by Jaye Ford
As he walked away, Daniel rested an arm on the roof of the car. ‘You okay?’
No, she wasn’t. Something deep inside her was shaking, as though her vital organs were still quaking in fright, and tears kept welling and spilling over her lashes. ‘I want to get out of here.’
He looked over at the officers, called, ‘ETA on the truck?’ After a muffled reply, he leaned back in. ‘The ambulance will be here any second.’
‘I don’t want to go to the hospital. I’ll just go home.’
Daniel paid no attention. The ambulance was already on the exit ramp and he left her to meet it, waiting as an officer stepped down then pointing to Liv before indicating with his own face and hand.
He clearly knew his way around police and medical help. What was the name of his business? She couldn’t remember, was just grateful he’d worked late tonight, even more grateful he was happy to manage proceedings. It gave her a chance to pull herself together. She guessed she’d need to seem better than she felt if she was going to avoid the hospital.
The ambulance officer checked her eyes, felt her scalp and caused excruciating pain when she examined Liv’s injured finger.
‘I’m not going to the hospital,’ Liv told her.
‘You’ve got a possible concussion and you need X-rays on your hand.’
Liv pushed herself to her feet. ‘No, look, I’m fine.’ Actually, she wasn’t too good. A whoosh of heat rushed to her face and she grabbed for the car door to steady herself.
The ambulance officer placed a hand under her elbow. ‘Listen, Livia. I’m going to stow my gear in the truck and while I’m doing it, I want you to think seriously about going to the hospital.’
The young cop walked around the car, picking up her belongings, putting them in a large, white garbage bag. Over by the ramp, a small group of people had gathered. Someone with a briefcase, a couple of slouching teenagers, a thickset man. Liv took deep breaths as Daniel made his way back to her.
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘No problem. I just want to go home.’
He nodded like she was floating an idea. ‘You were out cold when I found you. You should let a doctor look at you.’
Liv could see the swelling on her cheek in her peripheral vision now. He was right, she should see a doctor. It was the hospital that was the problem. She lifted her chin, looked him in the eye.
He ignored the stoicism. ‘Someone hurt you tonight, Livia. Don’t let them do more damage by not getting your injuries seen to. You need to hang tough a while longer. Can you do that?’
He sounded like her father. That was enough to change her mind. ‘Yes.’
‘Good answer. Can you walk?’
He hovered nearby as she made her way on wobbly legs to the ambulance. Her head felt as though it might fall off if she moved too fast but she climbed in on her own, passed Daniel’s dark suit jacket out to him. He swapped it for his business card. She had nowhere to put it so she just held onto it with her good hand.
*
Liv was lucky, apparently. It was a quiet Monday night in Emergency and only a twenty-minute wait for a doctor.
She sat in a corridor, a blanket covering her torn clothes, flanked on either side by patients not sick or injured enough to be rushed straight in. The woman next to her held a pale, sleeping toddler in her arms. A man opposite had a bloody T-shirt pressed to his head. A clock on the wall above him said it was eight-fifty. Maybe it was too late to be working back. Maybe she’d get in and out before anyone noticed her name and made a phone call. She was doing okay.
You’ve been assaulted, Liv.
A doctor who looked young enough to partner the police kid at the school formal sent her for X-rays, which confirmed what Liv had already guessed: just bruising to the left side of her face, no concussion and a classic boxer’s injury to her right hand – a fracture in the second knuckle of the middle finger. Her broken digit was buddy-taped to the index finger, the arm secured in a sling and she was given a prescription for painkillers, directions to the pharmacy and left to find her own way.
She had a gown now to cover her torn clothes so she left her unsalvageable jacket in the exam room and walked unsteadily, blinkered by the swelling that had spread down the left side of her face, self-conscious in three-inch heels and a hospital robe. There was another wait at the pharmacy so she found a chair and thought about her dad.
