Not Quite Enough (Not Quite series) (15 page)

For all the years Monica had dated anyone, Jessie never knew her to go crazy over any of them.
Must be a sign.

She wasn’t sure what kind of apology Trent was planning, but it had better include food and a bed… and a shower.

Make that a shower first, food, and a bed minus a partner, at least until some zzz’s had been obtained. Monica had a new respect for doctors that went through medical school and their internships where they could count the hours of sleep in thirty-six hours on one hand.

Her feet ached, her back was screaming, and her eyeballs burned. Seriously, Monica couldn’t remember ever feeling so exhausted.

She left a message on Walt’s phone letting him know that she was away from the clinic for at least twelve hours. Ten of which she planned to sleep through.

Monica propped herself beside the building and waited for Trent. She didn’t even have the energy to smile when he pulled up.

“Do you need me to carry you?” he asked when he rounded the front of his car and opened her door.

“I’d even take your helicopter for a ride if it would get me to a shower faster.”

“That’s a serious need.”

He pulled out onto the road, avoided a pothole the size of Nebraska, and kept going. Monica leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “You’ll forgive me if I’m less than a party.”

“I won’t even try talking to you,” Trent said.

She was already fading. “Good, cuz I need more than two brain cells to discuss your reaction to Jack.”

Monica dozed all the way up the hill, and barely realized they were at his place when he helped her out of the car. Only part of her plan kicked into place. The shower was hot but she didn’t even manage to dry her hair before she fell into bed. Food would have to wait.

Sunshine, bright and piercing, pounded on the back of her eyelids, waking her. Monica stretched, felt at least four different muscles she didn’t realize she had, and rolled back over. The soft pillow cushioned her head and left her in a cloud for a little while longer. It felt so damn good to be horizontal, to not have anyone calling out for her help.

She blinked a few times, and remembered where she was. She’d managed to toss a pajama T-shirt over her shoulders, but never dragged on the bottoms. The night before she’d wrapped her hair in a towel and rested her head on the pillow. That was her last memory. The towel sat folded on a chair by the door to her room. She’d fallen asleep on top of the covers, yet there was a light cotton blanket thrown over her. Her legs were bare, and only a thin pair of panties covered her girly parts.

Indebted to Trent for the best night’s sleep she’d had in over a week, Monica didn’t mind that he’d gotten an eyeful when he’d tucked her in.

The noise coming from her stomach reminded her of the time between meals and forced her from bed.

Inside the bathroom, she clicked on the light and miracle of miracles, the power was on. Leaning her ear toward the door, she realized there wasn’t the sound of a noisy generator running.

She emerged from her room a few minutes later, wearing her running shorts and shirt. All her clothes could use a good wash. Maybe if Trent’s power was on she could bug him for yet one more basic need.

He was in his living room with a large big-screen television tuned in to a newscast.

“G’morning,” she said, bringing his attention to her presence.

His face softened and he lifted his strong frame from the couch. “I was starting to wonder if you were going for another twelve hours.”

“Twelve hours?”

“You dropped around eight.” He tapped his watch and said, “It’s almost ten.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

Her heart skipped. Fourteen hours. “I’ve got to get back.” She turned around to go change clothes. Smelly awful clothes.

“Hold up. I spoke with a Dr. Klein.”

That stopped her.

“I heard your cell phone ringing in your room just after six this morning. You didn’t budge.”

“So you answered it?” She wasn’t sure if she should be grateful or angry.

Anger took energy. Although she felt rested, she wanted nothing to do with being pissed.

“Yeah. Anyway when I told him you were one step away from comatose he suggested you return to the clinic tonight. He asked for you to call him or Walt when you woke.”

“OK then. Tonight?” As in she had a good six or eight hours to call her own?

“Tonight,” he confirmed. “How about some coffee?”

“I’d kill for coffee.”

“No need for violence,” he said with a laugh. “The power flickered shortly after you crashed. No more instant. Why don’t you sit, I’ll get another pot going.”

“Before I get comfortable, do you have a washer and dryer? My clothes…”

He pointed back toward the hall leading to the bedrooms. “Back of the hall there’s a door to a mud room.”

“A mud room in Jamaica?”

“I grew up in the Northeast. I couldn’t build a house without a mud room. Washer and dryer are in there.”

Five minutes later, she joined Trent in his kitchen with all smiles. “Clean clothes and a good night’s sleep. I feel guilty.” She knew her colleagues weren’t faring so well.

“Guilty?”

“If Donald hadn’t sweet-talked his way into getting me to go to the clinic on my own, I would still be sleeping on those bunks at the hospital.” She wouldn’t have gotten to know Trent either. She left that unsaid.

“Remind me to thank Donald.” Trent lifted an eyebrow her way before he poured her coffee, added a little sugar, and handed it to her.

“Thank you.” She moaned… a throaty, bedroom moan, as the coffee slid down her throat. “You have some serious coffee skills, Trent.”

He leaned against the counter and watched her over the rim of his cup. “Good coffee is part of my apology.”

She lifted her cup in salute. “Good show.” She sipped again, felt some of the strain from the past few days dissipate. “Have you always been the jealous type?”

Trent closed his eyes and wrinkled his face. “Do we have to talk about that?”

She laughed in the face of his discomfort. “If you knew just how crazy Jack is about my sister you’d laugh at your mistake.”

“He was determined to find you.”

“Probably because Jessie wouldn’t let him hear the end of it if he hadn’t. She worries like a mother.”

“Is she older than you?”

“Only a couple of years. We depend on each other. Well, she has Jack now, but before… when I was in nursing school and she was raising her son, Danny, by herself, we helped each other out.”

