Authors: Lizzie Lynn Lee
“Is he your husband, ma’am?” asked one of the EMT personnel.
“What? No. I found him like this.”
“So you don’t know this man?”
“No. Not at all. Sorry.”
The team carefully lifted the unconscious man onto a wheeled stretcher, his hand never releasing Rose’s.
“Uh, he’s still got my hand,” she remarked awkwardly, still unable to pull her hand from his grasp. He wasn’t letting go, no matter what. The paramedics tried to pry his fingers off of her, but to no avail and their great surprise.
“Damn. Well, he might be knocked out but he’s still got one hell of a vice grip,” commented one of the paramedics, staring with bewildered eyes.
“Do you mind riding along?” asked another one.
“Oh! Um, I guess that’s okay,” Rose replied, still flabbergasted. She picked up her purse and ran alongside the stretcher, following the team into the back of the ambulance. When the doors shut behind them, the sirens screamed and the vehicle took off down the street, hurtling toward the nearest hospital.
“Is he going to be alright?” Rose asked nervously, still gazing down at the man’s face under the dim light of the ambulance. He was remarkably attractive, with smooth tanned skin and full lips. His hair was rather short and very dark, tousled in a way that suggested its dishevelment was not just a symptom of his attack, but a regular part of his appearance. There was a shadow of dark stubble along his jaw, and he wore all black. He looked like a renegade priest, or perhaps had ties with some dangerous people. Rose shook away her increasingly dramatic imagination. He might be just a victim of a robbery gone wrong.
“His vitals are good,” replied one of the paramedics.
“What about the—the blood on his face?” she pressed, gesturing gingerly to his cheek.
The paramedic put some gloves on and took a sanitary towel and cleaned the man’s cheek, clearing away the scarlet streak to reveal the solid, unmarked skin underneath. There was no laceration there at all. He then checked him for head wound.
“The doctor will be able to tell you after a thorough examination,” the EMT said, shrugging.
“Yeah,” Rose murmured softly, peering at the man’s gorgeous face. “I’m sure.”
When the ambulance arrived at the hospital, they managed to find a gurney wide enough for Rose to wedge herself in and sit beside the man as he lay there. She felt more than a little awkward, being wheeled around a hospital, attached to this unconscious stranger like they were conjoined twins or something. But the main paramedic insisted that his vitals had improved drastically in the time they’d all spent riding along in the ambulance, and that clearly Rose’s presence had a calming effect on the patient.
Twenty-minutes later, Rose found herself perched on the bedside of an incapacitated man in a Cleveland hospital, waiting anxiously for him to wake up. The nurses had cut his shirt and jacket off of him, so that he lay there shirtless, his muscular chest heaving. They found his wallet and pulled out his identification and registered him into the system.
A resident doctor came and examined him briefly. The nurses grilled Rose again about her relationship with the man. They also tried to pry his hand off of Rose’s, but were unsuccessful. The nurses and the doctor decided to wait until he was conscious.
So Rose sat there for almost an hour, waiting. The man still held on to her and her hand was starting to cramp. She hoped her parents weren’t worried about her taking so long to get back home. With her free hand, she sent her mother a text message:
Something came up. Please don’t worry. Tell the girls I’ll be home for a late dinner. Love you.
Rose received a barrage of concerned text messages back from both her mother and father, who had a thousand questions. She sighed. No matter how old she got, her parents would always worry about her. Rapidly firing off replies, she tried to assuage their fears and assure them that all was well.
As she stowed her phone back into her purse, the man beside her groaned. Rose yelped in surprise. He was finally waking up!
“Oh God,” she muttered. “Sh-should I get somebody? Where’s the nurse?”
Just as she was frantically reaching for the nurse call button, the man squeezed her hand and she looked back at him to see his eyes opening. Her jaw dropped.
He had the most beautiful, enchanting eyes, approximately the color of wild honey. Rose had never seen anyone with eyes like that. She didn’t even know it was possible.
The man blinked a few times and narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?” he asked weakly, his voice deep and rasping.
“Rose. Rose Meyers. I-I found you unconscious in an alley and called an ambulance. You’re at Mercy Hospital,” she replied, a little breathlessly. Her heart skipped a beat. Good Lord, he was handsome even in this state.
“So, you saved me,” he murmured, a strangely bemused expression crossing his features as he gently released her hand from his grasp.
Before she could reply, a resident doctor and two nurses burst into the room and began fussing over him. “Joseph Sanford, age thirty-one,” the doctor read aloud from his chart. “Do you recall what happened to you, sir?”
He shook his head, clearly holding something back. “No. I have no recollection of how I got here. The last thing I remember is leaving my house to go buy groceries, and then I woke up here. With this woman holding my hand,” he added, looking over at Rose with affectionate eyes.
She blushed.
“Did someone do this to you? Were you robbed?”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t remember.”
“We’ll need to notify the police because of the circumstances when you were found.”
“Ah. I see.”
“We also need to run some tests on you. Another set of bloodwork. CT scan. And depending on the tests; we might need to keep you overnight for observation. I’ll come back later with the results,” said the doctor.
“Thank you, doctor,” answered the man.
The doctor and nurses filed back out, leaving the two of them alone in the room again. Rose’s heart pounded in her chest as the man’s striking golden eyes landed on her.
“Your quick thinking saved my life,” he commented matter-of-factly.
“Anyone would have done the same,” Rose replied, shrugging. She couldn’t help but feel small and girlish under his gaze. He was enormous—heavily muscled and clearly powerful. Even though he was the one lying in a hospital bed, she felt vulnerable under his sharp gaze.
Like he could see right through her. No, like he could see the
real
her.
