CHAPTER FOUR
Beep, Beep, Beep, Slam!
The sound of Casey’s hand hitting her snooze button reverberated through her one bedroom apartment.
She groaned deep in her throat, removed the pillow from over her head and sat up.
Or tried to.
The blankets she had wrapped herself in during the night were still tightly wound around her legs, making what should have been a simple procedure an exercise in frustration. Finally giving up with a huge yawn, she admitted defeat and collapsed once more against the headboard of her antique sleigh bed. Another yawn threatened as she ran her fingers through her tousled curls.
A quick glance at her clock radio galvanized her into action better than any bucket of cold water.
“Oh, No!! No, no, no, no! Crap. I’m going to be late!”
She pushed Tigger, her still sleeping tabby, off the edge of the bed and kicked free of her confining bedclothes.
“How could you let me sleep so late?” She yelled at the confused feline as she jumped out of bed, grabbed her robe and rushed towards the shower.
One nice thing about having a pet: you always had a scapegoat to blame when the time required it.
The cat blinked and, giving her a cool glare, began washing his face.
“Too bad cats can’t be trained like dogs.” Casey was still complaining as she adjusted the shower and stepped into the stinging spray.
“OW! Hot! Hot! Hot!”
She jumped back out of the way and tentatively reached around the steaming water to re-adjust the taps.
“Gawd, will nothing go right today?”
Adjusting the temperature to a comfortable level, she quickly lathered up.
As she scrubbed her face, she considered her decision of last night. Yes, she was shy; yes, she was relatively inexperienced for a twenty-eight year old: One serious boyfriend did not a Siren make; and yes, what she was about to do made her knees quake with fear; but the thought also filled her with an incredible amount of anticipation and excitement.
She was going to do it.
She was going to pursue a relationship with the sexy accident victim from yesterday. Well, she amended silently as she rinsed off and stepped out of the shower, at least see how he was doing and find out if he’s interested enough to go to lunch. Somewhere public, surrounded by lots of other people. That should be safe enough.
“He’s single, Tigger.” She called to her cat.
Like any normal feline, he ignored her.
That didn’t stop Casey from talking to him.
“I know because I asked him, well not outright, of course. I suggested he use his wife’s name as a contact person. I know, I know…”
She wrapped a dry towel around her hair and answered the question she was sure the cat was thinking. “It wasn’t exactly a secret, what I was trying to do. But how else would I find out? I mean I could have just asked, but that would have been really forward and you know I’m not terribly outgoing.”
The cat blinked and wound himself tighter into a ball
Giving up the one-way conversation, she continued to dry herself off.
She could hardly believe she had been so forward. That had been bold, even for her.
Especially for her.
But she hadn’t arrived at where she was in life by being a complete shrinking violet. Six years ago she had driven on her own from a small town outside of Ottawa, Ontario to a huge city she knew virtually nothing about, on the farthest western point of the country.
She worked as a waitress for two long years until had she saved up enough money to go after her dream. With her small down payment, a medium sized bank loan and a lot of support from her family, she had been able to purchase a second-hand book shop/coffee house. And finally, after endless nights of hard work, her dream was beginning to pay the bills, quite handsomely too. She almost had enough money saved to put a down payment on the beautiful little cottage she had her eye on in Sandy Cove, the little village at the base of Snowcap Mountain.
Casey quickly brushed her teeth, threw a comb through her almost dry curls and hurried to find something to wear. She wouldn't think of Scott, not today. Therapy had done wonders in reducing his memory to just that, a memory, but she still had to work at moving outside of that comfort zone, making herself vulnerable again. Some days it was just easier to hide away in her shell. But not today. Today was going to be one of the days she could look back on and say 'see, you can do anything you put your mind to'. And she'd just have to ignore the fact that her palms were sweating. And hope nobody else noticed either.
“Damn,” she swore through clenched teeth as the zipper of the dress she chose snagged half way up. Just great, she had almost convinced herself she could do anything today, but she was starting it by not even being able to zip up her own clothing.
“Why did I hit the snooze button so many times this morning? Why today of all days?”
Her plan had been perfect: get up early, make herself beautiful, stop in at the hospital to pay a visit to Andrew Peterson, hopefully leave with a date and time set for a lunch rendezvous, and get over to her bookstore before she was due to open.
It was her usual habit to arrive at the store early to make sure everything was just right: That the place was clean, the coffee was perking and the reading corner was ready for her afternoon story time.
Today she would be lucky if she even opened the store on time.
“I should have known better.” Casey muttered as she wiggled free of the half zipped dress, turned it back to front and cautiously picked the delicate threads free of the zippers strong teeth. “Mondays after a late patrolling shift never go smoothly.”
She only patrolled one day every other weekend, but on crazy days, like yesterday, the early shift was often asked to stay later to help cover any unexpected rush of accident victims.
Last night she arrived home sometime after eight o’clock and had found the cash receipts and sales slips from the day’s book sales waiting for her. They’d had to be verified before she went to bed so they would be ready for the morning deposit, their Facebook page had to be scanned for any questions, comments or concerns and updated for the next day's plans, and she had to update the blog she had volunteered to do called a season of skiing at Snowcap. Thank goodness the ski season was almost over. It took way more time than she had expected, but it did attract quite a lot of traffic, that hopefully translated into more visitors to the hill. As a result she hadn’t made it to bed until after midnight.
Casey finally managed to free the stubborn zipper and completed dressing. Standing in front of her full-length mirror she smoothed the black and white silk polka-dot dress down over her slim hips.
She smiled faintly at herself. “You look Mah-velous.” She did her best impression of…she shook her head confusedly…someone from an old episode of Saturday Night Live maybe? It wasn’t important.
