Break In Two (12 page)

Cole had spent the day in a simmering rage. After he finished up the bills for the volleyball

girls and got them on their way, he went back to his office and shut the door. He tried to concentrate on getting through some paperwork, but his mind kept wandering. He was shocked that Claire would disappear like this, after everything they had said and done together. He had started to trust her and really
believed that she would stay as his chef and in his life. He still had no idea why she was so angry at him when he got back and he couldn't believe she would just up and leave with her ex.

As the day wore on he became increasingly humiliated. Everyone had seen that guy show up at the restaurant and then she disappeared. It reminded him of how stupid he felt when Gabriela had taken off back to Brazil. He had found her things were gone out of his cabin when he got home from a trail ride. He hadn't even had the faintest clue that Gabriella was planning to leave until she was already gone.

Cole wondered if Claire had been in touch with Antonio while he was away on this last trail ride. Maybe they had been in contact the whole time. Maybe she had been using him to make her ex feel jealous, or as a way to boost her ego after having been jilted.

In the mid-afternoon, after still hearing nothing, he decided to clear his head by going for a ride on Dudley. He saddled him up and took off, encouraging his horse to run his fastest, so he could get as far away from the ranch as possible. He wound up at the river's edge. He dismounted and threw rocks in the river as hard as he could for a long time.

By the time he had the ranch in sight again, it was after 4 p.m. and Cole felt slightly more calm. He had decided that he would start looking for a new chef first thing the next morning, and that it was better he find out now than after another year of falling for her. Even though he had strong feelings for Claire, he hoped he could forget her quickly.

Alicia had finished cleaning up from lunch and went to her cabin to lie down, feeling exhausted. She had spent the day flipping back and forth between worrying about Claire and feeling annoyed at the possibility that she might be with her ex and hadn't bothered to call. When she woke up, it was 4:30 p.m. and she noticed the light on her phone flashing. She dialled her voice mail and listened, then ran out of her cabin and down the path. She saw Dustin walking toward the barn and shouted to him, "Find Cole! Now!"

"What's going on?" he yelled back.

"Claire's in the hospital, she hit a deer! Tell him to meet me at the lodge right away!"

Alicia ran over to the lodge, searching for Cole. When she didn't find him, she stopped at his desk and quickly started looking up the phone numbers for the hospitals in town to see if she could find her.

Cole came bursting into his office a few minutes later. When he saw her, he was breathing heavily, "Alicia? What the hell happened?!" He had a look of pure panic on his face.

She quickly told him about the message. She had just hung up the phone after finding out that Claire was at Memorial Hospital.

She and Cole started for his truck. Ben ran up to them, "I just heard. Is she gonna be okay?"

Alicia answered, "We're not too sure exactly. She sounded really confused on the message. We're on our way over now."

Ben said, "Give me a minute and I'll drive you."

"No," Cole answered, "I need you to sign off on that delivery of feed. It should be here by five. Come over after, okay?"

"Sure thing, Cole. Call if you need anything."

Cole barely registered the drive over to the hospital. He felt sick to his stomach at the thought that Claire was lying in a hospital bed and here he had thought she was off with her ex-boyfriend. His anger had melted into desperation. '
Please let her be okay, please
.'

"Alicia, about what I said earlier about Claire being with her ex..." Cole started.

"Forget it Cole. I won't tell her. What were you supposed to think under the circumstances?"

"I should have trusted her more than that. I should have gone out looking for her," Cole said, as he turned into the hospital parking lot.

Moments later, the two were hurrying in the front doors of the hospital to the front desk.

"We're looking for a patient that came in last night, Claire Hatley. She was in a collision," Alicia said to the older woman behind the desk. She looked at Alicia over her glasses and said, "Well, let's see if we can find her. Are you family?"

Cole spoke up, his voice shaking a little, "We live together. Her family is in England."

The woman paused for a minute and stared at him, "Okay, you can go see her. She's in critical care, room 317."

Alicia and Cole took off toward the elevators.

When they got to her room, they pushed the door open and saw Claire lying in her bed, hooked up to an IV and monitors, sleeping. She had horrible purple and black bruises on her face and neck, along with a huge purple lump on her forehead. What they could see of her collar bone was dark purple and badly scraped from her seatbelt. Cole's knees felt weak as he saw her looking so beat up and fragile. He held onto the door frame to steady himself. Alicia pulled two chairs up to the side of her bed and motioned for Cole to come sit down. They sat for a few minutes quietly watching her sleep.

