Chapter Eleven
“I feel I need to say something here,” Jack said as Trent shook his hand for the last time.
“How about thank you?”
Jack lifted a brow and tilted his Stetson back an inch. “Monica’s like a sister to me.”
Ahh, Jack is taking on the role of big brother.
“Most people think I’m a nice guy.”
Jack let his hand drop, fished a business card out of his back pocket, and handed it to Trent. “If she needs anything, and I mean anything, call me. It sounds like her job is giving her a hard time back home. I’d like to know the name of whoever is in charge of the operation here.”
“Her job, really?” Trent asked.
“Not everyone is a nice guy.”
Trent tucked the card into his front pocket. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Appreciate it. Thanks for the lift.” Jack stood taller and nodded. “Take care of her.”
“Not a problem.”
Jack jogged up the steps to his private plane and disappeared inside.
Nice guy. Good thing I don’t have to hate him. Mr. Testosterone, as Monica had called him, had jumped the assumption level and nearly blown a good thing. Testosterone in his veins, caffeine was needed intravenously, and his coffee needed CPR. Yeah, he had Monica on his brain.
It wasn’t like Trent to care one way or another about what a woman had back home. In fact, Trent assumed most of the women he’d met and spent horizontal time with on the island had something else going. Made it easier.
But not with Monica.
He’d have to consider the why of that later. Thinking about it now gave him a headache. Or maybe that was hunger.
His apology to the woman in question would have to be more basic than flowers and chocolate… none of which were available. Unless he wanted to skip through the freaking woods and pick them himself. Trent drew the line there.
Back in his Jeep, he headed down the hill again. This time to bring her to his home… at least for a little while.
Hormones were awful things, crazy little buggers that nudged into your good sense and often made a fool out of you.
Jessie pushed back tears when she realized Jack was calling her from twenty thousand feet.
“Hey, darlin’, how’re you doing?” His voice was soothing, rich, and so Jack.
“I miss you.”
“I’ll be crawling into your bed before you wake up,” he told her.
That helped. “How is it there?”
Jack hesitated. “Horrific.”
“How can we help?”
“I’m contacting community outreach through our cooperate headquarters, setting up a relief fund. They need shelter, tents, clothing, food. All the basics.”
“I want to help with something,” Jessie told him.
“We’ll figure something out when I get home. Monica sends her love,” he said.
Hearing her sister’s name brought a smile to her face. “You did manage to find her.”
“Sure did.”
“Did she seem off to you?”
Static came through the line as Jack mumbled something that sounded like there’s a guy, but Jessie wasn’t sure. “What was that?”
“Trent Fairchild. Nice guy. Got all hot under the collar when he assumed I was someone other than her brother-in-law.”
Jessie closed her eyes and shook her head. “Wait. What? Back up… Monica met a guy?”
“That’s what I said. She was either worked up over him or the fact that the hospital isn’t cooperating with her leaving.”
Now Jessie was confused. She had Jack explain everything again. Slowly.
“So let me get this right,” she said a few minutes later after Jack explained what he’d learned. “She was fired and she’s kissing some helicopter pilot named Trent?”
Jack laughed. “Yeah, well, she wasn’t fired, but close enough. And get this, the Fairchilds own a charter company we use at the Morrisons all over the country. I’ll have to ask my dad about them.”
Jessie grabbed a piece of paper and jotted down the name. “Oh, that’s OK, I can take care of the digging. Serves Monica right for all the nosy sister behavior when you and I were dating.”
“We never dated,” he reminded her.
She chuckled. He was right… they hadn’t dated. She hadn’t allowed it.
“Hurry home.”
“I love you, darlin’.”
“Love you, too.”
Jessie hung up the phone, held it to her chest. After a long sigh, she punched in Katie’s phone number.
Katie answered on the first ring.
They exchanged hellos and how ya doings, and then Jessie got right to the point.
“We need to find out everything we can about a guy named Trent Fairchild.”
“We do?” Katie asked.
“Yep. We really do.” Jessie smiled at the thought of some guy twisting Monica up.
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.”
“If God wanted us to fly, he’d have given us wings.”
Trent laughed. “Or pilots.”
Monica relaxed in her chair and stretched her arms over her head.
The movement caught Trent’s attention and his appreciative smile spread over his lips. He wore a T-shirt and shorts, his normal attire since she’d met him. His hair could use a trim, but he didn’t carry the surfer look from back home. “Well, Mr. Testosterone, what does one do on this island when they’re not flying tourists at death-defying heights, or cleaning up nature’s mess?”
She wasn’t sure if he had a desire to pick up where their kiss had left off the day before. He hadn’t so much as touched her since helping her into his home the night before. Of course, she was doing her best zombie interpretation at the time, and wouldn’t have been able to do much more than snore in the poor guy’s arms.
