“I hope you find that big happy, Shaun,” he murmured above her head, his hands rubbing up and down her back, and she hiccupped on a sad whimper. She inhaled, and sadness hit her all over again at the strange, unfamiliar scent.She missed Kasey. “Don’t let that pride of yours get in the way, okay?”
She laughed sadly.Too late.“Okay.”
When they finally pulled apart, she felt like something had lifted; that closure that neither of them had been granted finally shifted into place. She walked him to the door, and she opened it, stopping just inside as he turned back toward her.
“I’m proud of you,” she said softly, reaching her hand out to him one more time. He reached out and squeezed her fingers gently. “Take care of you.”
He released her hand and nodded, then said, “You, too.” She watched him as he jogged down the steps to his truck. He climbed in and then waved before driving away.
Sighing heavily and squeezing her eyes shut against another wave of tears, she closed the door.
FORTY
When Shaun woke the next morning, still with no text or call from Kasey, she threw herself into work; going in early and staying late every day, helping the other guys with their jobs when she’d completed all of hers.
All except Nate, who had returned to work at the beginning of the week. He’d kept his distance for most of the first week, but had since resumed his usual behavior of standing too close, watching her from afar, and the occasional unwelcome sexual advance.
Waking early, Shaun lay in bed for a moment trying to figure out what had woken her so abruptly, when she bolted out of bed, racing to the bathroom. She’d barely made it before throwing up wretchedly multiple times. Standing, she rinsed her mouth and then walked slowly out to the kitchen, starting the coffee to percolate, but the smell of the coffee as it brewed made her nauseous again, and moments later she threw up in the kitchen sink.
Calling in sick wasn’t an option. If she stayed at home, it left far too much time to think about how much she missed Kasey, or the conversation she’d had with Tommy several days prior. So, still a little green around the gills, she lugged herself to the shop, several cans of warm ginger ale and a sleeve of crackers sitting on her work bench, close at hand.
“Oy, you don’t look too good,” Brent muttered, giving her a wide berth as she walked through the shop. “Brown bag flu?”
She shook her head. “No. Not sure. Maybe it was something I ate last night.”
“Why don’t you go home,” Ben said from the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, as usual.
“I’m fine,” she muttered sourly. He grumbled something and then walked away, leaving her to her work.
Several hours later, she stood from where she’d been hunkered down next to the Ford Escape she’d been working on, and she reeled slightly, a wave of dizziness washing over her as stars danced in her vision. Reaching out, she grabbed hold of the side of the vehicle, closing her eyes tightly. She took a deep breath in, hoping it would help steady her, releasing it slowly, but it did nothing to combat the vertigo. Nausea rolled through her again, her mouth watering with the urge to vomit.
“Shaun? Hey, are you alright?” she heard from her left, and she nodded, hoping it would be enough to send Nate on his way. “Hey, you don’t look too good. Let me help you.”
She shrugged his hands off her shoulders, but still he moved forward, bracketing her in against the side of the car. Shoving against him with as much strength as she could muster, she tried to dislodge him. “Come on, Shaun. You know you want this.”
His breath was hot as it hit her in the face, his mouth getting closer and closer to her own. Nausea rolled through her at the thought of his mouth connecting with hers, and she shoved against him again. He finally stumbled back, and she twisted away from him sharply.
Oh god, I’m going to throw up.
She squeezed her eyes shut as another debilitating wave of dizziness flashed over her. Swallowing the saliva that had pooled in her mouth, she shook her head and opened her eyes just in time to see him advance on her again, those creepy black eyes intent on her face. She shook her head, willing her throat to open enough to call out for help, but she knew if she opened her mouth, she was going to vomit everywhere. Instead, she took an instinctual, unsteady step backward, her only means of escape.
“Oh, fuck!” she heard, just as her heel connected with something heavy just behind her, and she tripped, falling backward.
It felt as if she was falling for a long time, suspended in the air for way longer than she should have. When she finally landed, she only had a half a second to register the pain that exploded in her side before her head connected with the concrete ground and everything went black.
FORTY-ONE
“I’m fine, honestly,” Shaun argued through clenched teeth as the paramedics lifted her on the gurney that she’d been placed on.
“Yeah, you said that earlier, and then we found you knocked out on the concrete floor for nearly five minutes, Shaun,” Ben snapped to her right, near her feet. He was standing with his legs braced wide, arms crossed over his chest angrily. “You’re going to get checked out whether you like it or not. You fell over that tire jack and cracked your skull on the damn floor. Stomach bug or not. Company policy.”
Her head ached abominably, admittedly, and she’d gotten nauseated by the sight of the blood that had pooled on the floor beneath her head, throwing up wretchedly over the side of the gurney. But it was the constant, burning pain in her left side that she was trying to conceal. Breathing carefully, because even breathing hurt, she nodded. Vomiting made it almost unbearable.
Nate had been nowhere to be found when she’d come to. According to the other guys, he’d left in a hurry, before any of them had found her on the ground. After telling Ben and the paramedics what had happened, Ben was furious. Nate was fired, whenever he showed his face again. Ben also wanted her to press charges, but she’d insisted on waiting until her head cleared a little before making that decision.
“She probably has a concussion and I suspect broken ribs, but we need to do X-Rays and an MRI,” the paramedic said to Ben as they hoisted her up and into the back of the ambulance that had been called. How embarrassing.
“I called your parents, they’re meeting you at the hospital,” Ben called into the ambulance and she groaned,then immediately regretted it, the sound and motion hurting everything inside her.