She wanted to sit at his battered old kitchen table and listen to his worn-out voice for a while but she couldn’t because he was already here, in another ward and in more pain than she was. Going to see him at night with her face mashed to a pulp wasn’t going to make him feel any better. Her eyes filled with tears again as she heard him in her head. Tough it out, luv. It was what he always said, it was all he knew. It’s what we’re built for, Liv. He’d done it all his life. She’d been doing it for a year.
Okay, Dad. She wiped the tears with the heel of her hand, saw the lift opposite open, her husband step out and thought, Why does it have to be so fucking tough?
Maybe it was the familiarity of his face after a horrible night but she was filled with a quick, warm pulse of relief. A moment later, the hurt and anger and humiliation she felt whenever she saw him now was back. She stood, tried to dig deep for some of her father’s fight as Thomas strode across the space between them.
He looked like he’d lost some weight and the smattering of grey at his temples had disappeared. The twenty-six-year-old sharing his bed mustn’t have approved. Liv fingered the bruise on her face and felt old, ugly and adrift.
‘God, Liv, what happened?’ He made no attempt to touch her, just ducked his head to get a better look at the damage. He was trying for concern, but it was stilted and awkward – same as he always was these days.
She averted the bruised side of her face. ‘Well, I almost made it without seeing you. How did you know I was here?’
‘Phil Dawson phoned. He was called into Emergency and saw your name. I came down as soon as I heard.’
And she should be grateful for that? ‘Phil Dawson isn’t my doctor. He shouldn’t have called.’
‘All right, you’ve made your point but he did ring and I’m here now. What happened?’
She wanted to tell him it was none of his business but didn’t have the energy to argue. ‘I was attacked in the car park at work.’
‘What, mugged?’
‘No. He didn’t take anything.’
‘Are you okay?’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘How the hell do I look, Thomas?’
He pressed his lips together. ‘I mean the sling. Did you break your arm?’
‘I’ve got a broken finger and bruises and I just want to get out of here, so if you’ll excuse me . . .’ She picked up the garbage bag of her belongings.
‘Give me that. I’ll drive you home.’ He reached to take it.
‘No.’ She swung it away. She wasn’t going anywhere with him. She wasn’t getting in their old family car and she didn’t want to hear what he had to say about the townhouse she’d bought with her share of their life.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Liv.’
He made a more determined grab for the bag and she flinched at the sudden force, the police-kid’s voice echoing in her head. Has he ever been violent towards you?
‘Everything okay here?’
Liv turned, saw Daniel Beck at her elbow and took a step back. Next to Thomas’s tall, sophisticated facade, he looked like a heavyweight boxer poured into a business shirt. She eyed her husband’s hostile posture and took another step back from both of them.
‘Are you all right, Livia?’ Daniel asked.
She realised then what he must have seen – Liv bruised and bandaged and tussling with a man over a garbage bag, loudly enough to think they needed separating. She was too embarrasse
d to speak.
‘We’re fine, thank you,’ Thomas said.
‘Livia?’ Daniel’s voice was firm, the message clear. It wasn’t, ‘If you’re fine, I’ll go’, but, ‘I’m not leaving until you say so.’
She had no idea what he was doing at the hospital but the unexpected show of support made her want to sit down on the floor and blubber into her hospital gown. ‘I . . . I’m . . .’
‘You know him?’ Thomas asked.
Daniel folded large arms across his chest. ‘I’m the guy who called the police and ambulance for her. Who are you?’
‘I’m her husband.’
Oh, that was a goddamn joke. He’d done everything he could to shirk that role in the last year. ‘Not for much longer.’
Thomas made another move for the bag and hissed at her as he got close. ‘Do we have to do this here, for God’s sake?’
Daniel took a step towards him. ‘Livia’s been assaulted tonight. She doesn’t need anyone else in her face. Perhaps it’s time you left.’
Liv raised her eyebrows in astonishment. It was a long time since anyone had come to her defence.
‘I’m taking her home,’ Thomas said.
‘No, you’re not,’ she told him.
