Jaden Page 2

  “It depends on how much longer and what else is on my day,” he said, while stifling a yawn. “Still seems like a lot of traveling and wreckage to my body.”

  “It is,” Iain said. “And we still have to take things slow and build you back up to your pretrip strength, but you will see people like me here too.”

  “I have seen a couple,” Jaden said. “They don’t look like they belong.”

  “Chances are they are leaving any day,” Iain said. “Like me.”

  Jaden stared at him, his stomach sinking. “You are getting discharged soon?”

  “I’ve got another ten days,” he said. “I was really hoping you’d get here before I left.”

  “What about the girlfriend?”

  He grinned. “I’m getting a place in town, which is only a twenty-minute drive away,” he said. “I’ll set up a center for veterans somewhere here and help them find what they need to do with their life after rehab and get them either training or jobs.”

  “Aren’t there government centers for that?”

  “There sure are,” Iain said in disgust. “And, to the greater extent, they’re useless. I’m hoping that I can end up helping out some of these guys.”

  “Will you charge for this?” Jaden asked with interest. “Because you know we all get pensions and whatnot, but it’s not a whole lot to live on.”

  “My pension is doing okay,” he said. “And I do have other money saved, and it’s earning interest. So I’ll see what I need initially to set up a free training center. It’s the overhead that might kill me. I’ll need an office too.”

  “Right. You have to pay rent and power and water, et cetera.”

  “So I’m talking with a couple charities in town, plus with a group of men in New Mexico, one of whom I know. Do you know Badger’s group?”

  Jaden frowned as he thought about it. “You mean Erick’s group?”

  “Yep. Badger and Erick and about five other guys. They have a similar setup out of New Mexico that they started. Titanium Corp.”

  At that, his confusion cleared, and Jaden nodded. “I’ve heard of Titanium Corp. If you could do something like that here,” he said, “wow.”

  “Well, they’re doing a lot of security business and hiring the guys for jobs like that, even some government assignments. Also they have this side gig where they rehab homes, specifically for vets in mind,” he said. “That’s not what I’m heading into. At least I don’t think so.” He stopped and stared out the window, frowning as if the ideas were rolling around in his head.

  “I think the world is your oyster,” Jaden said. “If you can make it happen, then go for it.”

  “It’s just me though,” Iain said. “I might need somebody at my side to give me a hand.” He studied Jaden thoughtfully.

  “Depends how I progress through this place,” Jaden said. “But if you’re interested in a partner down the road, think about me.”

  “Will do,” Iain said. “First and foremost, you have to look after yourself though. That’s the rule here. If it’s part of your healing and if it’s necessary for your growth, it has to happen. But, if you’re doing it for somebody else, Hathaway House wants you to stop right now and to reassess what it is that you want in life.”

  “That’s odd to think about,” he murmured, remembering how, long ago, his dad took off with his brother to places unknown, leaving him with his mother, who was killed in a car accident soon afterward, forcing Jaden into foster care. “My foster dad passed away about six months ago,” he said. “And then my motivation stopped. I didn’t know what I was doing any of this for. When you lose your entire family …”

  “I get it,” Iain said. “The thing is, now it’s really clear for you what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for because there is only you. Maybe that makes it easier. I don’t know. Maybe it makes it worse.”

  “It is what it is,” Jaden said in a tired voice. He looked around, realizing that this cafeteria felt more like a restaurant. Not quite like resort dining but maybe a country inn. He nodded toward the fields outside. “It’s really nice to see all the green lands.”

  “Not more apartment buildings and other structures and institutions all around you?” Iain teased.

  “Isn’t that the truth,” he said. “As far as I can tell here, I haven’t seen any other people but those associated with Hathaway House.”

  “Right. Just those tied to the center. Dani has quite a few acres here. I’m not sure how she ended up with it all, but it’s not all green, that I can tell you. Just this section around here.”

  “It’s nice to see the horses,” Jaden murmured.

  “It’s even better to ride them,” Iain said with a note of satisfaction. “When I got back on a horse again here with Dani at my side, I thought I’d won the lottery,” he said.

  Jaden looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t even know you rode.”

  “Well, I do,” he said. “Like a lot of things in life, we forget because we don’t think we can get there again.”

  “Well, I used to do an awful lot of woodwork,” Jaden said. “And I have to admit that I was pretty damn grateful to still have my hands. But this one arm and this one leg …”

  “Yeah, your entire right side took a blow, didn’t it?”

  “Well, if that’s what you call it,” he said with a half laugh. “But, yeah, that’s the side that took the battering from the accident as we flipped.”

  “A roadside bomb, right?”

  “Yep, sure was,” he said. “And, although that shrapnel killed one of my buddies, Tom and I were tossed, burned, and then I ended up half squashed under one of the vehicles. That was the major damage done to the shoulder. The fire pretty well destroyed part of the leg. The shrapnel didn’t help either.”

  “But the other leg is okay?”

  “One leg is solid, and one leg is not,” he said. “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, considering how close I was to the bomb and then with the fire raging around us.” He shook his head.

