A Case of You

by Pamela Burford

  “Here.” Bryan crossed the room, wiping his hands on his shirt. He squatted in back of her and began gathering the long, curly strands. His callused fingers brushed her neck and ears in the process, and suddenly Kit pictured this eighteen-year-old in an intimate embrace with Joanne, a full decade older. She wondered where they’d made love. In his “pit” of a rented room, probably.

  He finger-combed her hair into a high ponytail, then fished a white bandanna out of his pocket and tied it in place. She reached back to check his handiwork. “Thanks.” Giving her shoulder a couple of avuncular pats, he rose and went back to the chest of drawers he’d been pulling apart.

  She tossed the tools back into the milk crate and rose, shoving the crate into a corner with her foot. At the same moment her other foot flew out from under her as she slipped on a screwdriver she’d left lying out. She landed hard on the crate, howling in pain as something gouged deep into the outside of her thigh. A stream of curses flowed as readily as the blood that soaked through her torn jeans.

  Bryan was at her side in a flash. “Take it easy.” He eased her onto the floor. “Lemme see.”

  Reflexively she gripped her thigh directly above the wound as he gingerly peeled back the torn, blood-soaked material to examine the gash. Air whistled through his teeth and he grimaced. “This is one big bad boo-boo. There’s your culprit.” He indicated the crate. The claw of a hammer—rusty, of course—poked through the side of it near its top edge.

  He pulled the bandanna out of her hair and quickly folded it into a square and applied it to the wound. “Hold this,” he instructed. “Come on, let’s get you to Noah’s.” He helped her rise.

  She’d taken two halting steps, pressing the makeshift dressing to her thigh, before his words sank in. “No!”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  She dug in her heels. “I’m serious, Bryan. Look at me.” She waited till he turned to her, exasperation adding decades to his youthful features. “I am not going to Noah’s. That’s final. Take me to Wescott.”

  “No way. The hospital’s, like, forty minutes away. You need that thing taken care of pronto.”

  She started hobbling toward the stairs. “I’ll drive myself.”

  “You’re going to drive with your right leg like that?” Now it was his turn to swear. “Okay, okay. Get in the pickup. I’ll take you to Wescott.”

  Sitting next to Bryan in his pickup truck, she kept the bandanna pressed to her wound, which throbbed like hell. It still bled freely, saturating the bandanna and the torn cloth of her jeans. She squeezed her eyes shut and started counting the minutes, praying Wescott Community had miraculously moved a few miles closer to Pratte overnight. Less than ten minutes into the ride she felt the truck head up a rise and heard gravel pelt its undercarriage. This didn’t feel like the highway.

  She opened her eyes. “You bastard!”

  Bryan regarded her quizzically. “What, no one ever lied to you before?”

  Chapter Nine

  BRYAN PARKED IN front of Noah’s sprawling home and hopped out of the truck. She watched the front door open and Noah saunter out, with a smile for his young friend. He hadn’t noticed her yet.

  “She’s hurt,” Bryan said, circling around to the passenger door.

  Noah froze, his gaze zeroing in on her. Then Bryan’s words seemed to register and she saw his eyes widen. He sprinted to the truck just as Bryan got the door open.

  Kit forced her eyes away from Noah’s concerned gaze and said tightly, “I told him to take me to Wescott.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  She felt him pry her hand from her leg, then he gently lifted the blood-soaked bandanna. She sucked in a breath as it pulled away from the torn flesh. He ripped her jeans a little more to get a better look. “What happened?”

  Bryan gave a succinct account of the accident while they helped her out of the truck. Noah let her lean on Bryan as she hobbled into the house, a concession to his cracked ribs, no doubt. He led her into an examination room and helped her onto the paper-draped table, then dismissed Bryan with a good-natured “Beat it.”

  “I want him to stay,” Kit said.

  Both men stared at her. Noah’s expression was frigid, Bryan’s bemused. “Fine with me,” Noah said. “Let’s get those pants off.” He reached for her fly, with its row of buttons.

