Элла Франк - Exquisite

I need to thank my wonderful family who are many miles away but have always supported my love of writing, even when I was supposed to be doing my homework! I love and appreciate all your praise and willingness to read my story. This is especially true for you three because I know you’d all prefer at least one person to be murdered, a bit of blood, some guts and a detective or two. Thanks for believing in me.

I also would like to take this opportunity to thank Dustin who took my ideas and constant nagging and turned them into a cover even more beautiful than I had hoped for. Thanks for all your hard work and creative touches.

And of course, my fellow nerds. You all know who you are. We may have many “nerd fights” around the office cubicle but without your encouragement and willingness to read, a first go at a dream, I wouldn’t be here writing this dedication to the most wonderful friends I could’ve hoped to find. Just remember nerds I know all your secrets when it comes to;

“Nerd Girl Problem#235”

That unexplainable crush

You have on fictional characters.

Love you all,

Ella

To my wonderful husband, who lets me get away with reading way to many books with no complaints. He’s also the first person to insist that I believe in myself. Without him I wouldn’t know the true meaning of a happy ending. I love you very much.

“I know mom had to be driving you crazy tonight cause she was making my head spin.” Carly laughed rolling her eyes as she launched into the exact imitation of their mother’s high-pitched voice. “So Lena? When are you going to meet a nice boy and settle down? You spend too much time with your head stuck in a book studying.”

Lena laughed turning to look at her sister who stuck her tongue out.

“Thanks for driving me home sis. I swear if I don’t get a car soon I'm gonna go insane.”

Focusing back on the dark road they waited at a red light.

“Go insane? That’s impossible, you’re already there.”

“Whatever, loser.”

Grinning Lena watched the road then slowly started to accelerate as the light flicked to be green. They’d moved two inches forward when a blinding light came hurtling toward them. Tires squealed in protest right before a bone crunching noise splintered through Lena’s ears, and everything went black…

Sitting up suddenly Lena felt the sweat drip down her spine as she clutched her chest tightly. Glancing over at the clock by her bed she watched as the red numbers flicked to 3:21am. Shit. Every night the nightmare was the same. It was like a bad scene in a movie that was stuck on repeat and wouldn’t stop. The only major difference was this was her reality. No matter what she did, for the last nine years of  her life, Lena had been living with the ugly truth that she’d been behind the wheel the night Carly was  killed. Leaning against the headboard, she squeezed the bridge of her nose and inhaled deeply. Lena looked over to the picture on her empty dresser, of Carly and herself at Carly’s 18th birthday, and sighed. Closing her eyes she slid down into her bed staring at the ceiling fan as it spun slowly making that irritating, thwump, thwump, thwump with every rotation. Just another thing she’d neglected to fix, she thought to herself and added it as a mental note. Kind of like the rest of her life. With that depressing thought, Lena rolled over onto her side squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to get at least one more hour of sleep before she had to get up and go to work at 7am. However, as the seconds turned into minutes, she knew sleep was beyond her, and as she did every morning, Lena woke up thinking, well shit.

Lena raced through the hospital lobby and into the staff cafeteria.

“Late again Lena? I bet you haven’t been on time once this year.”

Looking over at Shelly, who sat at one of the tables drinking her coffee, Lena saluted her with her middle finger.

“Bite me Shelly. You only get here early so you can stuff your face with the breakfast they bring.”

Lena got there right as the time turned 7:01am.

“Shit.” she muttered and walked over to where Shelly was and picked up the other half of the donut and bit down. Pulling out the chair she slumped into it flinging her bag onto the table.

“One minute. One lousy minute! I’m telling you McKinney is going to kick my ass. He has eyes everywhere.”

Shelly grinned as she continued stuffing her face. “What the hell do you do all night anyway that you can’t be here on time?”

Lena rubbed her eyes then forced a grin onto her face, motioning Shelly to come closer, she whispered. “I stay up all night getting hot and sweaty.” Well, it wasn’t that far from the truth.

Shelly raised a blond eyebrow then sat back picking up another donut. Munching down on it, she watched Lena closely then tilted her head to the side.

“You’re full of shit Lena. No one as tense as you could be getting laid regularly.”

Standing up Lena slung her back pack over her shoulder then started to walk out. As she got to the door, she looked over her shoulder.

“Shelly I'm not tense. I am stiff, there’s a huge difference.”

Lena left with Shelly’s laughter ringing loudly in her ears, and before she could call her bluff. Shelly knew her too well. Her friend knew that she hadn’t dated anyone more than once in the last nine years. She also knew that there hadn’t even been a first date in a very long time. Getting into the elevator, she rode it up to level six where she got out and wandered down to the lounge. No one was in there thank God, and McKinney was no where to be seen. Lena had been late so much in the last few months he'd called her into his office and asked her if he needed to buy her a watch, asshole. It didn’t matter that she happened to be the best damn pediatric doctor he had, he still had to give her shit.