‘Damn it, Livia, do you have to be so bloody stubborn? I’m not going to leave you here on your own.’
And yet he had no problem with it a year ago.
‘She’s not on her own,’ Daniel said. ‘My car is out front.’
‘You’re with this guy?’ Thomas looked incredulous.
There were a hundred answers to that remark but she was sick of arguing when she could be sitting down resting her head against the wall. What she wanted right now was to be held for a moment while she rounded up some inner strength. Thomas used to do that for her, then accused her of not needing him enough. He’d found what he wanted in someone else and now she didn’t give a shit what he thought. Daniel, she figured, was just giving her a way out. She smiled gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
‘Well, if you think that’s best, Livia.’ It was Thomas’s backup defence – if he didn’t approve, he treated her choice like stupidity.
‘I do, so why don’t you go spend some time with your son?’ Oh, Cameron. She pulled in a sharp breath. For the first time in his life, Liv was glad she wouldn’t be kissing her son goodnight, was just pleased she’d spoken to him as she’d left the office. He didn’t need to see what someone had done to his mother. Her hand shot out, grabbed Thomas’s forearm. ‘Don’t tell him. Not yet. I don’t want him to worry.’
‘I’ll do what I think is best,’ he said.
4
Liv cursed silently in his wake, her pulse pounding so hard she could feel it in the bruising on her face. As the lift doors closed on Thomas, Daniel took a couple of seconds to absorb her shoes, the gown, the sling.
‘You okay?’ He watched her eyes as he asked.
She glanced away, not wanting him to see what was behind them. Bitterness and fear on top of her anger – new emotions piled on old ones. ‘Can you quit asking me that? I’m mad and shaken up and hurting in more ways than it should be possible and I have no idea where that registers on the scale of “okay”. But I’m walking and talking and that’s going to have to be enough.’
Daniel didn’t even blink at her spray of words. ‘Sure.’
She tugged self-consciously at the gown, smoothed a hand over her hair, felt an overwhelming wave of exhaustion. ‘Oh shit. I need to sit down.’
She let Daniel slip the garbage bag from her hand as she stumbled to the nearest chair and squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t lose it now, Liv. Hold it together a bit longer. When she opened them again, Daniel had placed the bag at her feet and was beside her in the next seat, elbows on the knees of his black trousers as though he was simply marking time. What was he doing here?
‘I’m sorry you had to get involved in that.’
He turned his head, looked at her over his shoulder. ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.’
‘Ten years wasted on him is plenty to be sorry for.’
Daniel sat back in his chair and she moved over a little to make room for the width of his shoulders. ‘Is he a doctor?’ he asked.
‘Financial director for the hospital. I figured someone would tell him I was here. Wouldn’t look good if his wife – even his almost ex-wife – was in Emergency and no one phoned. My bad luck he was still in his office.’ Although it’s what she’d expected. Monday was his favourite night to work back, that hadn’t changed with his new life.
‘Is he often aggressive towards you?’
Egotistical, arrogant, intolerant, yes, but not physical. ‘No. It’s not like that. It’s just . . .’ Was Daniel thinking domestic violence? ‘No, look, why are you here? Were you hurt?’
He said nothing for a moment, maybe deciding whether to press further. ‘You didn’t call anyone and your car’s still at the office. I thought you might need a ride somewhere.’
A sudden wariness made her lift fingers to her bloodied lip. Had he come all the way to the hospital to take her home? It was well beyond the call of duty for someone he’d only met in the corridor a few times. She leaned slowly away, the solid body that’d made her feel safe in the car park seemed intimidating now. She wasn’t about to get in a car with him – at night when no one else knew, when she could still feel the pressure of a gloved hand against her mouth.
‘I’m sorry. I know I said I’d take the lift but I was just saying that to get rid of Thomas. I have to wait for a script to be filled. I’ll be fine with a cab.’
