alive, much less moving in a wheelchair. But it wasn’t the life I wanted. And I was angry that I couldn’t have the life I wanted. Not without more surgery and twelve other nurses and the bickering of my family and those fucking pity flowers.