Unlikely Lovers

Chapter 3

Caitlyn POV

My back kept tingling as if someone was watching me. I'd let Jeremy's brother follow me to the reception. He didn't sit with his mother and me. His mother kept muttering things under her breath about him being a jerk. I could tell her disappointment that her husband had never showed up, yet her other son had. Something about that whole situation seemed a bit shady to her, but she didn't want to get into their family issues at this time.

The atmosphere of the reception was starting to get to her, and she decided to go get some air. As she stepped outside, she began to feel dizzy and nearly fell down. Before she could blink, Brandon was sitting her on a stoop and asking her questions. She felt that she was answering his questions correctly, but the look on his face said that her answers were not making any sense.

He picked her up as if she weighed nothing. Taking her car keys, he takes off in the direction that she assumes is the hospital. The next thing she knows, he's lifting her out of the car in an ER driveway with the lights on too bright. She hides her face in his chest.

"Don't worry sugar, we'll get this figured out." He whispered into her ear. How much he sounded like Jeremy hurt her heart.

Carrying her into the ER, he demanded they check her out. As she laid her head back on him to wait for a bed to open. Before long she felt him laying her down on an uncomfortable gurney. They were asking him a lot of questions that he had to keep saying he didn't know the answer to. Annoyed, the nurse asked him what he DID know. He recounted her name, age and that her fiancé had died recently. Since she wasn't being very responsive, they began to do blood tests. They found her blood sugar level was dangerously low and began to give her medicine to raise it to normal levels.

"Where the hell am I?" Caitlyn asked as she started to come back to reality. She was in a dim room with a cool rag on her head.

" You are at Mercy General. If your friend here hadn't brought you in when he did, you might not have made it. " A woman in scrubs answered her. "There are some other questions the doctor needs to ask you privately if you're up for it." Caitlyn nodded.

"I'll be outside if you need me," Brandon mumbled as he walked out of the room. For some reason, he was glad she was bouncing back so quickly.

"You don't have to stick around on my account." She told him coldly. She felt awkward that he'd saved her life.

"Yes I do, I have no way back to my bike. Besides, I'm not gonna put other people at risk because your dumb ass decides to drive." Brandon told her bluntly from the doorway. Once the doctor arrived, he disappeared. The news the doctor shares with her has her in a state of shock. He also decides to keep her for observation for the next few days.

"You'd better have a good reason for your antics at your dead fiancé's reception." Jeremy's mother yells at her when she calls to tell her what happened.

"My blood sugar bottomed out and Brandon took me to the hospital."

"Well, if you are done being weak, I could use your help cleaning this mess up."

"I'm being admitted for a few days, so they can figure out what is wrong with my blood sugar." Caitlyn was shocked by her attitude.

"Likely excuse. If you didn't want to help clean up, you could just have said so. Pretending to be ill is such a pathetic excuse for your behavior." Before she could respond, Brandon had came in and grabbed the phone from her,

"Mother, keep your toxic comments to yourself and stop hurting the woman who would have been stuck with you as a mother-in-law. I have already called a cleaning crew, and they are on the way to clean the venue. Go home to your whiskey bottle and leave her alone." As his mother started to speak, he hung up.

"Why did you do that?" Caitlyn asked in shock at how he spoke to his mother.

"How much time have you spent with my mother?"

"Jeremy didn't like driving here, so we only visited a handful of times." Caitlyn answered.

"More like he knew mother can't stay away from alcohol very long, and you never knew which version of her you were gonna get."

"How dare you insult your mother? She has been going through a tough time with losing Jeremy."

"There is something always 'traumatic' happening to her."

"You haven't been around, how do you know?" Caitlyn kept defending his mother.

"I wasn't around because she blames me for things that aren't my fault. I refuse to have her drag you into her toxic circle."

Before she can respond, her phone starts to play "Crazy Train" and blink Tyler across the screen.

Handing the phone back to her, she answers it. Hearing that she's at the hospital, Tyler asks for a run-down on how she ended up there. Explaining everything that had led up to the moment she woke up, Tyler asked her to hand the phone back to Brandon.

"Thank you for looking after Cait. She might act all tough, but losing Jay has messed her up more than she wants to admit. I'd have been there if I could have, but my doc wouldn't sign off yet. Can you and I have a talk here at the VA tomorrow?"

"Okay, I'll see you around 10am?" Brandon was shocked at how mellow Tyler was about him showing up. Almost like he expected him to.

"Works out great. Tell the lioness to relax and take it easy." Tyler hung up the phone.

"Why does he want to see you at 10?" Cait asked suspiciously.

"No clue. Guess he wants to know what I'm doing coming around. I haven't been around for a long time and now, out of the blue, I'm here."

Once they get Caitlyn moved to her room, he leaves her for the night and heads back to the restaurant by ride-share. His bike is exactly where he left it, but he can tell that his return pissed someone off with the knife in his back tire. Shaking his head, he calls roadside assistance and orders a new tire for his bike. It's going to take more than a flat tire to get him to disappear.