‘Yeah, sorry.’ He ran a hand across the dark stubble of his hair. ‘It probably looks a bit strange, me turning up. But I wanted to make sure you got home all right.’ He glanced over at the elevator. ‘I can just keep you company until you’re ready to go, if you like.’ When she didn’t answer, he said, ‘Or I can go, if you’d prefer.’
She wasn’t in a hurry to be left alone and offering to sit and wait didn’t seem so suspicious. ‘No, company is good. Thanks.’
‘You should call someone, Livia. It’s your business if you want to handle this alone but someone should know. A friend or a family member, a neighbour even. Things like this can come back at you when you get home, upset you more than you think. I’m guessing you’re waiting on some strong drugs. You should tell someone who can check on you tomorrow.’
She remembered then – his office was across the hall and one door down from hers and the lettering on the door said something about security. ‘Are you an ex-cop?’
He raised an amused eyebrow. ‘No. Ex-Fire Rescue. We don’t chase bad guys, we just save people. Is there someone you can call before you go home?’
The townhouse wasn’t any kind of home. She wouldn’t take an overdose if she stayed there alone, if that’s what he was worried about, but he’d just reminded her that ‘home’ wasn’t going to make her feel any better. She found her phone in the garbage bag, held the smashed screen up for Daniel to see. It should have bothered her but it seemed the obvious outcome of the night. He handed her his mobile and moved away to give her some privacy.
Liv held back tears as Kelly gasped in shock. She didn’t ask what Liv wanted to do, just told her the sofa would be made up and a cup of tea waiting.
‘Kelly’s husband is coming to get me,’ Liv told Daniel as she handed the phone back.
‘Good.’
When the pharmacist finally called her name, she collected her drugs and hobbled beside Daniel, clutching the gown to her chest as they passed through hushed corridors on the way to the entrance. She stopped inside the large, glass doors, eyed the dark driveway beyond the drop-off zone warily. ‘Let’s wait here.’
Ten minutes later, Jason pulled up out the front. Daniel felt like a bodyguard beside her as she went out to meet him.
‘Jesus, Liv,’ Jason said when he was close enough to see her face. He was wearing an old sweatshirt and a pair of jeans with a split at the knee, as if he’d been in bed and threw on whatever clothes he’d dropped on the floor earlier.
She walked straight into his arms, felt his surprise in the brief, awkward pat before he wrapped her up and held her tight. She’d known him for years – he’d hugged her plenty of times – but she’d never thrown herself at him. Above her head, he and Daniel introduced themselves and shook hands.
‘How is she?’ Jason asked him.
Liv pulled out of his hold. ‘I’m fine, really. Just sore and emotional.’
‘Maybe a little more than that,’ Daniel said. ‘It’s been a rough night.’
‘What happened?’ Jason directed the question at Daniel.
Liv answered. ‘A man attacked me in the car park behind the office. Daniel heard me scream and ran to help.’
‘Shit. Did you catch him?’ he asked Daniel.
Liv frowned at the absurdity of the question. Jason was one of those fine-featured, thin guys who would fade away to skin and bone in older age. He wasn’t more than a pinch taller than her and the last time Liv had needed clothes at their place, she’d worn his jeans. The most aggressive thing she’d ever seen him do was walk quietly from a room in irritation. And his first thought was about chasing down her assailant?
‘I was more concerned about Livia,’ Daniel answered.
There was something in his tone. Liv couldn’t tell if it was a rebuke or defensiveness but Jason must have picked it up, too. ‘Oh, hey, thanks for looking after her.’
Daniel lifted his chin in a single, reverse-style nod.
As Jason put the garbage bag in the boot, Liv eased into the front passenger seat. Daniel ducked his head to her level. ‘I hope you get some sleep.’
She wanted to say something, but didn’t know where to start. She eyed his face, the dark irises, the matching stubble on his head and chin. Handsome wasn’t what she’d call him and possibly it was some kind of survivor reaction but she thought it was a great face. The best face she’d seen in a long time.
