He hooked a stethoscope over his neck and walked to the bed. Nick crossed the room, apparently headed for the chair. Bev caught his eye and shook her head. He stopped.
“Do you want me to leave?”
She nodded. Something dark—pain, maybe, or anger—flashed through his eyes.
Dr. Kerr looked up at Nick and then back down at Bev. “Hmm. I’d like to ask Betty or Angie to sit with us, then. All right?”
With a detached understanding that the doctor didn’t want to be a man alone in a room with a rape victim, she nodded, and Nick left, leaving the door open.
A few minutes later, his mother, Betty, came in. “Hi, honey. I’ll sit right here with you. It’s going to be okay.”
Bev wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t anything.
“You’re not talking, dear. Does your throat hurt that badly?”
She nodded to answer the doctor’s question. Even swallowing required a moment to prepare for the pain. She couldn’t imagine trying to force the jagged serifs of words over her raw throat.
“Okay. Let’s check that first. Then I’ll check your vitals and your wounds. Then I’ll change your dressings and show you and Betty how to do it. I was hoping to time this so your meds were in full effect, but it seems that window is closing. I’ll try my hardest not to cause you more pain, though. I promise.” He smiled kindly and patted her hand.
Bev didn’t much care. Pain was all she had right now. What was a handful of rocks to a mountain?
The doctor checked her throat, her vitals, her wounds. The pain was hard and sharp, but she didn’t care. She lay there and let him to what he had to do. He was gentle, his hands steady and careful.
The worst was removing the dressing from her breast. The gauze stuck a little, pulling at the stitches beneath it, and the pain sent a powerful spike of a fresh memory into her head. Of all the terrible things that had happened, what they’d done with that knife—a pocketknife, with a bone handle—had been the worst thing.
She flinched at the pain in the memory more than the pain the doctor was causing her, but he apologized anyway. “I’m sorry, Bev. I’ll be quick. We’re almost done.”
When he was finished, and she was covered again, Dr. Kerr sat on the bed at her side. “Your throat is definitely strained. It’s good you’re not talking. I’d say give it another two days”—he looked at Betty as if gaining her agreement—“before you try to talk at all, and then two or three days after that before you try for any kind of volume. Even if the pain eases more quickly, don’t push it. Your vitals are good, and your wounds look good—no sign of infection. The swelling on your face is down, and the bruises will start to fade soon.” He put his hand over hers. “Nick told me you haven’t eaten yet. Is that because of your throat?”
Bev didn’t respond; she didn’t have an answer. It was because of her throat. It was because of her pain. It was because she didn’t care.
“You have to eat, dear. And drink. Lots of water. You need to stay hydrated and strong, so you can heal. But you should stick to cool liquids or melting foods like ice cream for a few days. I’ll talk to Angie before I go. I’d say for the next few days, you can have all the ice cream you want. I want you to take your pain meds with your lunch. Doctor’s orders. If the pills hurt to swallow, we’ll grind them up in jam. Agreed?”
She nodded. He packed up his bag and, with another pat of her hand and a promise to be back the next day, he left. Betty cleaned up the old dressings, sent her a kiss through the air and left, too, promising to bring her up a good lunch.
Bev closed her eyes.
~oOo~
When she woke the next morning, Nick was again sleeping in the chair at the side of the bed. She lay and watched him sleep.
He was dressed in jeans and a plain black t-shirt, and Bev realized how rarely he dressed so casually. Most often, he wore beautiful suits. When he was home and done for the day, he wore sweats or track pants. Occasionally, if he had no business for the day, he’d wear jeans, but she could count on one hand and have fingers left the number of times she’d seen him in a t-shirt like the one he wore now. She also realized that she had no idea what he’d worn the day before—maybe the same clothes. Probably.
Even in sleep, he looked intense. In her experience, most people appeared relaxed and peaceful in quiet sleep. But Nick did not, as if he slept at full attention. Even in sleep, he was controlled.
He was beautiful. He was dangerous. He’d come for her, and taken her out of that place, brought her here to this pretty little room where the ocean whispered and roared outside the window. Donnie had told her Nick would come for her, and he had. But those men had already finished and gone.
Donnie. Nick had told her that he and Bruce were alive, in the hospital. He hadn’t said more, and she hadn’t asked. She’d had neither the ability nor the energy to ask. But they were alive, and that was good. When she could feel again, she would feel glad they were alive.
Unable to put it off any longer, Bev eased the covers back and forced herself to sit on the side of the bed. As quietly as she could, she got to her feet and made her way to the little en suite bathroom. It hurt to stand; it hurt to walk. It hurt to do anything. She hadn’t been able to use the bathroom until the afternoon before, and it still wasn’t easy. It hurt more than anything. But now that it remembered how, her body wouldn’t be denied.
When she was finished, she washed her hands in the sink and then stared for a minute into the mirror. The woman who stared back at her was a victim, mowed down by trouble, crushed under its weight. She looked familiar.