"I'm going to find a restroom," Alicia said as she got up to leave.

Cole nodded. When he was finally alone with Claire, he let out a stifled sob. Claire stirred and opened her eyes. She saw the look of concern on his face and her heart melted. For a moment, she forgot how angry she was at him. Her mouth curved up into a tiny smile and her voice came out as little more than a whisper, "Hey Cowboy, come here often?"

Cole's eyes shone with tears. He sniffled, rubbed his face with his hand and then said, "Oh Claire, you had me so worried."

He took her hand in his and held it carefully, never wanting to let go. He lowered his forehead to her hand and rested it there for a moment.

"Judging by the look on your face, I guess I look pretty rough. I haven't seen myself yet."

"You look hurt, yeah. There's a big lump on your forehead and lots of bruises. Can you remember what happened?" Cole asked.

"Sort of, I was driving back to the ranch. I came around a corner and saw something run across the road and then I woke up here. They told me I hit a deer," Claire said.

Just then, Alicia walked into the room, "Oh Claire, honey, you're awake," she said, crossing the room and standing on the side of the bed opposite Cole. She gently brushed the hair off of Claire's forehead, "Can I get you anything?"

"I'd love some water," Claire replied.

"Sure thing sweetie," Alicia held the cup to Claire for her have a drink. "Listen, before a nurse comes in, we better mention that Cole had to tell them that you two live together so that we could get in. He told them your family is in England."

Live together?
Part of her wished that were true with how sweet he was being and the other part wished she had the strength to tell him to fuck off. "Okay. Thanks Cole. I appreciate you saying that. It's nice to have company," Claire smiled weakly at him.

A new nurse came in, along with a doctor, to check on Claire. "Can you two wait outside while I see how our patient is doing?"

Alicia and Cole nodded and walked out into the hallway.

"She looks pretty beat up," Alicia said.

"Yeah, it's hard to see her like this," Cole said, his voice thick with emotion.

Ben met them in the hallway, "Hey you two," he said, giving Alicia a quick kiss on the forehead. "How's Claire?"

"She'll be okay I think," said Alicia, "We don't have much information yet, but she's awake. The doctor is in with her now."

A moment later, the nurse came out, "We're going to take her upstairs for some tests. It'll take about half an hour. We don't like more than two visitors at a time, so maybe just a quick hello, okay?"

*              *              *

An hour later, when Claire was wheeled back into the room, Cole was waiting for her. "Ben and Alicia went back to the ranch. They're going to handle everything so I can stay with you. Do you need me to call anyone for you?"

"No, I'll call my sister after I get all the test results back. I don't want to worry her for nothing. Thanks though."

"You look tired. Do you want me to go so you can get some sleep?" Cole asked quietly.

"Would it be strange if I need to sleep and I want you to stay too?" Claire replied. She couldn't bare the thought of being alone right now.

"Not at all."

Cole found the light switch and turned off the lights. He gently kissed her cheek and sat down beside her in the chair, holding her small hand in his.

As Claire lay there with her eyes closed, drifting into a medication-induced sleep, she couldn't help but have a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted nothing more than for this sweet man to be the one, but she already knew he was not. He had cheated on her, or at the very least strongly considered it. There was no way that Claire could stay with him now. She could sense the loneliness that was about to hit her when she told him what she knew and ended it. Why had she asked him to stay? She was just torturing herself, allowing him to take care of her like this.

Cole watched her for a long time, thinking about their relationship so far - the roller coaster of it all. He tried to figure out what upset her so badly a few days earlier, but came up blank. He knew that right now none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was to be there for her until she could grow stronger and heal. Having almost lost her, he had a completely new perspective. He was certain now that he wanted to be with Claire and try to work through the things that spooked her. What he didn't know was whether she would want to be with him when this whole ordeal was over.

Claire had been asleep for a couple of hours when the doctor came back in and turned on the lights. Cole had been dozing in the chair beside her.

"Claire?" the doctor touched her arm, "Claire, it's Dr. Olsen. I have your test results."

Claire opened her eyes. She nodded, trying to look brave, but the fear in her eyes was unmistakable. Cole held her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Everything looks pretty good. No sign of a hematoma or nerve damage, no swelling so far, so those are all good signs. We'll need to keep you here for a couple more days though to monitor your brain and make sure it doesn't start swelling. So far, it doesn't look likely though, so I'd say you got pretty lucky."

