PERMANENT
by Kim Carmichael
"WHAT'S THIS?" A blast of hot air and a stack of envelopes greeted Shane Elliott when he opened the door to his apartment. He stepped back. The scorching air he could handle, but envelopes only held bad news, commitment and work.
"Mail." His brother, Carson, thrust the pile at him.
Though the stagnant warm air threatened to choke him, he froze at the return address on the top letter.
Carson flicked the envelope. "What are you going to do?"
He crumpled the unwanted paper in his fist and headed straight for his couch, shoving the evil thing under the cushion. "We're not going to talk about it."
"Shane." His brother shook his head on the way to the kitchen.
"Let's get out of here." He sat, the multitude of letters hidden in the couch crunching like cockroaches.
"You need help."
"I said not to talk about it." As he pounded his fist into the arm of the couch, a horrible crash boomed through his place, vibrating the wall he shared with the apartment next to him. "Whoa! I didn't know I was that powerful."
Carson ran over and put his ear to the wall. "Did you finally get a new neighbor?"
"Four days ago. Some little old lady." He joined his brother.
"How do you know it’s a little old lady?" Carson cupped his hand over his ear.
"She hasn't made a sound in four days. What if she broke a hip or something?" He winced at the image entering his mind, dashed out of his apartment, and knocked on his neighbor's door. "Hello?"
No one answered.
Once more, he pounded on the door. Maybe the lady's hearing aid fell out. "Hello!"
"She could have passed out." Carson tapped him.
"Damn!" All he needed was some little old lady in her housecoat lying helpless in her apartment. No way would he start their relationship as the jerk that allowed the woman to rot away. What if he ever needed her for anything?
"Watch out." With no time to second guess, he kicked the door in. The door flung open, breaking off one hinge. "Don't let any cats out!" A silent little old lady would definitely have a cat or a million to keep her company. He leapt inside to find his victim, only to be met with nothing but a mountain of perfectly labeled moving boxes and he peered over one of the peaks to find her.
At his discovery, he smiled. No old lady, instead a bona fide woman lay flat on her back on the generic beige carpet with a hammer only a few feet away from her. With red cheeks and glassy eyes, she seemed somewhere between wanting to scream and bursting into tears. This entire situation was great, perfect even, if not for the huge gash on her forehead with blood gushing out of the wound.
Not wanting to terrify her more than she had to be already with her injury and two men bursting into her apartment, he sprang into action, sliding around the boxes and dropping to one knee next to her. "Shane Elliott." He thrust his hand out and bowed his head. "Your neighbor and your savior."
She opened her mouth but said nothing, only continued to stare at him.
"I see nothing of the feline persuasion either in the apartment or fleeing the apartment." Carson entered hunched over as he examined the area.
A slight whimper escaped his patient's throat.
"We may not have any cats, but I think we got ourselves a chick." He winked at her.
Her eyes darted between the two of them.
"She's stunned." Carson snapped his fingers in her face.
Shane swiped his brother's hand away. "Go get the first aid kit. This needs special equipment."
While Carson left, he took over the role of the calming and soothing gentleman and patted her arm. "We heard you go down and came right away."
"I'm so embarrassed." She reached up to her forehead and winced.
"It happens." He took a moment to study her, with her big blue eyes and straight, long blonde hair, she was a perfect Hollywood princess. She wore a pair of black yoga pants and a pink t-shirt, fine for moving in, but the black designer stiletto dangling on her foot caught his attention. No wonder she fell.
"Everything will be okay, don't try to move." He grasped her shoulder. "We'll stabilize you."
"Triage." Carson returned with the sought after kit. "So, did you figure out what happened?"
She raised her hand.
Not wanting her to exert herself, he pushed her hand down and scanned the room locating the second shoe, a step stool and some framed art of pastel flowers. "Looks like she tried to hang a picture in her heels, lost her balance and came down with a splat. Her shoe landed in the eastern quadrant." He reached over her and picked up the hammer. "This hammer hit her causing a contusion to her right temporal region." There was no better time to start things right, and impressing her with some multi-syllabic words was merely one tool in his arsenal.
"Thank you, detective." When Carson flipped the lid of the kit open, an envelope popped out. "Shane."
"Focus." Before Carson grabbed the offensive thing, Shane snatched it up, balled the paper in his fist and shoved it in his pocket. "We have an injured woman."
"This involves all of us." Carson rifled through the bandages.
"It's my problem, leave it." He yanked the kit over. "I'm the boss, don't think about it."
"That's a crock and you know it." Carson pulled it back.
"Excuse me." Again, his fallen angel waved her hand.
"We have a wound we need to tend to." He smiled down at her. "What is it?"
"I want to thank you for coming here, but why don't you two go take care of your mail issue. I'll be fine." She licked her lips and inhaled. "This is nothing a bandage won't fix, the odds of it being something worse is very small. I was just taken off guard."
"I don't think the odds are in your favor this time." The injury seemed worse than he originally thought, much deeper and her forehead now swelled. He tore open the package of gauze. "Actually, this may be beyond my vast medical knowledge."
"Sir?"
"Don't call me sir. It's Shane." Sir was some old man and he didn't want that image in her head. He tilted his head, trying to assess how to fix her.
"Shane?" Her voice came out a little stronger.
"Hold on sweetie, don't worry." Once more, he approached her with the gauze.
"It's fine." She propped herself up on her elbow and a trail of blood oozed down her face. "Oh no."
"Wait up." Somehow he got her back down on the floor and shoved the gauze on her forehead. "This is way beyond a bandage."
He exchanged glances with Carson and blurted out, "Urgent Care."
Want to read more?
Always on the outside looking in, accountant, Lindsay Stevens, has calculated her transformation from a small town, nerdy bookkeeper to a sleek, high-powered accountant down to the last penny. With all her checks finally in balance, she moves to California to start a new life free of her embarrassing past she never wants revealed.
As Hollywood's hottest tattoo artist, Shane Elliott thrives on standing out. Charismatic and free of commitments, he travels through life with a wink and a smile, hiding the letters he receives from the IRS as if they don't exist. Now with bills to pay and tax collectors breathing down his back, for the first time in his life Shane can't charm his way out of his situation.
However, when his new neighbor literally falls into his life, he knows he has struck gold once again. Though Lindsay tries to keep her distance, she suddenly finds herself trying to hide her true self as she thrust into a world she doesn't think she belongs, but can't resist. In his good-time life, Shane must discover there is more to life than a party if he wants something more. With their lives intertwined, the two must learn accept each other, themselves and their love. Worlds collide as they decide what is truly permanent. Permanent is the first book in the Indelibly Marked Series that follows the lives and loves of those surrounding Permanent Tattoo.
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2 comments:
Thank you for sharing with us today, Kim! I'm definitely curious what's going to happen next with these characters!
Whoa! Can't wait to read this story. Thanks for being on our blog!
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