Promise Me: Chapter 11

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Chapter 11

Hannah exited her car with a tired sigh.  She pulled Teddy out of the backseat and headed toward the front porch.  Damn you, Justin Kirkland!  For the last hour and half, she’d been thinking about him and how he yanked all the joy out of his daughter’s life.  Josie deserved better.  Yes, she’d been troublesome back home, but all summer, the girl had been a blessing to be around.  A streak of rainbow on dreary days.  A pleasant diversion from Hannah’s everyday life, which made her wish for a child of her own someday.  It amazed her that Josie’s parental influence was her father.  How can such a bastard raise such a sweet child?

Something had to be done.  That was all there was to it.  Hannah knew she had some allies in his parents, but how far would they go to intervene with their own son’s life?  What exactly did they disapprove of?  Or was it basically a grandparents’ spoiling that dictated their actions lately?

“I just don’t know,” she said to Teddy as she unlocked her front door.  And like an apparition appearing out of a magician’s hat, the two indulgent angels appeared in her driveway.  She’d just seen Mr. Kirkland a little while ago when he came after Lady for Josie.  Maybe Justin was forcing them to bring the guinea pig back.  Honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised more if he showed up himself with Josie’s pet skewered on a fire poker.  Mean bastard that he was.

“Hannah!” Mrs. Kirkland called out to her, her face flushed with exertion.  

“Hello, Mary Alice!” Hannah called back, setting Teddy’s carrier on the floor just inside the door.  “Are you bringing Lady back?”

“Lady?” the other woman asked, momentarily confused.  “No...no, dear!  It’s Josie.  Justin had to take her to the hospital!”

Hannah blinked for a moment, lost about three seconds of her life in comprehending that last sentence...and nearly fell on her butt as she staggered into the doorframe.  “Wh-what?  What happened?”

“We think it’s her appendix--”

“Oh no!” Hannah breathed out mournfully.  The whole afternoon flooded through her mind.  Josie complaining her stomach hurt, holding onto it, not acting like her usually cheerful self.  “She told me her stomach hurt, but I didn’t know...I didn’t think...Oh, god, I’m so sorry!  I should have called you earlier about it!”

Mary Alice smiled kindly as she stood below Hannah at the bottom of the porch.  “Don’t fret so, dear.  Kids get stomach aches all the time.  But I know she’ll want you to be there.  We’ll give you a ride, if you want.”

“Yeah...okay,” Hannah said, feeling dizzy.  Appendix.  Ouch.  Hannah remembered that time in her life.  The pain from an appendicitis was excruciating.  And Josie was only thirteen and probably scared out of her mind.  Hannah had been twenty-four and scared out of her mind, so she could imagine what Josie was feeling.  “Just, um...give me a moment...”

“Are you feeling well, dear?  You looked a little peaked.”

Hannah tried to smile.  “I’m fine.  I’m just remembering when I had mine out.  Um...let me put Teddy in her cage, okay?  Then I’ll be right back.”  Hannah rushed to get Teddy situated, spilling a handful of pellets in her food bowl and dumping a lump of hay in a corner.  “Sorry, girl...you’ll have to make due for a few hours, okay?  I’ll make it up to you later.”  Then Hannah locked her door and followed Mrs. Kirkland to the waiting car.  Mr. Kirkland sat in the driver’s side, and he turned to glance at her as she crawled in the backseat.

“You alright there, hon?”

Hannah smiled at him.  “I’m okay.  How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” he admitted and backed out of Hannah’s drive as soon as everyone’s seat belts were in place.  “Had my appendix out once.  Hurt like hell.”

And that made Hannah laugh and feel better, hearing that small curse word coming from that normally soft-spoken old man.  “Me, too,” she agreed.

At the hospital, Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland spoke quietly with the woman behind the desk in the emergency room.  She heard them explain that Hannah was Josie’s “aunt,” and soon they were all escorted to the exam rooms.  “An aunt, huh?” Hannah asked conspiratorially.

Mrs. Kirkland patted Hannah’s arm.  “You’re like a daughter to us,” she responded simply, and Hannah smiled gratefully.  She felt a warmth spread through her that these wonderful people would consider her thus.  It made her feel special.  More so than she had in a very long time.  Not since she last heard her own father’s voice telling her he loved her.  She hoped the feeling would stay with her forever, but...it was not to be.