But that was absurd, she reminded herself. They’d only just met.
“What’s your name, Miss…?”
“Rose. Rose Meyers. I’m not a Miss. It’s Mrs. But I’m not married anymore, we’re just divorced. I’m single,” Rose blundered like a fool. She was usually calm and confident but this man made her suffer a verbal fumble.
“Rose. That’s a beautiful name.” He smiled.
That made her swoon. When was the last time she met a man this attractive?
“Where’d you come from, anyway?” he asked, bracing himself to sit up slightly.
“Uh, California,” she answered, without thinking. Then it hit her that he hadn’t meant the question literally. “I just happened to come across you while I was walking.”
“California?” he repeated. “That’s a long way to come just to scoop me out of the street.”
“Alley. I found you near a dumpster.”
“Dumpster?”
“The nurse cleaned you up a little earlier.”
“What were you doing in California?” he continued, seemingly very interested in Rose’s background.
She was slightly wary, but since he was still weak in a hospital bed, she figured she might as well just answer his questions.
“I—I was a technician at an IT firm in Silicon Valley.”
His dark, thick eyebrows arched up. “Silicon Valley is quite a contrast to good ol’ Cleveland. What are you here for?”
“Starting over, basically. With my kids. I’m looking for work right now.”
“You have children?”
“Two girls. Emma and Cassidy. I had to leave California because of… because of personal reasons.” She couldn’t understand why she was so willing to open up to this complete stranger, but something about him put her at ease and made her feel safe.
Like she could trust this man.
The only good thing that came out of her marriage with Brent were the two blessings she had: her young daughters, Emma and Cassidy, and Rose thanked her lucky stars everyday that she’d been able to win full custody of them.
And it was really thanks to Brent’s own failures that she was able to. Because as the years dragged on, he began finding other ways to punish Rose for being better than him. He cheated on her numerous times, with everyone from the office secretary to the busty bartender at the pub around the corner. He surreptitiously funneled money from Rose’s bank account into his own, just so that he could go on fake ‘business trips’ and spend her hard-earned money at strip clubs and casinos. And through all of this, Rose had tried her best to power onward, keeping each equally stressful tenet of her life strung together with loose threads. By that point, she had essentially become a single mother already, balancing her demanding career with the needs of her two small daughters while Brent went AWOL for days at a time, sometimes weeks.
In the end, Brent took away everything that made him hate her. He stole her money, her job, her house, and her spirit, as he dragged her through a nasty divorce. It wasn’t fair. All she’d ever wanted was to build a happy, stable life—despite Brent’s issues. But if he couldn’t have it his way, then he was bound and determined to stop her at every turn.
And what hurt the most was that he had been more than willing to sacrifice custody of the children by acting out impulsively and living selfishly. He had no regard for Emma and Cassidy as he squandered their college funds. Luckily, the girls were young enough to be mostly oblivious to what was going on.
“How old are your girls?” asked the man.
“Emma is seven and Cassidy is four. They’re a handful sometimes, but my parents never complain. My mom babysits them while I look for work.”
“They’re quite young. Did you enroll them in school here?”
She nodded. “To a public school near my parents’ house.” It had been a drastic life changing experience for them but her girls didn’t complain. They were just happy that they lived with their grandma and grandpa now.
The man studied her carefully. “With your quick thinking under duress, you would definitely be a good fit for my business,” he said.
Rose was stunned. Was he offering her a job? “And wh-what is your business?” she asked, suspicious.
He smiled and offered his hand for her to shake. As she took it, he answered, “Nice to meet you, Rose. I’m Joseph Sanford, but you can call me Joe. And I am a private investigator.”
“Oh,” she said simply, taken aback. Now everything kind of made sense. The way he dressed. How he was unconscious in the alleyway. Curiosity got the best of her. Work in a PI office? That would be interesting. Just like in the noir books she read when she was growing up. “And you have an opening…?
Joe laughed and nodded. “Yes. I require an office administrator. Someone who is good with computers, phones, organization, and… discretion.”
“I worked with internet security back in California,” Rose said quickly, her stomach turning in knots. This could not be happening! This insanely hot, mysterious man was not offering her a job while lying in a hospital. Cleveland was turning out to be full of surprises.
“That’s perfect. You’re hired.”
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Are you serious? Wh-where do you work? What’s the dress code like? And, oh I hate to ask this, but what is the pay?”
“All relevant questions,” he replied. “I’ll text you the address if you give me your phone number. The pay is very competitive. And the dress code… for
you
, it’s whatever you want,” he added, giving her a quick once-over.
Rose opened her mouth to say something, but then her phone buzzed several times in a row, alerting her to a second barrage of text messages. She sighed.
Joe gave her a curious smile. “Someone waiting on you?” he asked pointedly.
“My parents,” Rose answered, a little embarrassed. “We’re staying with them for the time being until I can figure something else out.”
Joe’s expression didn’t change. He still looked incredibly interested.
“Understood. Well, I’m confident that this position will help all three of you build the life you want to live,” he said, with an authentic, stunning smile.
“Thank you,” Rose breathed, shocked at how her luck had changed.
“No. Thank you. Now, go back home so your parents don’t think you’ve fallen into serious trouble,” he urged her with a wink. “And don’t forget to leave me your phone number!”
Rose quickly snatched a piece of scrap paper from her purse and scribbled out her cell phone number, handing it to him giddily. “Thank you so much! You won’t regret it!”
“I’m sure I won’t,” he replied, beaming.
Rose gave him one final nod and then hurried out the door, fireworks exploding in the back of her mind. This was insane! What a ridiculous day! She hardly cared about her ruined heels and her crappy afternoon now—things were finally looking up!