Incongruously, the lights at the sides of the mirror caught the diamonds in her necklace and made it sparkle and flash. They hadn’t taken the necklace from her. They hadn’t been there to rob them. Not of things.
Nick had told her she was his sunshine. His light.
No. Not anymore. They’d left her her necklace, but they’d taken her sun.
When she opened the door, he was standing just outside. Startled, she jumped, and then winced as the pains throughout her body were agitated by the clench of muscle.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’ll help you back to bed.”
He took her hand, but she pulled it away. He took it back and held on. “No. I won’t push you to be close, but I won’t let you push me away. I’ll help you back to bed. I’ll get you some breakfast—Aunt Angie was talking last night about some chocolate breakfast drink. You’ll take your pills. And then I’m going to talk to you, and you’re going to listen.”
For a moment, they just stood there, staring into each other’s eyes. Then Nick raised his hand and cupped her cheek. “Let me help you, bella.”
Bella. It meant beautiful. But nothing was beautiful.
He pulled gently, and she let him lead her back to bed and help her back in.
~oOo~
When she was finished with the chocolate shake, Nick took the empty glass from her and set it on the dresser. Then he sat on the side of the bed. He took her hand, and Bev stared as his thumb lightly massaged the feathers tattooed on her wrist.
“You were fifteen when you made the scars here, right?”
Still staring at his thumb on her skin, feeling nothing, she nodded.
“Something happened when I was fifteen, too. I think the meaning of my ink started on that day, just like yours. I only told one person about that day. Brian. I told him because he was my best friend when it happened, and I needed him to help me make sense of it.”
Bev’s eyes shifted to Nick’s face. He was staring at his hand on her wrist. When he began speaking again, his gaze didn’t shift.
“I loved my father. I still love him. He loved his family. He wasn’t perfect, but most of the mistakes he made were normal mistakes. But he was a hothead, and he was a drunk. Until I was fifteen. After that, he and I were both different.”
He paused again, but his hands still caressed her.
“I came home from school one day. I went to a Catholic high school, the kind w
here boys wore uniforms with ties. My parents were fighting. That wasn’t unusual in those days—like I said, he was a hothead and a drunk. He had other women, too. That was something he did all his life, actually—kept a comare. But back in the day, he wasn’t discreet about it, and my mother didn’t like it in her face. So they fought. It was all just yelling. Every now and then, Ma would throw something against a wall. Not at my father. Just…an exclamation point. I was used to it. So I rolled my eyes and went into the kitchen, looking for something to eat.
“I was eating a peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwich. I remember that because when I heard the crash, it was timed perfectly with a blob of jam falling onto my pants, and I laughed. And then the sounds coming from their bedroom were different. No more yelling. Thumping. And this strange sound I couldn’t place—like a jingle. I put my sandwich down and went upstairs. They were on the floor. My father was straddling my mother, beating her with the white phone that sat on her bedside table—do you remember those old ‘princess’ phones? It was red. With her blood. She was unconscious.”
He stopped and lifted his eyes to hers. She got the sense that he was searching inside her, trying to see how she was dealing with the story, if he was pushing too hard. He wasn’t. She felt nothing more than mild curiosity.
“I ran and pulled him off, and then he went for me. He grabbed my tie and choked me. He wouldn’t let up. I think he would have killed me. He would have killed us both. But I was bigger than him already, and strong for my age. I fought him off, chased him out of the room. I locked the door. I checked on my mother—she was still breathing. Then I checked to see if the phone still worked. It did. On a phone coated in my mother’s blood, I called my Uncle Ben.
“He came right away and took control of the situation. He took care of my mother, got her to the hospital. He sent men out to find my father, who had run off. He told me that something had happened in business that my father was having trouble coping with, but that that was no excuse, that a man didn’t bring his business home to his family. He told me he was proud of me. And then he asked me if I wanted to help my father be a better man. I said yes.”
This time, it was a long time before Nick spoke. He lifted her hand and kissed it, his lips lingering on her skin. It was one of her favorite things that he did, a sweet gesture that spoke of real, unguarded affection for her. She felt a tiny twinge of feeling, and it was that affection, reflected.
“Two days later, my father was strung up on a hook in a warehouse. My uncle cleared the room, and then he told me to teach my father his lesson. I did. With what he did to my mother in my mind’s eye, I used everything I had in me to teach him. My father was the first man I ever hurt for my uncle. From that day, I never saw my father lose his cool. I saw him struggle, but never lose. I never again heard him raise his voice to my mother, or to me. On that day, I began to be the man I am now.”
