Read Online Private Property: a Contemporary Romance Novella by T. Michelle - Free Book Online

thankful Kristen had managed to rouse her.  Her arm was throbbing.  It was her sixth and final day in the hospital.  Jared had consented to removing the stitches in her palm and leg and allowing her to go home.  He would be meeting with them sometime early afternoon to sign her out.
    She sat up and allowed Kristen to rub the kinks out of her back.  “That was a horrible dream.”  She admitted.
    “Same as usual?”  Kristen ceased her administrations and began cutting up the lump of scrambled eggs on the breakfast tray in front of Tabitha.
    “Yeah, only this time I didn’t have my arm.  It had been torn off.”  She shivered at the recollection of that grotesque image.
    “That probably has something to do with the surgery.”
    Tabitha nodded in agreement.
    The two spent the day going over plans for hospital repayment and job searching.  Jared had informed her that the new full cast would stay on at least six weeks depending on how well she healed and that absolutely no pressure could be applied to the wound or surrounding area.  Good thing she was right - handed.  But, she’d promised him to take it easy until the cast came off.
    Kristen and she spent the last day thanking the nurses who’d babied her over the past week and discussing how to get all the stuffed animals and plants in the room into Kristen’s small sports car .  They still hadn’t found out where all the ‘get well’ gifts had come from.  There were no tags attached to the plants and flowers and the nurses were no help.  The gifts had been discreetly left outside her door every night.
    Tabitha gave a passing thought that maybe Kristen was secretly depositing them there for her to cheer her up, but that didn’t make much sense.  She knew her friend well enough to know that Kristen was proud of being a good person and liked to bring attention to her good deeds.  Once , she’d tou ched upon Jared as the culprit but quickly dismissed that notion.  He wasn’t the type.  Plus, he’d just done his job – a task so ingrained in his person, as to be thoughtless in gesture.
    Whoever they came from, there was a room full.  A multitude of flowers and greenery stocked the shelves, windowsills and corners of the room.  Two large teddy bears (one brown, one black) sat at the foot of her bed and a long, flat, multi-colored puppy dog had been laid on the floor like a bear rug.  It livened her spirits up .
    Sometime around one o’clock, Jared entered the room looking very relaxed in a pair of charcoal gray slacks and pale gray shirt.  He looked as though he’d finally gotten some sleep.  “Okay, Ms. McLean .  You ready to leave here?”  He smiled, truly smiled, and the action transformed his face.  The chiseled lines of his jaw relaxed and a gleam lit his crystal green eyes.
    “Yes.”  She beamed in return, happy to have a life to fix again.
    Jared came over to her, sidestepping the s tuffed dog on the floor.  “Tabitha, could I talk with you a moment?”  He slid a glance at Kristen.
    “Oh!  Gotcha.”  Kristen jumped out of her chair.  “I’ll just go gather up your stuff from the nurse’s station.”
    “Oh no.”  Tabitha moaned, making Kristen halt at the door.  “I left my backpack at your house.”  She grimaced at Jared.
    He inhaled sharply and nodded at Kristen, to which she promptly left them alone.  “Well, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
    “Getting my stuff back to me?”  Tabitha managed a sitting position and angled the bed to better prop her up.
    “Well, since your belongings were left out at my place and you have no place to go, I was wondering – ”
    “What do you mean I have no place to go?”  Tabitha was instantly on defense.
    “Kristen told me that you were hoping to spend the summer out at the campsite and now that it’s fallen through, you don’t have a backup plan .  So I thought I could hire you.”
    “Hire me?  To do what?  And that’s not true.  I