Heath Read online

  Silence.

  “Why not?” he asked, dread in his heart. He really did not sleep well until she came past his room with her mop.

  “It’s my days off,” she said apologetically. “I took an extra couple shifts, so I was here for the last two nights. But I do need a break.”

  “Of course you do,” he said immediately, hating that he would lie here awake at night and wonder what she was doing. He didn’t understand their connection but acknowledged that it existed. They shared … something. Some odd, twisted relationship between her mop, him, and his sleep.

  He smiled bravely and said, “I hope you’ll enjoy the next couple days.”

  “I’ll be at another job,” she said slowly. “So I don’t think enjoy is quite the right word.”

  “You have two jobs?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Medical bills.”

  “Right,” he said softly. “Thankfully that is not a burden I have to bear.”

  She smiled and closed the door slowly behind her.

  He laid there though, thinking about that pain of losing somebody and then still paying for the medical bills on top of it. What a horrible reminder. And given what she had said about her son, she had a mountain of debt to pay off. More years of remembering you were paying a bill that somebody had incurred while trying to save your child who couldn’t be saved. Just the repetitive acknowledgment of that pain would be brutal.

  He wished he could do something, but she was one of a million people he suspected with those kinds of medical bills, and how wrong was that? How do you ease that burden of so many? Or in what way could her burden be lifted? The last thing he had was money. Or not much. He was fine, his needs taken care of, but no pot of gold in the bank awaited him.

  The government paid all his medical bills. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do when he was back on his feet again. He would need retraining to make a living because he couldn’t live off his benefits for long. He might find himself like her, cleaning floors to survive. Wouldn’t that be a twist of fate? He should have enough to not have to do that, but she was doing honest work, and he could see how that honest work meant a lot, especially to her. Anything she could do to get back out from under her massive medical debts would be a huge boon.

  He closed his eyes and thought about it, wondering if maybe he could help in some way.

  Chapter 6

  Hailee made her way up the long ramp to the main floor of Hathaway House. She’d sent Dani an email early, asking if she could have a meeting with her. She was hopeful that her request would be granted, but she had yet to get up the nerve to even ask for it. But now she had been forced into making this change. As she walked into the front reception area, she recognized a new girl who had started a few days ago. “Hey, Caitlin. How are you doing?” she asked.

  Caitlin looked up with a bright smile. “Hey, Hailee. How were your days off?”

  Hailee shrugged and said, “It was fine.” But of course it wasn’t. She’d worked. That’s all she ever did. But that wasn’t for anybody else to worry about.

  As she walked past, Dani called out, “Hailee, come on in.”

  She walked in and closed the door. “Hey, Dani. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make this cloak-and-dagger-ish. I just wondered …” She stopped.

  Dani pointed at the two visitor chairs. “Hey, sit down. Relax. You’re not due on for quite a few hours, aren’t you?” She looked at her watch, frowned, and faced Hailee. “Or do you need to change your shift?”

  “No, my shift is fine,” she said, then hesitated.

  “I can’t help if you don’t tell me what the problem is,” Dani said gently, a sly smile on her face.

  Hailee laughed. “You’ve already helped so much that it feels wrong to ask anything more of you.”

  “That’s not the issue at all,” Dani said. “All I’ve done is give you a job, and I’d give you a better one, if you’d let me.”

  “But I can’t afford to let go of the one job,” she said. “Yet it seems I might be forced to.”

  Dani frowned at that. “Well, if you tell me what you’re making at both of them, maybe I can help.”

  At that, Hailee hesitated. This isn’t what she had expected, and she didn’t know what to say about that patient’s need for Hailee’s nighttime floor mopping, but then she hadn’t been here for two nights anyway. Maybe he had managed without her. She sagged into the chair. “I was wondering if you had a staff room available,” she said in a rush. As Dani’s eyebrows shot up, Hailee took a deep breath and said, “I really need to cut back my expenses.”

  “Those damn bills, huh?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The lawyer still hasn’t heard back on the latest proposal for the medical bills.”

  “Hmm,” Dani said, frowning. “They should be lucky you’re working as hard as you are, trying to pay them back.”

  “But it’s so much money.”

  “Let me take a look at what I have available,” Dani said.

  “I know it’s for your medical staff,” Hailee rushed in to add.

  “It doesn’t matter who it’s for,” Dani said. “If I’ve got something that will help, then I’m all for it. Do you really think it’ll help though?”

  “It’ll save me some back and forth traveling time for sure,” Hailee said slowly. She’d been thinking about this a lot over these last several hours. “I don’t know how much you charge your residents for the housing.”

  “I don’t,” Dani said. And then, with a clipped nod, she added, “That alone would help you, wouldn’t it? Do you have much furniture to move?”

  “I sold everything. I’ve been living in a tiny studio apartment in town.”

  “So how hard would it be to move you here?”

  “Just loading up my car might take two runs.” She tried to keep the anxious tone out of her voice, but it was hard because Dani could save Hailee quite a bit of money. Yet how was she supposed to ask for something like that? She wasn’t very good at asking for help.

  “You don’t have much at home, so that’ll make your move easier,” Dani said, as she checked through the screens on her monitor. “You’re right. We do have a lot of staff in residence here.”