Claire squeezed Cole's hand, "Thanks Dr. Olsen," she said, tears filling her eyes, "that's a relief."

The doctor smiled at her. "Hey, you remembered my name, so nothing wrong with your short term memory either," he said with a wink. "Get some rest and I'll be back to check on you tomorrow unless anything changes."

Cole stood up and shook the doctor's hand, "Thanks doc!"

"I didn't do anything really. I just get to be the lucky guy giving good news for a change." With that, he walked out leaving Cole and Claire alone.

Claire looked up at the ceiling, trying to blink back her tears. Cole sat on the bed beside her and gave her a long careful hug, "You have no idea how scared I was. I can't remember ever worrying that much about anyone."

Claire looked up at him, "Thanks Cole for being here. I know things weren't on good terms the last few days."

"We can talk about that later, or not at all, Claire. It doesn't matter to me anymore. I just want to be here for you."

"Not at all? That would be convenient," Claire replied, staring straight into his eyes.

"What?" Cole responded, pulling away from her. "I just meant that it doesn't matter to me that you got so insecure again. I'm over it."

"You may be, but I'm sure as hell not. Before you left with the volleyball girls, I went into your bag to leave you a note and I found the box of condoms."

Cole sighed heavily, suddenly understanding why she had been so angry with him. "Well, now it makes sense. I'll admit that looks pretty bad..."

"It doesn't just
look
pretty bad, Cole. It is."

"I know it's going to sound hard to believe, but I didn't bring those for me. I brought them in case any of the girls and my guys seemed like they were going to hook up. At the time, I thought it would be better to hand out the condoms than have any accidents. Then I thought better of it and realized that if I was handing out condoms to my guys, it would be like saying it was okay for them to have sex with the guests, and it isn't. In the end, I just stayed awake until after everyone was asleep to keep an eye on them. I also made sure I was awake first. Nothing did happen that I know of," Cole paused waiting to hear what Claire had to say.

"You're right, Cole. That is hard to believe," Claire said with a sigh.

"I'm sure it is, but it's the truth, Claire. I never had any intention of sleeping with any of those girls. Not even for a second. I only want to be with you. I told you that before I left and I'm a man of my word, Claire. I've never given you a reason not to trust me."

"Well Cole, the condoms in your bag is a pretty big red flag, don't you think? What would you think if you were me?"

"I hope that I'd trust you and take you at your word, but I also know that you've been cheated on before. I know it's a tough thing for you to do."

Claire stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was indeed telling the truth. "It's more than tough for me, Cole. It's damn near impossible. I just won't be a trusting fool ever again."

Cole looked at Claire's battered face; he had no desire to fight with her. "You know, Claire, I figure what that asshole did to your heart is just about as bad as what that deer did to your body. You've been hurt really badly and now I've done something that has made you question me. It was a fucking stupid thing to do, Claire, but I promise you, I was
never
going to use those condoms. I don't want to be with anyone else but you. And I would never do that to you. Ever."

Claire looked him in the eye as he spoke. He seemed so sincere and everything in her wanted so badly to believe him. It was all so confusing for her. He
had
never giving her any reason to doubt him but how could he expect her to believe that he didn't want to sleep with any of those girls. They were gorgeous and willing. She needed to keep her guard up and be smarter from now on.

Cole looked down at her, "I can understand why you got so angry. It looks really bad."

Claire started to tear up, "I'm just really confused right now, Cole. I don't know what to think."

Cole stared at her for a moment. "Claire, I would never cheat on you. I hope you'll realize that I'm telling the truth because there's nothing I want more than to be with you. I've never met anyone like you. You are amazing, you know that?" Cole paused, giving her a little half-smile, "I thought I was going to lose you twice in the last two days and it would have shaken me to the core."

Claire nodded, tears streaming down her face.

Cole wiped her tears with his thumb, "Don't cry. We'll figure this out together, okay? For now, you need to rest and not worry about anything. Let me take care of you and when you are stronger, you can kick me to the curb if you still think I'm a cheating bastard."

Claire laughed a little at his words. Nothing would have pleased her more than if he was the real deal. He seemed almost perfect. "Okay, Cole. I'm pretty sure I'm going to believe you when these drugs wear off. No promises though."

"Smart girl. You shouldn't make important decisions when you're high as a kite. Have a sleep. I'll be here when you wake up." Cole said.