Looking For Trouble (34 page)

She heard the front door open, and leaned
around the doorframe to see Carlos come through the door with a big
smile on his face. He was like clockwork coming home to eat,
although he had his own apartment.

"Ooh, enchiladas!" he said excitedly, and
drew in a deep breath, then went to kiss his mother's cheek. Jess
reached back in the cabinet for another plate, and set it on the
counter, because she knew what was coming next.

"Jess! My little songbird!" he said then ran
over and swung her up into the air and around in a circle, before
he set her down and kissed her lips. "You're even more beautiful
than the last time I saw you, chica, when are you gonna marry
me?"

"You're not getting married, remember? I'm a
cow..." she told him, then kissed his cheek.

"But you're my kind of cow, mi ángel
perfecto," he told her near her ear.

She pushed his shoulder and told him, "I'm
not perfect, and definitely not an angel, so save your moves for
those women of yours...you're kissing your sister here, remember
that," she told him with a chuckle.

His face scrunched up, then he turned his
passion on the enchiladas, which he piled liberally on the plate
she'd pulled down for him, then went to the table and started
shoveling them into his mouth. Jess chuckled, because he was like a
big Labrador Retriever puppy, easily distracted and always
hungry.

As she expected, mama slapped him on the
shoulder and told him to slow down. Frankie came bounding
downstairs and went to the cabinet, then piled his plate up too,
then grabbed a fork, and sat beside his brother to start shoveling
himself. He didn't even say hello, he'd probably been upstairs
studying and smelled dinner. Frankie was a bookworm, and always
made good grades in school.

"How's school going Franco?" Jess asked him,
as she served herself then Jazzie some food, making sure to leave
some for papa, who wasn't home from work yet. He owned a garage,
but not just any garage, a high-end one that specialized in
expensive sports cars and imports. Chichi and Raffie worked there
with him.

"Great," he told her in between bites, "Last
semester...I got a job lined up already in Austin."

"Oh yeah, mama's letting you move away?" she
asked with a chuckle, and sat down at the table.

"Gotta go where the money is...and the job I
got is amazing," he told her then looked up at last and gave her a
smile.

"Congrats, that's good to hear little
brother," she said and was really glad he was doing well. "We're
gonna miss you..."

He snorted, then told her, "You're not gonna
miss me, because you and Jazzie never let grass grow under your
feet. Ya'll are all over the place playing."

He was right, they didn't usually stay put
long. The gig in Bowie was probably the longest they'd stayed
anywhere in a while, but they did have breaks here in Dallas too
sometimes, when they could get gigs here.

"When are you coming to see us play again?"
Jess asked him, then took a bite of enchilada and it melted in her
mouth making her moan in pleasure.

"Keep making those sounds, and you're gonna
get yourself in trouble," Carols told her with a sexy grin.

"I can't help it, these are fantastic," she
told him then took another bite.

Angel whimpered on Mrs. Ramos' shoulder and
Jess scooted her chair back, "She's probably hungry...I'll get a
bottle."

Mrs. Ramos waved a hand to shush her, then
walked to the diaper bag in the foyer and pulled out a bottle,
uncapped it and stuck it in Angel's mouth. "There you go,
sugar...you drink up," she cooed then kissed Angel's head.

"So where are ya'll playing next?" Carlos
asked her, then took a sip of his tea.

"We don't know yet...we have to go to Bowie
and pick up our equipment and the crew. We were stuck there for a
while."

"Oh, yeah? What happened?" he asked
curiously, his dark eyes shining.

"What didn't happen would be a shorter
list," she chuckled. "The van engine burned up, I broke my
ankle...lots of things," she hedged not wanting to go into the
whole Wade thing.

"You guys need a truck to haul it back?" he
asked her.

"Yeah, we do...and probably another body, if
you know someone," she told him, since she couldn't help them load
and unload with her ankle.

"I'll help, I'm off on vacation next week,
will that do?" he asked helpfully. Carols might be a player, but he
was a worker too. He managed a gym, and was also a personal trainer
on his off days.

She could always count on Jazzie's family to
help them, and she was thankful. "That would be great, thanks a
lot."

"Okay, how about Wednesday?" he asked then
told her with a grin, "I don't have a date that night."

"It figures you'd schedule around your
social calendar," she teased him.

"Of course...lots of cows out in the
pasture."

She leaned back and howled with laughter.
"You're a mess, Carlos...better watch out for those hooves, I hear
they hurt," she told him then immediately regretted the words
because they brought other hooves to mind, the horse's hooves that
had almost trampled Wade at the rodeo earlier today...then that led
to thoughts of him laying there in that hospital bed.

She wiped her mouth with the napkin, then
said brokenly, "Excuse me," then hobbled upstairs to the room she
always used when she stayed there.

Jazzie ran upstairs behind her, and caught
her before she closed the door, and pushed her way inside behind
her. "You okay, sugar?"

"No, I'm not okay...but I will
be...eventually. I'm worried about that butthead, and I'm going to
call and check on him," she said then pulled her cell phone out of
her jeans, and called directory assistance to get the number. When
she called, she got the information desk, and identified herself,
then asked where Wade Roberts was in the hospital, and the woman
looked his name up, then told her he was in surgery. Jess whimpered
and hung up the phone then looked at Jazzie and moved her mouth,
but nothing would come out.

Jazzie grabbed her arm and sat her down on
the bed, then sat beside her, "What did they say?" she asked
calmly.

Her voice came out as a raw whisper as she
told her, "He's in surgery, Jazz...they're operating on him, and
I'm not there...and the last words I said to him were not nice."
The tears clogging her throat worked their way to her eyes and down
her cheeks, and she dropped her chin to her chest. "If something
happens to him, I'm gonna feel terrible."