  Hailee sat back and watched as Dani continued to click through her records. Hailee wondered if Dani even had any free spaces or if everything was full.

  “And your employee numbers must move up and down all the time,” Hailee said. “So, if you need to keep an empty apartment for incoming staff, then I understand totally.”

  Dani smiled at her. “If I had an accountant on staff, she could find this instantly.” Dani tilted her head and raised her eyebrows at Hailee. “But I don’t. And I can’t even answer you about availability until I check through these records,” she said. “So either grab a coffee and come sit back down and let me do this or disappear and let me do this.”

  At that, Hailee burst out laughing. “Got it,” she said. “I’ll go grab a coffee.” She stopped at the doorway and looked back at Dani. “Do you want one?”

  Dani looked up, smiled, and said, “I’d love one, thanks.”

  With that, Hailee headed toward the cafeteria. She was rarely here during the day and never midafternoon, but, since she’d finished at her bookkeeping job early, she was here now. She desperately wanted to stay here. Just a place where she could live and work and save a little bit more money so that she could get out of debt faster. A year here would help a lot. The lawyer had made it very clear that, if she made an attempt to pay the hospital bills, then there was a good chance that he could negotiate that bill down a good 50 percent—or even 75 percent. That would get her back on her feet in the foreseeable future, while she was still capable of working. Indeed, it would make a huge difference, and she could probably get most of it paid off within several years. But, without this write off, she might as well declare bankruptcy right now, and that was a very depressing concept. Did that even clear medical bills?

  In the cafeteria, she was surprised to se
e a number of people, from patients to staff. Some were sitting together, and some were sitting alone. Lots of meetings seem to be happening. From what she saw, some of the therapists were off in a huddle to one side. As she walked down the aisle, she accidentally went in along the foodservice line.

  Dennis popped up and said, “Can I get you something?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not starting my shift yet. I just came to get coffee for Dani and me.”

  He stopped, frowning at her, and asked, “Are you paying for food elsewhere?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Of course I am!”

  His frown deepened.

  She smiled and said, “Remember? I don’t live here.”

  “Hmm.”

  She could see it bothered him. “Don’t worry about it,” she said carelessly. She walked over to the coffee area and poured two cups. She didn’t even remember how Dani liked hers. She turned to see Dennis still staring at her. “Do you know how Dani takes her coffee?”

  He chuckled and said, “A little bit of cream.”

  She smiled, added a splash of cream, picked up the two mugs, and said, “Thanks.” As she headed out, she continued to feel Dennis’s eyes boring into her back. She hadn’t even considered that extra cost. And now she worried if she’d asked Dani for way too much. She had already given Hailee a job. But to expect Dani to cover Hailee’s housing costs was too much because Hailee hadn’t taken into account her food costs here too.

  Although she didn’t eat much, it was still an extra expense. And she hadn’t even looked at her own budget to see how much it would have saved her because she wasn’t eating well now because she didn’t dare. She shook her head. As she walked in, she announced, “Forget about it.”

  Dani looked up at her in surprise, saw the coffee, and smiled. “Thanks. What do you mean, forget about it?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” she said. “But, for me to live here, I’d also be eating here, and that would be an added cost on you.”

  Dani chuckled. “Are you serious?”

  Hailee sat down, frowning. “Of course I’m serious,” she said. “I don’t want anything to impact your ability to run this place.”

  “The food is good and all,” Dani said, “but one more mouth really doesn’t make a whole lot of difference in the overall scheme. In case you hadn’t noticed, we offer a ton of food all the time.” Then she stopped and looked at her. “But, of course, you don’t know that, do you? And you probably don’t even eat here, do you?”

  Hailee shook her head. “No. I was just talking to Dennis, and he basically hopped up to ask me what I wanted to eat.”

  “That’s Dennis,” Dani said. “One of the most willing staff members we have here.”

  “He didn’t sound pleased that I didn’t eat here,” Hailee said with a frown, still feeling bad at her oversight. “Does everybody eat here?”

  “If you work here, you’re welcome to eat here,” Dani said. “It’s one of the perks. We do have a lot of extra people, and yet there are leftovers all the time.”

  If Hailee could even get some of the leftovers, that would save her even more with her food bill. She shook her head. “You’ve already done so much for me.”

  Dani sighed. “I want you to tell me point-blank how much money you make at the other job.”

  Hailee hesitated.

  “Okay, let’s go by ranges,” she said. “Do you make over forty?”

  “Hell no,” Hailee said. “I don’t. Why?”

  “Adding in your earnings from this job, do the two of them pay you fifty?”

  Hailee had to stop and think about it, and then she slowly shook her head. “Close maybe, but no.”

  “So then, how about you come in as my accountant? Which is what I’ve been trying to get you to do for months. I’ll pay you what I paid my last one, which was fifty-eight a year to start, and we can move up from there later. Plus I have a room for you. It’s actually scheduled for my accountant,” she said with a smile. “And, yes, that’s my added bonus to entice you to take this job. And, of course, all your meals would be free here. So basically you would have fifty-eight grand minus taxes at the end of the day.”