Because she caught a glimpse of one particular man and realized he was part of that family.  Which meant Mrs. Kirkland considered her to be his sister -- eww! -- or his significant other -- oh, hell no!

Justin saw her the same time she saw him.  “What is she doing here?” he thundered, the lines around his eyes especially tight and his jaw set with a determined strength.  Hannah got the impression he wasn’t quite as anxious over her sudden appearance as he was over his daughter’s distress.  That scored him some points in her book...but only a few.

The exam rooms were actually one big room, smaller areas divided by curtains, and Josie was behind one of them.  Hannah could see a few pairs of feet -- the smaller ones belonging to Josie -- from under the hem of the curtain, and as clothes started dropping to the floor, she realized that the girl was getting changed into a hospital gown.  Which explained why Justin was pacing the tiled floor outside the closed-off area, rather than being in there with his daughter.  After all, the girl was barely in her teens.  Appendicitis or not, no thirteen-year-old girl wanted her father to see her naked.

“I asked her to come,” Mary Alice said, bringing Hannah back to the problem in front of her...all six-foot-plus of him.

“She can leave,” Justin growled, thrusting a trembling hand through his unkempt blond hair.  

Mary Alice said, “Hannah is our friend, and she cares for Josie--”

Justin opened his stupid, stubborn mouth again, but Josie squealed, “Hannah?!”  The girl’s head poked out from a split in the curtains.  Hannah’s heart just about stopped.  Josie’s cheeks were washed of all color, and tears still streaked down her face.  Hannah disregarded Justin’s second growl and sidestepped him to reach Josie.

“Hey, sweetie, how are you?”

“Hannah,” Josie whined, her green eyes pinched in pain, “it hurts!  And they’re trying to get me into this ugly robe thing, and...and would you help me?”  Josie lowered her voice to a whisper.  “I feel weird with them in here.”

Justin moved closer, a helplessness in his expression and coloring his voice.  “Josie, honey, I can help you...”

Josie’s eyes got about as big as they could possibly go.  “No!”  And disappeared back behind the curtain.

Justin’s shoulders slumped at the adamancy in his daughter’s one word.  Hannah turned to him and said, “She’s thirteen.  She doesn’t want her daddy looking at her.”

“But--”

“She’s right, Justin,” Mary Alice said.  “Let Hannah help her.”

Hannah didn’t bother waiting for his permission.  It wasn’t needed and she’d ignore him if he forbade it.  Stepping through the split in curtains, she nodded at the nurses trying to help Josie, who had a sheet wrapped around her body in a small attempt to hide herself from the strange women’s eyes.  “I’ll get her dressed,” she told the nurses.  “Then do you want her back in bed?”

“Please,” one nurse said, a hint of thankfulness in her voice.  “We’ll be back in a moment with an IV.”

Josie stared at her.  “IV?”

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Hannah said as the nurses left.  “It’s just part of the surgery.”

“Surgery!”

“Josie, it’ll be fine,” she told the frightened girl in a soothing voice.  “You won’t feel a thing.  They’ll give you something to make you sleep and when you wake up, it’ll be all over and you’ll feel better.  The pain will be gone.”

“Are you sure?” Josie asked, her voice wobbly.  

“Of course, I am,” Hannah assured her.  “That’s what happened when I had my appendix out.”

Hannah helped her into the dressing gown and back into the bed.  Josie asked, “You had your appendix out, too?”

Hannah smiled.  “Yup.  Still have the scar.”

“Can I see it?”

Hannah hesitated, but if it would make Josie feel more optimistic about this...  She unzipped her jeans and pulled the waistband down far enough to show the four-inch scar running from below her belly button down.  Josie’s expression got scared again.  “It’s so big.”

“My appendix was nearly ruptured, but don’t think about that, okay?  I hear they can take it out with just a tiny hole.”

The curtain ripped open, and both girls turned to see Justin marching through.  Hannah quickly pulled her clothes back together and shot him a scathing glare.  His green eyes zeroed on her exposed belly, and she pushed her shirt down to conceal herself.  But instead of anger in his eyes, she saw something else.  Something she didn’t want to define with Josie lying in that hospital bed.

Something very much like approval and lust.

It gave her shivers up and down her spine.  Stupid, sexy bastard.