He stopped rubbing her tattoo and moved a hand over her hair, brushing it lightly back from her sore face. “I tell you that awful story when you have one so much worse because I trust you with it. That story comes from the deepest part of me. You and my uncle are the only people alive who know that it was me who taught my father that lesson. And I tell you because I am going to teach the men who hurt you, and the man who paid them to do it, their lesson. If I could do what I did to my own father, you know that the men who hurt you will pay dearly. And then the danger will be over. I promise you. No one will hurt you to get to me ever again. You’ll be safe. I’ll make you safe.”
Bev was losing her emotional numbness, and it terrified her. What had happened was too new, not even two days past. And now she had this story about Nick, which was twisted with pain and fear and love. She needed to be numb because she couldn’t contend with emotion while the pain in her body and her mind was so acute.
But Nick wasn’t finished. “I tell you for one other reason. I love you, bella. My life has been dark since I was fifteen. But you’re my light, my sun. I will do everything in my power to help you shine again. Anything you need, anything you want. If it’s in my power to make it so, it will be so. I love you. Ti amo. Sei il mio sole.”
Her emotions were rioting now, overrunning all her barriers, filling her head and heart with shards of broken glass. It was too much. She shook her head, irrationally trying to shake them away. She shook until she was dizzy, but they came on anyway. She was terrified and horrified. She was repulsed. She was sad and broken.
She loved him. She loved him so much. And somewhere in the deep of the morass in her mind, she wanted to comfort him.
“Nick, I can’t—” A shrieking pain was her reminder that she couldn’t speak. But she had to tell him. “I’m not—I don’t—”
He put his fingertips softly over her lips. “Don’t hurt yourself. I won’t push you. I’ll give you what you need. But if you believe me when I tell you how I feel, then don’t push me away. I will make this better. I promise. And you—you’re strong, Beverly. You stand up to me—nobody stands up to me. Even when you’re afraid, you fight for yourself. You’ll remember your feathers. You’ll find your light. I’ll help you. I’m here.”
Bev lost the last layer of numbness, and she dissolved into tears. Not even the pain her wracking sobs caused could stem them. Then Nick eased himself to her side on the bed and carefully pulled her close. She let him, and she cried into his t-shirt, his strong arms shielding her.
~ 15 ~
Sam let Chief Lumley into Ben’s house. Nick stood in the main hallway, waiting. He held out his hand. “Irv.”
The chief shook. “Nick. Sorry about this.”
“Just tell me what’s up.” Nick had neither the time nor the patience for bullshit today.
“I’ve got Chris Mills in my cruiser. He owns the bookshop?”
“I know who he is.” And he knew why he was in the cruiser. Why that cruiser was in his uncle’s driveway was the question.
“Right. And I’m sure you know what went on a while ago.”
Nick did. Mills had been at the condo, looking for Beverly and making a scene. The man Nick had watching the building had roughed him up some, and some old biddy resident had called the cops. Nick’s man had called him after Lumley had taken Mills off.
“I do. Why is he here?”
“He’s screaming that he wants to file a report against you for all manner of crap. Now, I can get in the way of that, but with the light that was on you with the bombing, I figure you don’t want him spouting his bullshit. I don’t want that, either.”
Jesus, the guy was stupid. What did he think he’d accomplish? But the last time Mills had made a scene, it had been clear to Nick that thinking was not his strong suit, at least not where Beverly was concerned. And the chief was right—they’d gotten the Feds off them, and cooled the media, fairly quickly after the bombing at Neon, but if they drew attention again, they’d be putting friends in difficult positions, and friends in difficult positions didn’t stay friendly long. “No, I don’t. But why aren’t you handling that? You know your solution has got to be gentler than mine.”
“He insists that if he doesn’t see Bev, he’s going to put some website reporter on you. I thought maybe you’d want to handle him—but Nick, with respect, this does need a gentle solution.”
He’d be the judge of that. But the guy was a Cove business owner. Disappearing him would leave a ripple. “Bring him in. Is he cuffed?”
“Yeah.”
“Uncuff him.”
The chief nodded and went out. A minute or so later, Chris Mills came through the front door, the chief right behind him.
Mills walked straight up to Nick and crossed his arms over his chest. His face showed no marks from his altercation with Nick’s man, so he assumed the point had wisely been made with body blows. “I should have known you’d have the fucking police chief in your pocket.”
Nick smiled. “Hey, Irv—my aunt and my mother are out back in the yard. Why don’t you go pay your respects.”
Chie
f Lumley hesitated, looking back and forth between Nick and Mills, and then he nodded and walked down the hall toward the back of the house.
“What are you going to do? Rough me up some more? Shoot me in the back of the head and drop my body in the ocean?”
“Both good ideas. But for now, I’m going to ask you what you want.”
“I want to see Bev. I want to make sure she’s safe, and I want to get her away from you.”
“No.”
Mills sneered. “Is she your prisoner again?”
“You’re not a smart man, Mills. If your brain worked at even half speed, you’d know that nothing good for you can come from challenging me. Making threats against me and my family—these are poor life choices you’re making.”
Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) Page 20
