CHAPTER 48


It's Saturday afternoon, Chase walks in Tess's hospital room armed with a bouquet of assorted pink, red and white flowers. "These are for you." He smiles and hands them to her. He tries not to stare too much at the left side of her face which is bruised. He doesn't look at her swollen left eye either. Her lip is swollen up real fat on the left side and she has a bite wound on her neck. She's weaing a grey sweat shirt and jeans that cover up any other wounds she might have.

"Thank you." She smiles.

"I would have come earlier but your parents wouldn't leave and they don't want me to see you." He tries to avoid looking directly at her face,

"It's okay. I talked to my momma and told her I want to see you." Tess holds his hand "Right about now my momma will give me anything I want. I should probably ask for a Mercedes convertible."

Chase chuckles a little at that. "You deserve it." He plays with the splint on his finger which is wrapped in gauze.

"What happened to your hand?" Tess looks at his bandaged finger.

"I guess you never got my message. I sliced the tip off my finger while changing a flat tire on the way to meet you at the barn."

She looks away towards the wall when he mentions the barn, he notices. He continues "I sliced a big chunk of skin off the tip. The hand specialist stitched it up. Now I have to wear this splint." Chase wonders if he sounds petty complaining to Tess about his finger when her injuries look so much worse, but this is what his momma told him to talk about, so he tries it.

"That must have hurt." Tess lifts up his bandaged finger to get a look.

"It hurt and it was bleeding like crazy. My dad was all worried about me dripping blood in his new car."

Tess smiles. "That's because he's a doctor. The sight of blood doesn't bother him like it does us."

"Right?" Tess nods. He's glad he got Tess to smile. I guess momma was right he thinks to himself and continues to talk about anything but the assault. "My parents are hoping I'll be a doctor one day but I don't know how I can do that if i can't take my own finger bleeding."

"It's probably because it's your finger that you freaked. If someone else was hurt and bleeding I'm sure you wouldn't run away." Tess tells him.

Chase doesn't want to say it but he's having a really hard time looking at her injuries. "I think I'll stick to working in the Veterinarian's office for now."

Tess lifts up his hand and kisses the bandaged finger. "I'm sorry you goot hurt."

Hearing her say that , that she's sorry he hurt his finger while she's so beaten and broken, tears at his heartstrings. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I got hung up at work late. Somebody poisoned two of the cats that live at the Vets office. They put rat poisin in their food we think."

"How do you know?"

"Some guy ran in the Vet's office with Fluffy, she was seizing. And then we found Princess outside vomiting. Someone either poisoned their water or food dish outside the Vets office."

"Why would someone do that?"

"There are some sick and cruel people in the world." Chase tells her.

Tess sighs thinking she knows all about that first hand.

Chase continues his story hoping to distract Tess form her assault. "The cats live outside the Vets office, they don't bother anyone. We feed and take care of them. I don't know why anyone would want to hurt them unless their crazy cakes."

"Are Fluffy and Princess going to be okay?"

"They are now. We had to give them an antidote and pump their stomachs. Good thing that guy brought Fluffy inside to us or we would have never known."

"Who was the guy that found her?"

"Some customer who takes his dog there as a patient but it was weird because his dog wasn't seen that day. So, I don't know what he was doing there. He brought the dog in last Friday that's why I remembered him." Chase is glad to be distracting Tess. She seems to be her normal self, not broken or sad at least now whilet they're discussing the cats.

"I went to visit you at the Vet's office last Firday. You showed me around before you got off work and then we drove to the….barn together." There she said it-the barn

"That's right." He tries not to focus on the barn so he continues with his story. "They sent all of us techs out to see to check the property to make sure none of the other cats were poisoned. That's why I was running late and then I got the flat."

"How did you slice your finger on the tire?"

"I don't know. My dad asked me the same thing. There must have been something sharp on the tire." Chase shrugs, "So, that's what happened. It was a bad night."

Tess nods "For me too. Luckily, I don't remember most of what happened."

"You don't?"

"The guy punched me out so I don't remember what he did."

"That's a good thing, I guess?" Chase's surprised Tess started to open up to him about the assault on her own. He didn't even ask her about it.

"Yeah, I think it's better that I wasn't aware what he was doing to me. I wouldn't want to be awake for it but it still sucks. I know what he did by my injuries."

"I'm sorry I was late." Chase looks up at her now.

"It's not your fault. Please don't blame yourself or I'll feel worse."

"Okay."

Tess holds Chase's hand being gentle with his injured finger. "I'm so grateful that we already had sex, that I wasn't a virgin when this happened to me. I think my mother is happy about that too after she realized it. That's why she told me it's okay to still see you."

Chase nods.

Tess tells him. "You made it sex good and something I look forward to. If last night was my first experience I'd never want to do it again."

"So, you think you still want to do it after going through that?"

Tess nods. "I want to do it as soon as we can."

"Why?" Chase is surprised.

"I don't want my last time to be with him. I don't want that disgusting guy to be the last one that touched me."

Chase nods. "I'm here for you. I'll do whatever you need to get you through this…to get us through this."

"Thank you." Tess smiles at his with her swollen lip. "Please don't tell anyone what happened to me. I don't want anyone to know."

"I promise. I won't.


Tyler and Andie meet for lunch. "We have to make Nicky break up with Allison." Andie tells Tyler.

"You are persistent." Tyler laughs.

"Didn't you tell me Nicky meets Allison for lunch sometimes at the campus food court?"