  “Uh...” She stayed his hand, her face growing warm. “Can’t you just cut the fabric around the—”

  “No.” He started working on the buttons.

  Bryan leaned against the wall, arms folded, a hateful grin plastered on his face. “Buttons are, like, so much sexier than zippers, don’t you think? Need some help with that?”

  Noah urged her to lie flat and began easing the garment over her hips, his demeanor strictly professional. She’d assumed Bryan would do the gentlemanly thing and turn his back, but she should have known better. He stared avidly as her panties came into view—a skimpy string bikini. Not much more than a strategically placed triangle of ice-blue lace through which the dusky wedge of hair was clearly visible. And the cropped T-shirt didn’t even reach her navel!

  Still, she thought she could handle the boy’s presence, till he said, “Lace. Yum.”

  Her face scalding, she jerked the waistband away from Noah and yanked it back up. “Out!” she barked at Bryan. “Get out of here!”

  “I thought you wanted me to—”

  “Go!”

  He shrugged. “I’ll go play with the Legos in the waiting room.” He ambled out, and Noah closed the door after him. Bryan would probably come up with a Lego flamethrower, she mused.

  “Was he supposed to protect you?” Noah resumed his task.

  Anything she said would only make the situation worse, so she said nothing. She lifted her hips to help him slide the jeans down, and even though he took care, when the denim scraped her wound, her entire body snapped taut.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, tossing the jeans onto a chair. His gaze landed on her left thigh, the intact one. Without looking, she knew what had snagged his attention.

  “What happened here?” he asked, sliding his fingertips over the purple bruises. The instant the words were out of his mouth, he knew what he was looking at. She could tell. The question was, did he remember doing that to her? His hand slid down to cover the fading finger marks.

  He looked straight into her eyes, and for the first time that day she saw more than a briskly efficient family practitioner. There was an echo of the anguish and regret she’d seen four days ago by the light of the fireworks.

  “He did hurt you,” he said quietly.

  “You hurt me.”

  He didn’t argue the point. “Where else?” He quickly looked her over and found the marks on her wrists. He lifted them both and turned them over... rubbed his thumbs over the discolored flesh in a healing gesture. His eyes were sad but sharp when they spotted the edge of another bruise at the rolled-up sleeve of her T-shirt where his own fingers had bitten into her shoulder four days earlier. He pulled up the sleeve and examined it, too.

  She yanked the sleeve back down. “They’re only bruises,” she said harshly. “That’s not what I’m here for.”

  Resuming his doctorly air seemed to take an effort, as if he had to force himself to turn from her and ready the supplies he’d need. He opened cabinets and pulled out items she couldn’t see. All she could see was his back, clad in a faded indigo polo shirt. “Was the hammer dirty?” he asked.

  She heard the muted click of instruments being laid out on a clean towel, the sound of paper tearing, assorted ominous rustlings She swallowed hard and affected a light tone. “Yeah, and rusty.” She leaned up enough to squint down at her leg. The sight of her state of dishabille was more disconcerting than the bloody gash on the outside of her right thigh. She let her head flop back and drilled her gaze into the ceiling.

  He crossed to the sink and scrubbed his hands, then donned latex gloves. At last he returned to her side with a small plastic basin,
some gauze pads, a bottle of Betadine, and what appeared to be a turkey baster.

  “Where’s the cranberry sauce, ha ha?” she asked in a reedy voice.

  He raised her knee and set the basin under her thigh. “Don’t be nervous, Kit.”

  “I’m not nervous.” Hell, no, I always squeak like this.

  Not knowing what to do with her hands, she folded them primly over her waist. It took all her willpower not to clap them over her crotch. Especially with Noah standing right over her, scrutinizing her, breathing on her, blotting her wound with gauze pads. Getting ready to do God knew what with his stupid turkey baster.