*****

Justin watched as Hannah disappeared behind the curtain, feeling completely at a loss for not being able to help his little girl right now.  Josie had been very adamant about him not helping her undress.  The only thing he could do was ask a few nurses to assist his growing baby and pray her mother got here quickly.  But then Hannah showed up, looking as frightened as he felt, and though he didn’t want to admit it, he was glad she came.  But only a tiny, tiny bit.

He could hear her soft voice talking to Josie, reassuring her, and soothing her fears, even sharing her own appendicitis experience.  And God help him, he finally realized he couldn’t be everything for Josie anymore.  His angel needed a mother to help her through tough times like this.  A woman who Josie could talk to, who would understand all those female things that he didn’t have a clue about.

And it seemed for now...Hannah was Josie’s choice.  As though shadows were being lifted from the room, he could feel Josie’s fear dissipating with every word Hannah spoke to her.  Justin listened to them through the curtain, and he couldn’t ever remember Beth speaking like that to Josie.  Like she truly and honestly cared...and maybe, just maybe, he’d been too hard on Hannah.  There was something sweet and loving in the tone she used with his little girl, and he yearned for Josie to hear such motherly nurturing everyday.  He wished he could give Josie the kind of love only a mother could, but there were some things that were genetically encoded in some women...and he didn’t have that gene.  He could only be her father.  And Josie needed a mother, too.

He waited for the creaking of the bed mattress, telling him that Josie was finally in bed, and then barged into the small area.  But what he saw stopped him in his tracks.  A section of Hannah’s belly was bare as she showed Josie a faded, pale scar which stretched down below her navel.  Her skin was smooth around the surgical blemish and tanned to a golden perfection, as though she lay out in the sun naked on a regular basis.  The mental image of that socked him in the sternum.  He lost his breath and a zing of lust ripped through his veins.  Holy hell.  He shouldn’t be thinking things like that with Josie nearby.  It was indecent.

But the thought wouldn’t go completely away.  It was now imbedded in his brain, along with her in the Terror Town bikini.  But Hannah gave him a hateful look before turning away and murmuring to Josie, who reached out to grasp Hannah’s hand tightly.  His parents stayed only long enough to give Josie some comforting kisses on her head before returning to the waiting room...leaving him alone with his daughter and a woman he used to despise, yet still wanted with a rock-hard hunger.

Giving his shoulders a loosening shrug -- mainly because he didn't have the heart to dismiss Hannah now that Josie clung so tightly to her-- he skirted to the other side of the bed to take Josie’s other hand.  Hannah’s eyes met him once again, and then he saw compassion in them...and a small, quite beautiful smile graced her lips.  It was very difficult to loathe the songbird when she looked at him like that.  When she smiled without any bitterness in the action.  Justin had to look away from her, focusing on his daughter’s face, to force himself to fight the impassioned sensations Hannah’s smile made him suffer.  Josie closed her eyes and clenched both their hands like she was hanging onto a lifeline.

“What did the doctor say?” Hannah asked him quietly, and Justin returned to gazing at her again.  Devoid of any make-up and with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she reminded him of the girl he met thirteen years ago, when Luke dated her.  She’d been beautiful back then, but now, she had grown into her beauty with a woman’s allure.

Inhaling a deep breath, he responded, “He examined her stomach with an ultrasound to make sure it really is her appendix, and gave her a shot of antibiotics to start her off...which really freaked her out.  Josie hates needles.  Always had.  Immunizations were always a real ordeal when she was little...”  Justin trailed off, amazed that he offered so much information.  He blinked for a moment, trying to register why he felt necessary to tell Hannah so much more than she asked, but she only nodded sympathetically and gently brushed Josie’s damp hair off her forehead.

Josie groaned.

Justin leaned fearfully closer to her.  “Honey, what’s wrong?  Does it hurt worse?”

Josie groaned again and said, “Ugh...needles!”  And Hannah laughed softly.

“I know how you feel, sweetie,” Hannah said, gazing at Josie with a tenderness that Justin had to admire in the woman, albeit grudgingly.  “I hated getting my shots...and stickers in your feet!  That’s just as bad.  Feels like a whole bunch of needles poking you in the foot.”

Josie giggled, though she kept her eyes closed.  “I got a splinter in my big toe once,” she murmured.  “Daddy had to cut it out with his pocket knife.”

Justin barked a laugh, remembering that particular afternoon.  “And as I recall, you screamed your head off.  The neighbors thought I was torturing you.”

Cracking an eye open to look up at him, Josie gave him a small, pale smile.  “Sorry about that, Daddy.  I didn’t know they’d call the police.”