"He meets her there on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but you have school so don't get any ideas." Tyler tells her.

"It's okay. I'll pretend I'm sick on Tuesday and meet you outside the food court. What time does Nicky meet her for lunch?"

"Around twelve thirty."

"I need a big favor from you."

Tyler sighs. "What now?"

"You're friends with Allison now right? You've started talking to her in class?"

"I talk to her on campus but I wouldn't call us friends."

"Well, get friendlier with her by Tuesday. You're a hot looking dude, work it."

"What?" Tyler screws up his face.

"You have until Tuesday to work your magic on Allison. I want you to kiss her when Nicky walks in so he thinks she's cheating."

"That sounds like a bad plan, a very, bad plan."

"Just work your magic on her, so doesn't push you away."

"I can't promise anything, Andie."

"But you'll give it a try?"

Tyler thinks about it.

"Please,Tyler." Andie begs "Please. I'll do anything you want when you need a favor just please do this for me."

Tyler takes a minute to think and shrugs his shoulers. "I got nothing to lose."

"So you'll do it?"

He nods "Yeah, I'll do it."

Andie smiles and hugs Tyler.


Cooper knocks and enters Charlotte's office. "What's that?" Charlotte looks at the bag in his hand.

"Thought you might be hungry." Cooper waves the bag in the air in front of her.

Charlotte smiles. "I am. You know me too well."

"That." Cooper chuckles. "And it's lunch time."

Charlotte rubs her hands together. "What is it?"

Cooper puts the bag down in front of her. "I thought about turkey sandwiches but I decided this was a fried chicken kind of day."

Charlotte reaches into the bag and pulls out a bottle of water and a small box of fried chicken. "Why is it a fried chicken sort of day?"

"That's what I used to bring you when I wanted to talk to you about the hard stuff."

Charlotte bites into the chicken. "I remember." Charlotte swallows her chicken. Cooper goes to grab a piece. Charlotte slaps his hand. "You're not allowed to eat this stuff, Mister."

Cooper looks at her. "Back off, momma," he teases. "I had them bake a piece for me. You can tell this piece is the baked one. It's not as crispy as yours."

"Okay, then. Someone 'round here needs to look out for ya'." Charlotte takes a sip of water.

"And someone needs to look out for you."

"Why do I need looking out for?" Charlotte takes another bite of chicken.

Cooper looks at her. "I just thought what happened to Tess might have brought back some old feelings for you."

Charlotte tells Cooper. "Right now. I'm so worried about Tess, I can't think about myself."

Cooper picks up his chicken. "That's why I'm here."

Charlotte puts down her chicken."I told Tess what happened to me."

Cooper nods "Oh."

"I had to. She didn't want to tell Chase."

"Chase knows." Cooper explains. "He was in the ER when the ambulance brought her in. He saw her."

"I know that but she didn't know that. I told her I would talk to Chase for her."

"Did you?" Cooper sips his water.

"Yes, I told Chase not to push her. I told him to let her talk about it when she was ready." Charlotte picks up her chicken again.

"Like I did with you." Cooper wipes his mouth. "I tried not to push you to talk about it after Violet told me."

"And I appreciate that. I do." Charlotte wipes her mouth before taking a deep breath and asks. "How come you never asked me after all these years?"

"Asked you what?" Cooper raises his eyebrows.

"The details of what exactly he did to me." Charlotte scowls. "What dirty things he did to me. You never asked."

"I never asked but I knew." Cooper nods. "I knew what he did to you."

"How?"

"The way you reacted when I touched you in certain spots, when I kissed you in certain spots, after we started to be intimate again. I knew where he had been." Cooper clears his throat. "Did you want me to ask?"

Charlotte sighs deeply. "No! God no!" Charlotte swallows. "I just wondered if you were curious about the details but too afraid to ask."

"I know what he did to you, Charlotte." Cooper looks down at the empty chicken box.

"Thank you."

"For what? The chicken?" Cooper furrows his brow.

"For not asking me the details of what went on, for not making me tell you every nasty thing he did to me."

Cooper nods his head. He understands how hard it is for her to talk about this.

Charlotte tells him."Tess doesn't know what he did to her. She was blacked out." Charlotte swallows before continuing. "She doesn't know where he touched her, where he licked her, where he bit her."

Cooper nods. "That's good." He looks at Charlotte sympathetically. He knows she still remembers to this day everywhere Lee McHenry touched her, everywhere he licked her, everywhere he bit her. He wishes she didn't remember, but he knows she does.

"Stop lookin' at me like that."

"Like what?" Cooper shrugs.

"Like I'm some pathetic stray kitty that you want to take home and nurse back to health. I'm fine, Cooper."

Cooper changes the look on his face and his tone of voice. He sits up straight. "I know you are. Charlotte King, you are the strongest woman I ever met."

"Thank you." Charlotte gets ups from her desk and gives him a kiss on the cheek. "Now, some of us have to get back to work."

"Okay, but if you need anything and I mean anything just ask." Cooper gets up.

"Now that you mention it, you can file those Charts over there by the window." Charlotte points.

Cooper looks at the tall stack of charts on the window ledge. His eyes bug wide open.

"You asked." Charlotte smirks as she leaves her office to get back to her Chief of Staff duties.


REVIEW

I'm going away for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I plan to bring my iPad and have already written up to chapter 114 already. It's just a matter of posting the chapters. If and when I take a break from visiting with my family I will try and post one chapter a day. If not, I hope y'all have a very Happy Thanksgiving! =)