  Just then Iain’s gaze went past his buddy, and his face lit up. “Wait until you see these,” he said, a note of satisfaction in his voice.

  Jaden twisted ever-so-slightly to see Dennis coming toward them, holding up cones with three scoops of different kinds of ice cream.

  He handed them out and said, “You look like guys with appetites.”

  “Well, I did,” Jaden said, “but I’m worn out from the long day of traveling …”

  “Make sure you get some muscle relaxants for the night,” Dennis warned. “I’ve seen so many guys arrive and think that a good night’s sleep after their transfer here will put them back on the path, only to have a terrible night.”

  Jaden accepted his ice cream with a big smile and said thank-you sincerely to Dennis.

  Dennis nodded and said, “Be back here for food in an hour. You have a two-hour window though. So if you need that nap first, you take it.” And he disappeared.

  “Coming back to the problem of your accident,” Iain said suddenly, “how much of it is in your head?”

  Startled, Jaden looked at his buddy and raised his eyebrows. “No more than anybody else’s accident is in their head,” he said.

  “Good,” Iain said. “It should make it easier for you to heal.”

  “Says you,” he said. “I’ve had no improvement or very little improvement in the last many months.”

  “That’s because you gave up,” Iain announced.

  Bristling at his words, Jaden glared at him.

  Iain grinned. “I know you don’t want to hear that,” he said, “but sometimes you need to hear the truth.”

  “You mean, the truth that you see,” Jaden warned, “because that’s not the truth from where I sit.”

  “Of course not,” he said, “because you don’t want to see that you could have done more. And, in this case, maybe there wasn’t more you could have done.” Iain gave him a shrug. “I honestly didn’t think any further improvement awaited me back at my old p
lace either.”

  “So you really think this place is what made the difference for you?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Mentally and physically.”

  “But then there’s also your girlfriend,” Jaden teased.

  “Yes, and no,” he said, “but I realized that I had a lot of work to do on myself that only I could work on. I mean, she’s come a long way too.”

  “She has some health issues?”

  “No, not really,” he said, “but we’ve all got issues of one kind or another. By the way, you’ll need to take a look at your team and make sure you understand who’s who and keep your meetings with them. They’re here for you.”

  “I get that,” Jaden said. “It’s just the thought of going through it all over again, all my injuries, all about my accident, everything that’s been done since then …”

  “And yet that’s probably as vital as anything,” Iain said. “Just think about all those new eyes, new brains, and new thought processes now focused on your file. Who knows what they could come up with?”

  “Hey, Dennis, do you have another one of those?”

  At the light musical voice, Jaden turned slightly to see Dennis standing in front of the counter and a woman nodding at the ice cream cones in his and his buddy’s hands. She was a blonde, her hair in a plait down the center of her back. She had that nurse look to her. He smiled and said to Iain, “I guess a lot of beautiful women are here, aren’t they?”

  “Tons,” Iain said. “This one is newer though.”

  The two of them at the cafeteria line were busy talking, and then Dennis disappeared. She waited at the coffee machine just far enough away that they couldn’t say anything to her. When Dennis returned a moment later, he had a single scoop of ice cream in a cone for her. She held it up in a salute to the men, then turned and disappeared.

  “Damn,” Jaden said. “Maybe I’ll like this place for other reasons after all.”

  At that, Iain’s laughter boomed out loud. “I hope so, buddy. I hope so.”

  Brianna Kole had only been on the job not quite four weeks to date and was still figuring out just what was the right way to work and the right wrong way to work. As far as the system went here, it was efficient. But she appreciated a lot of things, like the house rules and the ice cream for one. She wasn’t even sure if she was allowed it, but, when she’d seen the two men partaking, she couldn’t resist asking Dennis.

  Now, she carried her ice cream back to her desk, where she would get out some of that paperwork. She had a lot of files to catch up on. In addition to being a nurse on call to fill in as needed, she also played a part-time IT role here just because it was one of her passions, and definitely some computer issues needed to be looked at here. Dani had some guy in town who came out on a regular basis, but, when some of the other nurses struggled with one of the programs, Brianna would take a look at it. Not that she had any IT background. She was just good with computers.

  She stepped into her office, sat down at her desk, looked at the stack of files beside her, and groaned. But that’s part of the job, both for her and for medical institutions in general. Keeping meticulous records was important, and, although Hathaway House did an awful lot in digital format, they also maintained paper copies as well. She wasn’t exactly sure why, and Dani was looking at potentially changing up the system, but, at the moment, this duality of records was considered the best practice in a medical center like this. So, that’s what Brianna was doing. She had her work cut out for her.

  As she dug in to the next file, she worked away on her ice cream cone too.

  Shane, one of the PT guys, stopped in and took one look at her. His eyebrows popped up. “When did we get ice cream?”

  “No clue,” she said cheerfully, “but I saw two guys in the cafeteria with cones.”

  “That figures,” he said. “Once one guy finds out about it …”

  She nodded sagely. “Don’t tell me that you won’t ask him for one too.”

  “Did Dennis give that to you?”

  “Yep, he did,” she said. “First rule of a new job is to find the people with power and make friends.”