Opening her locker, she took her sweater off and hung it on the peg on the door. She stashed her back pack on the bottom level then pulled her lab coat on. Picking up her pens, she stuffed them in her scrubs and unzipped her bag pulling out her glasses. Looking at the picture stuck to the door, she kissed her fingers and placed them on it. Then she shut the locker with a firm hand and turned on her heel ready to face the day.

As Mason Langley stood at the front desk of the pediatric ward he mentally reminded himself over and over that he was so not ready for the challenge of children. Looking over at the young mother to his left, clutching a chubby dark haired monster, he watched in horror as the child screamed like someone had got his hand stuck in a door. She kept cooing to the child but the tiny terror was having none of it. He would take three deep breaths and there’d be a lull, for all of twenty seconds, then the little demon would start the ear blistering shrill all over again.

Mason looked around the waiting room tapping his foot impatiently. He was standing at the desk with a huge bunch of red roses, who he was assuming were for a patient, and he’d been standing there for the past twenty minutes. He was waiting on the little receptionist behind the desk who'd scurried off looking for Lena, whoever the hell that was. Quite frankly he was beyond caring. At this stage he just wanted to put a lot of distance between himself and the child who was trying to make him deaf before he reached thirty five. He still couldn’t believe his mother had suckered him into dropping off flowers to a customer on his way back to the restaurant. He was about to call her and demand a phone number or at least a paycheck for his time, ha like she’d go for that, when the receptionist reappeared looking frazzled.

“She wants to know who they're from.”

Mason stared at her like she’d gone mad. He leaned on the desk and placed the vase down slowly.

“Does it matter who they're from? They're roses for God sake.”

The lady peered at him over the rim of her thick black glasses. He was sure she thought they were hip, but really just took away from her eyes.

“It matters because it's Lena. She doesn’t like anything…” she stopped and it looked to him like she was looking for the right word. “Cheery.”

Mason frowned then sighed. See? That was the problem with women, who the hell knew what made them tick? He braced his elbows on the counter.

“Look. I don’t know who they’re from, the card’s sealed. To be quite honest I really think that Lena needs to be a bit more grateful and just come and sign for the damn flowers.”

He knew his voice had got louder towards the end, but with the screaming child and the way the receptionist was staring at him, he thought she was lucky he hadn’t picked the flowers up and walked out with them. He watched as she shrugged.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Sir.”

Mason clenched his teeth, prayed for patience then slowly he smiled. All of a sudden it came to him that maybe, just maybe charm would work. He watched the lady’s eyes soften and her posture become less rigid and thought to himself, oh yeah charm works every time. It was whether or not he could keep up the pretense with a wailing banshee in the background and the start of a major headache.

“Well maybe you could go and get,” he stopped for a moment forgetting the not so cheery lady’s name. “Lena? So I could talk to her?”

Dark glasses smiled sweetly then nodded. “Ok give me a minute. I’ll see if she’ll come out here.”

Mason kept the fake smile plastered on his face. “Thank you so much.”

Then thought, if she won’t come out here I’m dumping her flowers all over the waiting room floor. With that cheery image he turned and took a seat on one of the chairs. Impatiently waiting for the annoying Lena to make an appearance.

Lena had just walked into her office and taken a seat when Brandy came in. She watched her, oh so perky receptionist almost skip to her desk then stop and try to stand patiently for her to acknowledge she was there. Finally, when Lena couldn’t stand the fidgeting, she looked up at her.

“So? Did you find out who they were from?”

Brandy frowned, pushed her glasses back up her nose then shook her head. She crossed one leg then the other and it almost looked as though she needed to go pee. When she didn’t answer immediately Lena probed, “Brandy? Flowers’ focus. Did you find out who they were from?”

“Oh. Nope. He said the card was sealed and that he wasn’t allowed to open it.”

Rolling her eyes Lena sighed. What? The flower guy suddenly had morals and ethics? She'd basically given him permission to check who they were from when she’d asked, didn’t she? Inwardly groaning Lena stood and walked around her desk. Brandy watched her warily and she thought, am I really such a horrible boss she needs to look terrified? Striding past her out into the hall Lena decided, if she was being honest, that she probably was.

She walked down the east hallway and turned onto the main drag that led to the front desk of the Pedi wing, pushing open the door to the waiting room Lena saw a tall dark haired man folded into one of the tiny waiting room chairs clutching a vase with a dozen red roses. The first thing she noticed was he did not look happy. In fact, he looked extremely pissed off. The second thing was his very very long legs folded up at an awkward angle to balance the vase on his knees. Lastly, was his tapping foot which seemed to be getting more impatient before her eyes. Finally, he turned toward Lena and she watched as his face changed from a look of disgust to a fake blank smile. Standing where she was she watched him stretch out his tall frame and walk over to her. Lena stood at 5’7, so in heels she was often taller than most, but even she had nothing on this guy. Gees what did his mom do? Stand him in manure every night as a child? Smirking at that she looked up at him and asked.