  A memory assailed her then, of Noah at the cemetery—the real Noah—sliding his fingers up her thigh and higher... dragging the back of his hand slowly between her legs, marking her with a burst of tingling heat everywhere he touched. Now, as then, her body’s response was swift and merciless. Kit pulled in a long, slow breath, restraining a moan as scalding heat crawled up her neck and face. She felt suddenly aching and engorged, unbearably exposed under the unforgiving fluorescent light and her inadequate shield of blue lace, her body swelling and blossoming and growing slick with need. Could he see it, sense it? Oh, God, did he know? If so, his authoritative voice gave no indication.

  “This is an irrigation syringe. It’s filled with saline solution,” he said. “I’m going to flush out the dirt first.” He squirted the salt water right onto the gash. It burned, and she screwed up her face, clenched her fingers together. But she didn’t move a muscle.

  He flicked a glance at her face, as if to ensure that she’d handled it okay, while he wet a gauze pad with the brown Betadine antiseptic. He began cleaning the wound and the skin around it, his touch gentle, his manner once more businesslike. He seemed oblivious to her near nakedness, as if he hadn’t even noticed the screamingly naughty little why-bother scrap of lace and satin that Jo had dared her to buy, so she’d had to get two of every color just to show her. Guess I showed her, huh?

  He removed the basin and lowered her knee, then turned back to the counter. “Now for the fun part.” Kit strained to see what he was doing. She didn’t trust a doctor’s version of “fun.” When he turned back, he was holding a hypodermic needle.

  The primitive part of her brain, the part charged with self-preservation, knew right away that something was wrong with this picture, but it took her conscious mind a couple of heartbeats to figure it out.

  Look who’s about to give you a shot, dummy.

  She swallowed a big dry wad of apprehension and said, “What’s that?”

  “Novocaine.” He studied the wound as if deciding where to stick the needle. “You need stitches, in case you hadn’t figured that one out.”

  “Well, uh... wait a minute.” She leaned up on her elbows, her wary eyes on the needle. “Don’t they use those butterfly things nowadays? Those little bandages?”

  “Not for something like this. It’s going to take twelve, fifteen stitches easy. Come on.” With a hand on her shoulder he urged her to lie flat again, but she didn’t budge. “You won’t feel a—”

  “I don’t want novocaine.”

  “What?”

  Now that she’d said it, she thought about it. How bad could it be, really? She’d read more than one historical novel in which some macho character got sewn up without benefit of painkiller. People used to do it all the time. They had no choice.

  An image loomed in her imagination with sickening clarity: Anita David gasping for air, anxiously waiting for the man she trusted, her lover, to administer the shot of epinephrine that would end her suffering. And while Kit knew that Noah couldn’t possibly have been responsible for that first poisoning three decades ago, the horrifying fact was, he was the closest thing she had to a suspect in Jo’s murder. And it was a matter of public record that, self-defense or not, he’d killed at least once.

  “You heard me.” She tried to put starch in her words. “I don’t want novocaine.”

  Noah’s hard gaze skewered her. His jaw tightened and his throat worked. After a stare-down that seemed to last forever, he said, “I’ll show you the vial.” His voice was low and raw.

  Her throat constricted so tightly she couldn’t respond right away. If he was innocent—and with all her heart she prayed he was—she’d just irrevocably severed the fragile bond they’d begun to forge last week. Noah was lost to her, and until this moment, she couldn’t have guessed how much that would hurt.

  But she couldn’t let that sway her now.

  “No shot,” she said, and flopped back onto the table, inexpressibly weary. “Just do it.”

  “You don’t know what you’re—”

  “Do it.”

  He stood there for a long time while she studied the fluorescent ceiling fixture and swallowed convulsively against her trepidation. She heard the slow exhalation that wafted over her seminude body like a warm breeze. At last she felt movement near her leg and she twitched reflexively.

  He laid his gloved hand, big and warm and heavy, on her intertwined fingers at her waist, and she felt suddenly calmer, more centered. She became aware for the first time of the tremors that had sneaked up on her, and she took a deep breath, forcing her shoulders to relax, her knees to stop quaking. Still she stared at the ceiling.

  “Do you want a sedative?” he asked.

  “No.” Her voice was a thin whisper.

  “I can give you a Valium.”

  “No.” She licked her lips. “Thanks.”