A bit of lip-gloss for some shimmer, a last quick comb through her curls and into a pair of low-heeled black leather sling-backs and she was ready.
Kicking the heap of sheets out of the way, she headed for the kitchen.
“I’ll clean up later.” She promised Tigger over her shoulder as the cat watched her suspiciously from his favourite perch on top of her dressing table. “Well, tomorrow at the latest.”
Housework was not one of her favourite chores.
She grabbed a light blazer from the hook next to her apartment door. It was still a bit chilly in the morning and she’d probably need the jacket later tonight when the temperature dropped again. The temperature difference between the ski hills and the city always surprised her this time of the year. It was the only place she knew of where you could ski in the morning and sit on the beach in the afternoon. With the weather they were expecting over the next couple of weeks the hill definitely wouldn’t be open much longer.
Casey picked up her briefcase, found her keys under a magazine on the hall table, unlocked the deadlock on the front door, and her phone ran
g.
Damn.
She considered ignoring it, but instead dropped her briefcase and keys and rushed to answer it. It could be Michael, her assistant, calling about the previous day’s shift at the bookstore; he often called first thing in the morning to update her on any problems that needed immediate attention.
“Hello?”
She recognized her younger sister’s voice and knew the call wouldn’t be a short one.
“Steph, I’ll have to call you back later.” Her sister invariably had some major life-threatening crisis to deal with, and today was just not a good day.
“I have to go make a lunch date with an accident victim from last night and if I don’t hurry he’ll have been released from the hospital before I get there.” Casey knew that last statement would drive her sister crazy until Stephanie caught her at the bookstore later.
As expected, Stephanie began spouting questions like a reporter.
Casey cut her off. “Call me later and I’ll fill you in,” and hung up with her sister still twittering indignantly on the line.
Casey glanced at her watch. “Now I really have to rush,”
Hurrying out of her apartment, she ran down the three flights of stairs to the parking garage. Why use an elevator when the stairs were such a great way to get a free workout? It was broken again anyway, so she really didn’t have much of a choice.
Hopping into her battered Escort Wagon, she rumbled off towards the North Vancouver General Hospital only a few miles from her apartment in Lynn Valley.
At least the weather was clear today. As long as traffic flowed smoothly she should still make it in plenty of time to complete her task and get back to her bookstore near the North Vancouver Quay for opening.
Luckily her route wouldn’t involve either of the bridges. She breathed a small prayer of thanks for that small mercy.
Her mouth was dry and the skin on her arms was beginning to resemble that of a cold naked chicken as she thought about what she was about to do.
Then she pictured Andrew Peterson’s incredible, muscular physique, smiling blue eyes and the gentle way he interacted with his nieces and knew she was doing the right thing. As her father had always said: “You’ll never know unless you try.” Although he probably wouldn't be pleased that she was applying his wisdom to an attempt to improve her stagnant love life.
Casey considered the way she felt when she was the recipient of Andrew Peterson’s smile worth pursuing, or totally avoiding, but that went against everything she went to therapy to stop doing. Scott had completely messed with her head for a while. And she was determined that his memory was not going to dictate how she saw every other man who crossed her path. She wouldn't give him that power.
The worst that could happen is Andrew would say, “No, thank you” to her invitation. Right?
Or was that the best thing that could happen?
She wasn’t sure which was better, but there was only one way to find out.
Casey spied the entrance to the hospital parking lot, took a deep breath and signalled her intention to turn.
She parked in a spot conveniently near the building and, with her heart in her throat, slowly approached the emergency entrance. Nervous didn’t even cover what she was feeling. But she wasn’t going to back down now.
She walked up to the admitting desk and relayed her request with only a tiny warble in her voice. The woman’s response didn’t register at first. When it finally sunk in, Casey felt as if she had been punched in the gut.
“What do you mean he was discharged last night?” She demanded in amazement. “He had a severely sprained knee, at least one broken rib and possible internal injuries! Who the hell just let him walk out of the hospital?” She squeaked. Her voice an octave higher than normal. “He should have been kept at least overnight for observation.”
She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together; people were starting to stare. But really, what idiot let him leave?
All her planning and preparing for this meeting was for nothing.
The nurse’s aid on the receiving end of Casey’s wrath looked around in desperation for a supervisor.
A pang of remorse hit Casey as she realized she was being totally unfair to the poor girl. It wasn’t her fault that Andrew had already left, or that she had been so wound up at the thought of seeing him again.
She ran her fingers through her already tousled curls, “I’m sorry, I guess I’m just a little stressed. Could you please find out when he was discharged?” She lowered her tone and smiled apologetically at the girl.
With an air of relief at being able to do something to appease the crazy woman in front of her, the aide hurried to check the hospital’s system for the requested information. She typed a few moments then frowned; when she glanced up from the screen her expression conveyed her sympathy and her wariness.
“It looks like he checked himself out last night, against his doctor’s orders. I'm really sorry, but that’s all the information I’m at liberty to divulge.”
Casey thanked the girl, turned around, and walked back towards the parking lot.
3.2 minutes from the moment she entered, to the moment she walked out. It must be an all time new record for striking out.
All the anticipation and excitement and nervousness evaporated leaving her feeling wasted and disappointed. It obviously wasn’t meant to be, but at least she had done something to try.
Sighing ruefully, she unlocked her car.
Life was short, and it was important to make every moment count, no matter how difficult it might be, and she just had to accept that not everything turns out the way you want it to.
It still didn’t make her any happier.
She glanced at the clock on the console as she started her Escort and blinked in surprise. Right now she had to hope the next few moments would creep by very slowly — because she was already going to be really late opening the store.