“What about your parents?”

Monica stared into her cup. “Dad ran off early on. I don’t even remember him. My mom is wrapped up in her own life.” She didn’t want to talk about them. “Anyway. Jessie probably threatened bodily harm if he didn’t find me.”

“He seemed like a nice guy.”

“He is. The whole family is so down-to-earth it’s hard to believe they’re filthy rich. Did you see his jet?”

He grinned. “Classy. Have you flown in it?”

“Hell yeah.”

“And that doesn’t bother you? I thought you were afraid of heights.”

She found the bottom of her cup. “I don’t have to look out the window in his plane. Your helicopter requires blinders over my eyes to avoid the outside.”

“So it’s not the flying, it’s the visual?”

“Exactly.”

He refilled her cup and pushed the sugar toward her. “Are you hungry?”

A loud gurgle erupted from her stomach right as he asked. “I guess that answers that,” he said.

She moved from her perch and joined him in the kitchen. “Tell me you have something other than an energy bar.”

“The fresh foods are gone. I have a decent supply of canned goods.” He opened his pantry and she peered inside. “Many of the locals have chickens, so I managed to snag a few eggs.”

Monica eyed a can of chicken, a sealed jar of salsa. She started taking handfuls of ingredients from the cupboard and set them on the counter. “I can make this work,” she told him.

“You sure you don’t want me to figure something out?”

“No, no. It’s nice to have my hands in something less toxic than what I find with my patients.”

He moved to her recently deserted chair to watch. She felt his eyes on her as she took over his kitchen. “Most bachelors don’t have anything other than steaks, beer, and microwave meals.”

“I had my share of those days. Gets old after a while. My mom taught us all the basics.”

“Good for her,” Monica said with a smile. “Have you talked to her since the quake?”

His silence had her glancing over his way.

“My parents passed a few years ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Were they young?” From the look on his face, the memory of their passing still hurt.

“Yeah.”

Monica pushed on to another topic. He obviously didn’t talk about his parents any more than she did hers. She got that. “Jessie
was the cook in our family. We were so broke most of the time eating out wasn’t an option.”

Trent laughed. “And now she’s married to a Morrison.”

Monica opened the can of chicken and dumped it into a pan over the stove. “That’s a crazy story.”

“What is?”

“How she and Jack met. She thought he was a temporary waiter at The Morrison, just passing through. He didn’t tell her he owned the damn hotel.”

“And that mattered?”

“Well yeah. She had Danny to think about. A bad high school decision made her a single mom early on. She always seemed to attract the biggest losers. Then comes Jack pretending to be a bum… well, actually, he didn’t really pose as a bum, but he knew she wanted to find someone who had it together, which in his head meant she wanted someone with money.”

“Jack has money,” Trent said.

“No guy wants to think a woman is with him for the money. So he lied.”

“He told her he was broke?” There was laughter in Trent’s voice.

“He omitted the truth. He didn’t say he was broke.” Monica stirred the chicken and added spices she found above the stove. “Jack was determined to make her fall for him. She was determined to ignore him.”

“I take it that didn’t work.”

“Not for long.” She poked her head back into the cupboard and found a package of tortillas. “You’re holding out on me, Barefoot.”

He smiled. “Forgot those were in there.”

She glanced on the package for an expiration date.
Still a few days off.
Fresh eggs were cracked and sizzling in the pan as she
finished her sister’s story. “Eventually she and Jack hooked up and she found out about who he really was. Ticked her off at first, too.”

“No one likes to be lied to.”

“No. I get why he did, though. The guy has some serious cash. I think there was more than one woman in his life who wanted to marry him just for the money. That has to be hard on a guy.”

“That’s very forgiving of you.” Trent had rested his chin in his hands as he watched her in his kitchen. He had this silly grin on his face that made her wonder exactly what was going on inside his head.

She pulled two plates off a shelf and scooped her chicken omelets onto them.

“They are crazy about each other. I knew he was the right guy for her long before she did. It’s easy to forgive him.” Monica turned off the stove and brought the plates over to him. She topped off their coffee before taking the seat to his side.

“Were you a short-order cook before you became a nurse?”

“I waited tables a little when I was going to school.” She poured salsa on her eggs and took the first bite. “Hmmm.”

Trent approved with a quick thumbs-up when his mouth was full. “Good,” he mumbled around the food.

“Everything’s good when you’re starving. It needs cheese.” But it was still the best meal she’d had in forever.

“It’s perfect.”

Not perfect, but it was nice he approved. “Did you have any crappy jobs growing up?”

He shook his head. “Not really. Went to college after high school, then straight into the family business.”

“The helicopters?”

He took another bite and finished swallowing before he elaborated. “I floated around the office first. Marketing, public relations, that sort of thing.”

“Doesn’t sound like you had much of a choice. Was it a foregone conclusion that you’d work for the family?” She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than having no direction from your parents.

“Seemed a waste of time to look for work somewhere else. Besides, if the corporate side wasn’t for me, I could always fly.”

“So you took to flying.”

He finished his breakfast and pushed his plate away. “I’ve always loved flying. Helicopters, jets… prop jobs. Doesn’t matter.”

“Ever worry you’ll crash?” It scared the hell out of her just thinking of spending so much time in the air.

“Ever think you’re going to bite it when you’re driving a car?” he asked instead of answering her question.

“No, not really.”

“Same thing applies with flying. The only day I thought about crashing was the first day I was up there. After that, it didn’t cross my mind. The best way to dispose of that fear is taking the controls.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Suit yourself. But you seem like the kind of girl who likes to take control. Might cure that height fear you have.”