  Hailee stared at her, her jaw dropping. “Seriously?”

  “Absolutely,” Dani said with a nod. “I should be paying more than that for the accountant. That’s something you can help me figure out when you’re in the position. We’ll do some shifts in the bookkeeping work, so that I can see where all the costs are coming from. I have it here in front of me, but, at the same time, I’m sure I could do some better record-keeping.”

  “Are you positive you need an accountant?” she asked. “You handle all the books.”

  “I do,” Dani said, “and it takes me forever.”

  “So do you need an accountant part-time?” Hailee countered.

  “No, I need a full-time accountant.” Dani laughed, and the sound was joyous and bright, putting a smile on Hailee’s face.

  “I get that you care, but I don’t want you being overly concerned about me,” Hailee said.

  Dani shook her head. “If you come on board as my accountant, we both get the benefit of that.”

  Hailee looked at her, smiled gently, and, with a deep whoosh, said, “Thank you. I accept.”

  “Good,” Dani said, her smile widening, lighting up her face. “Now, how long before you can start?”

  “Well, I got notice from my landlord that my rent is going up next month, plus layoffs will happen soon at my day job, which is why I was asking about a place to live,” Hailee said with an unhappy frown. “My boss in town is already asking for people to step up and quit, to avoid forcing others into a layoff. If I do quit, I’m not supposed to go back anymore. And this month’s rent is due as it is, so I already talked to my landlord about maybe being late this month.”

  “In that case, we’ll send somebody back with you, and you’ll get moved in today,” Dani said. “Okay?”

  Hailee shook her head, amazed and stunned at how fast everything had just shifted. “Are you sure?”

  “Hell, yes, I’m sure,” Dani said. “On the downside, I might have to hire somebody to replace you for cleaning. People have noticed what a great job you’ve been doing.”

  “Well, if you don’t need a full-time accountant, is it possible that I could still do some of the cleanings?”

  “No, that won’t work.”

  “It’ll work if we say it works,” Hailee said stubbornly and hoped she hid the tiny note of desperation in her voice. She had an ulterior motive for continuing the cleaning, but that was a completely different topic.

  Heath tossed and turned on his bed. He’d come back in from physio exhausted, but nothing was helping him sleep. Since his cleaning lady wasn’t here, he couldn’t wake up and hear the same rhythmic motion that immediately put him back to sleep again. He knew it was stupid. It was one of those little things that he didn’t dare tell anybody about because it made no sense.

  Not only that it made no sense but it also made him sound like he was off his rocker, and he really couldn’t afford more of that. He already knew that everything he said and did was analyzed and then ripped apart to look for hidden meanings and nuances as to why he was struggling so much.

  He’d told his medical team that he was having nightmares, and they’d offered all kinds of suggestions to help relieve some of the stress, but nothing would ease his guilt. He understood survivor’s guilt was a real thing, and so did they, but, so far, nothing they had suggested was helping. And he wanted it to, but, at the same time, he hadn’t told them the entire story. He kept it locked in the back of his mind. He was too ashamed to tell anyone. He didn’t think it was essential to share; it was something he had to work through himself. But now, after two days without decent sleep, nothing was going right. He was short-tempered and angry, and all his interactions caused him more and more stress.

  On that note, a hard knock came at his door. He groaned. “I’m sleeping,” he growled.

>   The door opened instead. Heath glared at his intruder. Shane stood there with his hands on his hips and glared right back.

  “What do you want?” Heath muttered. He shifted, hating the wince that crossed his face at the pain rippling up and down his body. But Shane immediately moved to Heath’s side and, using competent hands, shifted Heath’s body until he lay flat on his stomach. Shane pulled the pillow out from under Heath’s head and said, “Just lie there for a moment.”

  It was all Heath could do to not immediately retort back with something much harsher. Then Shane got to work on Heath’s neck. When he felt a moment later the tension release, Heath whispered, “Thank you.”

  “Is this why you’re having such a crappy day?” Shane asked, as he worked up and down Heath’s spine.

  Heath knew that Shane could feel the knots and the agony from the torn muscles as they had healed but left scar tissue that tightened so badly they wouldn’t stretch. It was all Heath could do to stop the tears from coming into his eyes. He turned his head so his face was pressed against the sheet, holding back as much as he could.

  Shane suddenly stopped and said, “No point in me releasing the knots in your back if you continue to hold it all within your head and your heart. I’ve seen bigger and harder and tougher men cry. You have to let this go.”

  Heath couldn’t stop the shake of his head and the instinctive tightening of his back.

  Immediately Shane grabbed Heath’s trapezius gently and squeezed ever-so-lightly. “These? These shoulder muscles are sending the rest of your chest muscles off-balance,” he said. “And this tension is from you resisting. You need to calm it down.” He shifted Heath a little bit lower in the bed and then resumed work. His hands were coated in something. He massaged lightly and then not-so-lightly, as he continued to work layer after layer at the insertion points on each and every muscle on his back.

  When Heath realized he no longer shook with the pain but was actually shaking with relief, he didn’t know what to say. The tears had stopped flowing, and finally he could lay his head to the side and take a deep, normal breath.