He rubbed his chin as if in thought. “There’s usually plenty of steel band music and rum concoctions to entertain on a free day.”
“Not a lot of that going on,” she said.
He swiveled in his chair, his knee nudged against hers. The contact was about as innocent as it could get, but her breath caught anyway. When his hand dropped to her thigh, she knew he hadn’t forgotten their kiss or his promise to make up for his mistake about Jack. “If you come up with some cheesy line about making our own music…”
He slid his hand down the back of her thigh, gripped her chair, and slid it closer.
She caught herself against his legs, and met his sudden stare.
“How about we skip the lines?” he said.
The heat in the room shot up ten degrees. Both of his palms were against her thighs but they had yet to do anything but sit there.
“Lines are for people who don’t know what they want,” she told him.
A smirk played on his lips.
“That doesn’t define us.”
No. She’d pictured him close since he told her his name. Monica slid her hands over his and moved them up her legs. She didn’t like lines or games. “Do we have a definition?”
He took her lead, moving his hands along her bare skin, sending tendrils of anticipation over every nerve in her body. A squeal escaped her lips when he gripped her hips and plucked her off the chair and into his lap as if she weighed nothing. She gripped his shoulders for balance and enjoyed the feel of his hands holding her ass.
His clever move had her straddling him and terribly needy without even a kiss. “We don’t need a definition.” Trent’s heated breath blew across her lips, his stare so charged she couldn’t look away.
Monica leaned forward, not wanting to wait for whatever made him hesitate.
Trent, the big tease, leaned back. “Are you sure?”
She didn’t answer. Her lips met his, all heat and tongue and it was Trent’s turn to moan.
Everywhere he touched was on fire. His hand found skin under her T-shirt and skimmed up her waist, burning a path to her breasts and through her bra.
“You feel amazing,” he managed to say as his lips left hers to kiss her jaw, her neck.
The hard pack of his muscles met her palms.
“So soft,” he uttered.
Monica wiggled closer; the chair quickly became an obstacle to the pleasure of pressing her body closer to his.
His lips found the sensitive spot behind her ear and the quivering that was hovering low in her belly turned into something palpable. “Oh,” she whispered.
Trent released a soft chuckle and repeated the kiss to her neck.
Somewhere in the back of her head, Monica heard Ginger bark. Trent was lifting her off his lap and placing her on the kitchen counter. She reached for his shirt, to help rid him of the barrier.
Ginger barked again.
Damn dog.
One second Trent was reaching to remove her shirt, her only thought was how quickly they could cover each other skin to skin, the next Trent was pulling her shirt back down and pulling her from the counter.
That’s when Monica heard the noise.
People. Kids… Ginger barking.
Monica met Trent’s smoky gaze. He was breathing as hard as she was.
“Trent?” someone called from the hall leading to the front door.
“Company?” Monica whispered.
He ran a hand over her hair and pulled his own shirt down. They didn’t have time to recover much in the way of composure before a family piled into the room.
Ginger ran around the room, a playful bark in her throat. A man Monica recognized was half carrying a woman into Trent’s home.
“Reynard, Kiki?”
One look from Reynard to Trent and Monica knew the man understood exactly what they’d interrupted.
Color rose to the cheeks of the woman Trent called Kiki. “We’re too early,” she said.
“No. No.” Trent flashed a sympathetic glance toward Monica and grasped her hand. “It’s fine.”
Monica forced a smile to her face and felt her libido cool as if ice water had been dropped on her from the sky. One of the children, not five, ran up and hugged Trent’s knees. “Uncle Trent.”
Clearly, the family wasn’t related. Yet this child had some affection toward her would-be lover. “Micha. This is my friend Monica.” The boy smiled up at her.
“Monica you remember Reynard from your first day on the island.” Trent continued the introductions.
Oh, now she remembered. “Nice to see you again,” she managed.
“We’ve come too early,” Kiki said again. “We should go.”
Trent tugged Monica’s hand. “No. Please… I told you to come.” Trent turned toward Monica and explained. “Their home was destroyed by the earthquake. I asked Kiki and Reynard to stay here.”
“Oh,” Monica said.
Micha had engaged Ginger in a game of fetch with a plastic bone. The other children were all smiles and completely oblivious to any tension in the room.
Kiki leaned on her husband for another couple of steps. Monica took notice of her pale skin and obvious discomfort and promptly dismissed her own sexual frustration. “Are you OK?”
“Just out of the hospital,” Reynard told them. “The doctor said she needs a bed and rest.”
Monica passed a half smile to Trent. The same frustration inside her swam behind his eyes. “Guest room?” she asked him.
He nodded.
“Come with me.” She walked Reynard and his wife to the room she previously occupied.
So much for their private oasis and alone time. The population in the house quadrupled in minutes and all thoughts of intimacy were now on hold.
Dammit!