  He left her side and returned almost immediately. She heard something being torn. A quick peek revealed a sterile packet from which he extracted a curved needle and black suture thread. Oh God.

  That’s some light fixture, she decided, swinging her gaze back up to the ceiling. I sure as hell hope it gets more interesting in the next little while. She lowered her hands to the edge of the padded exam table and gripped it hard.

  It took him a few seconds to ready the needle, then he said, “All right, I’m starting.”

  And he did. She screamed. To her shame, she howled bloody murder. The impulse to wrench her leg out of his reach was overpowering, yet she gritted her teeth, locked her knees, and forced herself to lie still while he tied off the first knot. She felt moisture collect at the corners of her eyes, and hoped he didn’t notice. Her nose was beginning to run.

  “Okay, now you’ve got a taste of it,” he said gruffly. She felt his fingers on her jaw, forcing her to look right at him. His eyes were intense. “I’m getting the novocaine.”

  “No!” He’d said twelve or fifteen stitches. How was she going to go through this twelve or fifteen times? Still she said, “I won’t move. I’ll try not to be... loud.”

  His eyes closed briefly. He whispered, “Don’t make me do this to you, Kit. It’s so pointless.”

  She closed her eyes, too, to shut him out, to collect herself. She cleared her throat. “C-Can I have a tissue?” He gave her a handful and she blew her nose. Her leg throbbed mercilessly. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “Muleheaded woman,” he muttered, his voice more Georgia than she’d ever heard it. “Take slow, controlled breaths. Maybe it’ll help. You ready?” She nodded, and he slid the needle into her flesh once more, using an instrument that looked like needle-nosed pliers.

  The slow breathing didn’t provide relief, but it gave her something to focus on. After the first couple of stitches, the pain seemed to take on a life of its own, like a burning, pulsating energy field hovering in her and over her. The tears rolled out of her eyes and into her ears, but true to her word, she lay quiet and unmoving, squeezing the table edge, with only an occasional sharp gasp punctuating the silence.

  At some point she started watching Noah instead of the ceiling, needing someone to cling to, if only with her eyes. He worked with single-minded intensity, his long fingers surprisingly graceful, his movements economical.

  She’d counted thirteen stitches when he said, “Last one.” He glanced at her, a
nd she nodded mutely. She felt the needle pierce her for the last time, felt him push it through the layers of skin, followed by the thread. A tugging sensation as he secured the knot.

  Noah sighed heavily and closed his eyes, bracing his arm on the exam table as if he could no longer support his weight. He looked exhausted, shaken, like a marathon runner at the end of the course. He met her gaze. “You okay?”

  No. “Yes.”

  “God, you’re pale.”

  “So are you.”

  For some reason, that made him smile. He picked up a pair of scissors and trimmed the threads, then bandaged and taped the wound. After peeling off the latex gloves, he slid his arm under her shoulders and helped her sit up. “I’ll bring you some Tylenol with codeine.”

  She groaned, her stomach clenching. “I’ll never keep it down. I don’t feel so good.”

  He looked more closely at her face. “You don’t look so good. I’m not surprised. Just rest here awhile.” He turned back to the counter.

  She began to relax. It was over. A lethargic sense of peace suffused her. She yawned.

  “When was your last tetanus booster?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Umm... high school...?” Whoa. The sudden banging of her heart nearly knocked her off-balance. “Oh. Right. Tetanus.” The casual tone she affected sounded hollow even to her own ears. Her palms grew damp. “Yeah, now I remember. I had a shot last year.”

  He turned to face her then, and her eyes flew to the loaded syringe in his hand. The bastard was smiling. “Nice try.” Before she could open her mouth to object, he pushed up her sleeve, swabbed her with alcohol, and drove the needle home, holding her arm in a ruthless grip.

  “I’m fast,” he said. “You got to give me that.”

  When she could speak past her blind outrage, she sputtered, “I didn’t want the damn shot!”

  “I suppose you want lockjaw. Well, I’m not giving you that option.” He dropped the syringe into the red disposal container.