  Shane burst out laughing and took off.

  She grinned in his wake. He was one of the friendliest guys she’d met so far. Not that anybody was unfriendly, but people were fairly serious when dealing with their own issues and also their assigned patients. And she understood. She was a day nurse and supposedly just on a relief basis. Yet that relief basis had turned into so much more. So far, she didn’t see a break in her schedule over the next month. While technically part-time, on paper anyway, she now worked full-time hours.

  She’d hadn’t been here very long, but had already found that she was much needed. In the mornings, she dispensed some of the medications and did some of the rounds. In the afternoons, she did paperwork. She only had an hour left in her shift though, and then it was dinnertime.

  Just a few days ago Dani had mentioned that an apartment was available on-site, and Brianna hadn’t accepted because she thought to only be here part-time. However, if she were to go full-time, she would definitely reconsider that. She was temporarily staying with a friend in town, but that wasn’t something she particularly wanted to do permanently. Plus, if she could avoid commuting—the gas, the wear and tear on her vehicle, not to mention her time involved—that would count up week by week and would save her some money.

  Frowning, she checked her watch and realized that maybe she could catch Dani before she left for the afternoon. Brianna raced toward the front offices to see Shane with an ice cream cone in hand. He stood at the edge of Dani’s door. He looked at Brianna, grinned, and said, “She’s to blame.”

  She poked her head around to see Dani sitting there, staring at the ice creams the two held. Brianna quickly finished off her cone.

  “Once word gets out, Dennis will have a mutiny on his hands,” Dani muttered.

  Shane took off, and Brianna stepped into Dani’s office. “Have you got a moment?”

  “Sure,” Dani said. “That’s about all I have, but, if you can make it fast, then a moment will do.”

  “Great,” Brianna said. She sat down and continued, “You offered me an on-site apartment earlier, and, at the time, I was thinking I would only be here a few days a week. However, it’s become full-time since day one almost.”

  “I was going to ask you about your schedule,” Dani said. “One of our nurses just handed in her notice. She was due to have medical surgery herself, but it supposedly wouldn’t be for another six months. Now they’ve moved up her date to next week.”

  “Oh,” Brianna said. “So …” And then she let her voice trail off.

  “Could you do full-time now? Come on as permanent staff?”

  “What about this nurse, when she’s recovered from her surgery?”

  “She has asked me not to pin her down as to coming back, but she’s a good nurse. So, if she wants to return, when she’s back on her feet again, then that’s a different story. But her recovery time will be a good six months.”

  Brianna nodded slowly. “I’m sorry for her.”

  “I am too, but at least she’s getting the surgery now,” she said. “She’s also going to spend some of the rehab time in California. Once there, she may not want to return to Texas.”

  “So, full-time for me? Starting when?” She would love that. One permanent full-time job was what she’d been looking forward to for months.

  “Yes,” Dani said. “At least as of next Friday, which is her last day.”

  “You know my schedule is already pretty booked, right? That I’m full-time anyway, as far as the current shifts are set up?”

  “And I’ll have to take a look at that,” Dani said, muttering as she pulled out a batch of hard-copy schedules to place in front of her. “You have another five days booked the week after that.”

  “Yes,” she said. “My scheduled is booked full for the next month.”

  Dani nodded and shuffled deeper into he
r pile of employee schedules, eyeing a couple more weeks. She nodded again. They discussed times and shifts to adjust, and then Dani sat back and said, “So, once I get this okayed by the other nurses as I divvy up the workload per shift, I’ll run a draft copy of your schedule by you and the others before I finalize anything. That way hopefully we can head off any problems before we end up short on nurses one day or even with too many on another.” Dani smirked. “I guess too many is never a problem, right?”

  Brianna laughed. “Nope. As long as we get our hours, I’m sure everybody’s happy.”

  “So does that mean you also want the apartment now?” Dani asked, focused on Brianna.

  “Do you still have it?”

  “Yes, plus another nurse is leaving. Her room will be available soon as well.”

  “Perfect,” Brianna said. “I would love to move in here, since that would make my life a lot easier and save me some traveling time and expenses.”

  “Which is why we have it,” Dani said. “We’re certainly close enough to town for people to travel there, if they want to, but it’s also nice to know that you don’t have to.”

  “Are our meals included?”

  “They are, indeed,” she said. “Sorry. I should have made sure you knew about that from your first day here. Same deal as always here. Even if you’re part-time, you can have your meals here. But, once you’re living here, then that’s where your meals are expected to be had. Dennis figures that into his food budget. Not that you can’t go out to eat elsewhere, but we’ve got you covered, is all I’m saying. Either way, Dennis likes to have leftovers for those days when we have investors coming, and I’ve forgotten to tell him.”

  Dani laughed. “I try not to do that to him too many times during any given month. Oh, as an aside, we do have some apartments with little kitchen units, if you’re interested, but this one in particular doesn’t have cooking facilities.”

  “And that suits me,” Brianna said. “I’ve never really had much inclination to cook.”

  “I love cooking,” Dani said, “but I never really have much time for it.”