"You're doing what he wanted you to do,
Jess...remember that. He pushed you away, and insulted you to
boot," Jazzie said softly then stroked her hair.

"I know...but I still love him, and even
though he's an asshole, I can't help worrying."

"You can still love him, Jess, but you've
got to think of you and Angel first right now...he's a big boy,
he'll pull through this."

"There's nobody to take care of him in
Bowie," she told Jazzie then looked up into her eyes.

"That's not your job, sugar. He doesn't want
your help, he basically told you that, right?"

"Yeah, he did...you're right," she sucked in
a deep breath then blew it out slowly, "Thanks for the pep talk.
I'm so damned weak where he's concerned, I think I'll probably need
a lot of them."

"That's what best friends are for,
Jess...I'm here for you. We're gonna get up tomorrow morning, then
we're going to get busy on that plan of yours. This is all gonna
work out, I promise, we just have to keep our focus and get back on
track."

***

Wade had been in the hospital for a week,
five days of it in physical therapy. They'd taken him to surgery to
repair the cage they'd put in after the last accident, but saw that
the bone chip had shifted, once they were in there, and it was a
good shift that allowed them to remove it. Almost immediately after
the anesthesia wore off, he could feel his legs and move his toes
again, which was the greatest feeling in the world. He wasn't going
to be paralyzed, in fact if he kept up the PT once he got back to
Bowie, they said in three months or so, he'd probably be back to
full mobility.

All that was great news...what wasn't so
great, was that he'd jumped the gun and run Jess off with his harsh
words. He'd ripped her heart out and stomped on it for nothing, and
crushed his in the process. He was headed home to Bowie on
Wednesday and would be leaving her and his baby behind in Dallas.
She hadn't come back to the hospital to see him, and he hadn't
expected her to. What he'd done was final, just like he'd intended,
because he'd been a damned coward. He couldn't face having to see
the pity on her face if he wound up only half a man, the eventual
disgust at having to take care of an invalid. She deserved a better
life that that, a better man.

Wade held onto the bars and forced his legs
to move forward, gritting his teeth against the pain shooting up
his spine. He'd leave here with a walker, then progress to a cane,
then they told him he could try short solo walks, until he could
walk without it, but he'd have to exercise and keep limber.

Cole and Sabrina had come by the hospital
yesterday, and they told him he was coming to their house, while he
recuperated. Cole told him he had a state-of-the-art gym in the
house, and Wade was welcome to use it for rehab. The therapist was
happy with that news, and told him he'd give him a workout regimen
he could follow at home.

When Wade asked how long it was going to be
before he could ride and work again, the therapist told him bluntly
it was all up to him and his dedication to getting better. Wade was
more determined than he'd ever been in his life to get back to
normal very soon. Because as soon as that happened, he was going to
try and make things right with Jess and Angel, get her to forgive
him. He didn't have much hope she'd give him another chance, but
maybe she would.

Every time Wade closed his eyes, he saw
Jess's devastated eyes, when he'd said what he had to her. That
wasn't real conducive to getting sleep, so he was exhausted today,
but he wasn't going to quit, when the therapist helped him sit on a
big ball and balance himself, working his core muscles the guy
said. It felt like he was ripping apart the incision that they'd
made in his back, and grinding every bone in his spine, with every
shift of his body to keep his balance. But that pain didn't
anywhere compare to the pain going on in his chest.

Wade called a halt to the routine when they
got to the treadmill. As slow as the therapist set it, Wade
couldn't do it, he just didn't have anything left to give today. He
shook his head and asked if he could go back upstairs. The guy
tried pressing him to do it, but he just couldn't. His head was as
fucked up as his body was right now, and he had to pace himself.
Once he started with the Jess thing, he knew it was time to quit,
before he wound up balling like a baby in front of everyone in the
fitness room.

With a sigh, the therapist helped back into
the wheelchair, then had an assistant push him to his room. He felt
like a damned invalid and it galled him to have to have others
doing things for him that he'd been able to do for himself for
thirty-four years. He was going to have to get used to it, he knew,
because he was an invalid for the next three months at least, and
he was going to have to be dependent on someone. That someone would
probably be Sabrina, unless he used his winnings to hire a nurse to
help him...which he wasn't going to do, because he was determined
to buy out that contract for Jess.

Two days, and two intense therapy sessions
later, Wade was being released from the hospital, ten days after
Cam Jessup had tried to kill him. That was something else he was
going to have to deal with, testifying against him, because he
doubted the cocky bastard would agree to a plea agreement. But he
probably had months before that would happen.

Cole grabbed one of his arms and a nurse the
other and they helped him get seated in a wheelchair, then shoved
the brake up, and turned it toward the door. The therapist had been
in to give him the exercise routine he wanted him to follow, and
the doctor had been in to give him care instructions, and
prescriptions, mostly for pain, which Wade was not going to take.
All he needed was to get addicted to those in addition to being an
invalid.

"Thanks for coming to get me," he told Cole
who was pushing him to the elevator. Sabrina had stayed in the car
with Will, he said.

"You're welcome, man...glad we can help.
I'll get someone to come get your truck tomorrow," he told him.

"Yeah, there's no rush, since the doctor
said I can't drive for six weeks...that's gonna be fun."

Cole sighed then told him, "When we went to
town earlier, before we came, I saw Jess at the Blue Bird with some
Latino guy...just thought I'd warn you."

Wade gritted his teeth, and stifled the wild
roar that wanted to explode from his throat, "Yeah? Who was
he?"

"I have no idea, all I know is they were at
the bar loading up a truck, then they went to the Blue Bird for
lunch...they looked awfully cozy."