Hannah gazed between the two of them.  “Someone called the police on you?  My, oh my, not Justin Kirkland.”

He glanced at her, wondering if that was one of her jabs at his character, or if she was teasing.  Her tone suggested teasing.  Her eyes...yeah, they were teasing, too.  Damn, she looked great while teasing.  Her eyes sparkled just so...like the flicker of a match firing to life.  But before he could say something that would make himself look more like an ass, the nurses came back with the IV, and Josie’s eyes shot open, her whole body tensing up.

“Hannah?  Daddy?” she wailed fearfully as one of the nurses prepped her arm for the needle.

Hannah smoothed a hand down Josie’s cheek and turned his little girl’s head away from the nurses.  “Sweetie, look at me.  Remember what I said?  This will help you sleep, okay?  And when you’re all done, and your appendix is out, I’m sure your daddy will let you come back to work with me, alright?  You’ve got a paycheck coming, you know.  Think of all the pretty clothes you can buy with your money...”

She talked on and on, getting Josie to focus on her voice and face, and the nurses stuck Josie’s arm with the needle for the IV, and his daughter never blinked an eye.  

But that suggestion about letting Josie go back to work with her...?  Then something else registered in his brain.  “You’re paying her?”

Hannah snapped her gaze to him for just a second, then she returned to Josie.  “Of course, I am.  She works very hard.  She should get paid.”

“How much?”

But before she could reply, one of the nurses spoke to Josie, saying, “Josie, dear, I want you to count down from ten, okay?”

Josie looked at Hannah first and asked, “You’ll stay and wait for me, right?”

“Absolutely,” Hannah said, and Josie started counting.  She was out by seven.  Then they were told to leave so Josie could be prepared for surgery.  The doctor performing the operation came in briefly to describe the appendectomy procedure, and Justin felt confident in the man’s professional skills.  At this point, he really didn’t have a choice.  On the way to the waiting room, Justin walked a pace in front of Hannah.  He stopped suddenly at a cross in the corridors and turned to the woman who caused so must frustration in him.  

"How much?" he asked her again.

She chewed on the corner of her lip for a moment.  Then she answered, "Fifty a week."

"Fifty dollars?  What in the world is she doing with fifty dollars a week?”

She put her hands on her hips and craned her neck to look up at him.  “Well, for one thing, I only pay her every two weeks, but if you must know, she bought herself a guitar.”

Her defensive stance put him back into an opposing attitude of his own.  “And you’ve been teaching her to sing, I’m guessing.”

“Then you’ve guessed wrong,” she retorted.  “I taught her how to play.  She already knew how to sing, and she sings wonderfully.  She’s probably been singing for a long time, or haven’t you been listening?”

Actually...no, he hadn’t been listening.  Even when he saw those videos of the two of them singing, he didn’t listen to his daughter.  He only heard and saw Hannah, and had been pissed to witness that.  The sudden awareness of his blinding anger -- anger at Beth, at Hannah, at most women in general -- made him feel like a jackass, the exact description Hannah had once called him.  He’d been so afraid of Josie turning into one of those women he despised so much, that he never really saw the woman she was growing up into.  And that was something Josie had been shouting at him for a year now.  He hadn’t been listening.

But he was too proud to admit that to Hannah.  He just grunted and turned on his heel to cut tracks to the waiting room.  His parents were there, and he took a moment to relate the doctor’s findings from the exam and how long the surgery should take.  Hannah listened for a moment, and then, glancing at Justin with that same acidic indignation he was becoming familiar with, said she was going over to the cafeteria to grab some dinner since she hadn’t eaten yet.  Mary Alice offered to go with her.  And that left Justin alone with his dad...waiting silently in uncomfortable chairs and staring at a television in the corner broadcasting national news.  

For a while, neither man said anything at all.  Justin felt his stomach growl with hunger and he longingly thought about a strong cup of coffee, but that would mean heading down to the cafeteria, where Hannah went, and he didn’t think he could stand to face her yet.  Or leave the waiting room in case something went wrong with Josie’s surgery.

Then his dad leaned further back in his seat and said, “How is your brother doing?”

“Fine,” Justin answered.  “He’s got a great house with views of the sea, and a great job that pays for his great house, and a great wife eager to spend his money.  He’s great.”

“You sound bitter, son.”

“I’m not bitter, dad.  I’m happy Luke is happy and doing well for

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