“If you could give her a chance, I’d appreciate it,” Bo called out as the driver shut the door and returned to the front of the car.
Mark reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a bottle of painkillers. He popped the top, dumped six into his mouth, and chewed. Like a shot of Jose Cuervo, Vicodin straight up was an acquired taste.
Bo yelled something as the car pulled away from the curb and headed for the 520. He didn’t know why human resources kept sending home health care workers to his door. He knew it had something to do with the organization’s aftercare program, but Mark didn’t need anyone to take care of him. He hated being dependent on anyone. Hell, he hated being dependent on the car service that hauled him around.
He leaned his head back and took a steady breath. He’d fired the first three health care workers within moments of their arrival. He’d told them to get the hell out of his house and had slammed the door on their behinds. After that, the Chinooks’ organization had let him know that the nurses worked for them. They paid the nurses’ salaries as well as his medical expenses not covered by insurance. Which were enormous. In short, he couldn’t fire anyone. But of course that didn’t mean that he couldn’t help them to quit. The last two health care workers the organization had sent over had stayed less than an hour. He bet he could get this next one out of his house in half that time.
His eyes drifted closed and he dozed the twenty minutes to Medina. In his dream, images flashed across his weary mind. Images of him playing hockey, the cool air hitting his cheeks and whipping the ends of his jersey. He could smell the ice. Taste the adrenaline on his tongue; he was once again the man he’d been before the accident. Whole.
The Lincoln smoothly merging into the exit lane roused him, and, as always, he woke in pain and disappointment. His eyes opened and he gazed out the window at tree-lined streets that reeked of money and pretension. He was almost home. Home to an empty house and a life he didn’t recognize, and hated.
Teams of landscapers mowed and edged immaculate lawns in the small Seattle suburb. Some of the wealthiest people in the world lived in Medina, but wealth alone did not open doors and guarantee entrée into the exclusive community. Much to his former wife’s dismay. Christine had wanted so desperately to belong to the exclusive group of women who lunched at the country club in their St. John and Chanel suits. The older women with their perfect hair, and the younger wives of Microsoft millionaires who reveled and basked in their snobbery. No matter how much of his money Chrissy donated to their causes, they never let her forget that she’d been born to working-class parents from Kent. Even that might have been overlooked if her husband had made his millions from business and finance, but Mark was an athlete. And not an athlete of an acceph te of antable sport like water polo. He played hockey.
He might as well have been a drug dealer, as far as the people in Medina were concerned. Personally, he’d never cared what people thought of him. Still didn’t, but it had driven Chrissy crazy. She’d been so consumed with money and so sure that money could buy her anything, and when it hadn’t bought her the one thing she desperately wanted, she’d blamed him. Sure, there were some things he’d done wrong in his marriage or could have done better, but he wasn’t going to take the blame for not getting invited to neighborhood cocktail parties or for getting snubbed at the county club.
On his fifth wedding anniversary, he’d come home after five days on the road to find his wife gone. She’d taken all her things but had thought enough to leave behind their wedding album, waiting for him on the granite island in the middle of the kitchen. She’d left it open to a picture of the two of them, Chrissy smiling, looking happy and gorgeous in her Vera Wang gown. Him in his Armani tux. The butcher knife stuck through his head in the album had kind of ruined the picture of wedded bliss. At least it had for him.
Call him a romantic.
He still wasn’t sure what she’d been so angry about. It wasn’t as if he’d ever been home enough to really piss her off. She was the one who’d left him because he and his money hadn’t been enough for her. She’d wanted more, and she’d found it down the street with a sugar daddy nearly twice her age. The ink on their divorce papers had barely dried when she’d moved a few streets away, where she was currently living on the lakefront not far from Bill Gates. But even with the pricier address and the acceptable husband, Mark didn’t imagine the girls at the country club were any nicer to her now than they’d ever been. More polite, yes. Nicer, no. Not that he thought Chrissy would mind all that much. As long as they air-kissed her cheek and complimented her designer clothes, she’d be happy.
The divorce had been finalized a year ago, and Mark had put “get the hell out of Medina” on his to-do list. Right after winning the Stanley Cup. Mark was not a multitasker. He liked to do one thing at a time and do it right. Finding a new home was still number two on the list, but these days it took second place after walking ten feet without pain.
The Lincoln pulled into his circular driveway and stopped behind a beat-up CR-V with California plates. The health care worker, Mark presumed. He wrapped his hand around his cane and looked out the window at the woman sitting on his front steps. She wore big sunglasses and a bright orange jacket.
The driver came around to the back of the passenger door and opened it. “Can I help you out, Mr. Bressler?”
“I’m fine.” He rose from the car, and his hip cramped and the muscles burned. “Thanks.” He tipped the driver and turned his attention to the brick sidewalk leading to his porch and the double mahogany doors. His progress was slow and steady, the Vicodin finally kicking in to take the edge off the pain. The girl in the orange jacket stood and watched him approach from behind her big sunglasses. Beneath the orange jacket, she wore a dress of every imaginable color, but the color nightmare didn’t stop with her clothing. The top of her hair was blond, with an unnatural shade of reddish-pink beneath. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties and was younger than the other workers had been. Prettier too, despite the hair. Thettethe hai top of her head barely reached his shoulder, and she was kind of skinny.
“Hello, Mr. Bressler,” she said as he moved up the steps past her. She held out her hand. “I’m Chelsea Ross. I’m your new home care worker.”
The woman’s jacket did not improve on closer inspection. It was leather and looked like she’d chewed it herself. He ignored her hand and dug around in his pocket for his keys. “I don’t need a home health care worker.”
“I heard you’re trouble.” She pushed her glasses to the top of her head and laughed. “You aren’t really going to give me a hard time, are you?”
He stuck the key into the lock, then looked over his shoulder into her bright blue eyes. He didn’t know much about women’s fashion, but even he knew that no one should wear that many bright colors together. It was like staring at the sun too long, and he feared getting a
blind spot. “Just trying to save you time.”
“I appreciate it.” She followed him into the house and shut the door behind them. “Actually, my job doesn’t officially start until tomorrow. I just wanted to come today and introduce myself. You know, just say hey.”
He tossed his keys on the entry table. They skidded across the top and stopped next to a crystal vase that hadn’t had a passing acquaintance with real flowers in years. “Fine. Now you can leave,” he said, and continued across the marble floor, past the spiral staircase to the kitchen. He was starting to feel kind of queasy from all that pain medication he’d downed on an empty stomach.
“This is a beautiful house. I’ve worked in some really nice places, so I know what I’m talking about.” She followed behind him as if she was in no hurry to get the hell out. “Hockey was good to you.”
“It paid the bills.”
“Do you live here alone?”
“I had a dog.” And a wife.
“What happened?”
“It died,” he answered, and got a weird feeling that he might have met her before, but he was fairly sure he’d remember that hair. Although even if her hair was different, he doubted he’d hooked up with her. She wasn’t his type.
“Have you eaten lunch?”
He moved across the marble floor to the stainless-steel refrigerator. He opened it up and pulled out a bottle of water. “No.” Short and perky had never been his type. “Have I met you before?”