My throat still hurt from them removing the ventilation tube that the nurse had said kept me alive until my lungs cleared enough for me to take in air without help. I was glad I only had the vaguest memory of feeling my chest inflate and deflate as the machine clicked and whooshed from somewhere beside me. Without its mechanical measured cadence, I could finally hear the other machines that I was connected to: the soft bleep of the heart monitor, the ticks and scrapes of another that spat out paper with jagged lines although I didn’t know what it was recording.
My eyes flipped up to the IV I was tethered to, seeing the steady drip of fluid as it fell into the tube that had been inserted into my arm.
From my vantage point, that appendage didn’t look like mine. Not with all the scrapes and bruises. Not without my rings and Cartier watch. With effort, I raised my head and let my eyes roam down over the bedclothes. There wasn’t much to see, being covered as I was. But I as I shifted, I could feel even further bruises and bandages that covered a myriad of cuts. Was it my imagination or did I appear thinner somehow? Which was weird because my body felt heavy and ponderous.
There was another voice, deeper and rumbly, coming from out in the hall, but I couldn’t make out the words. By the way it rose at the end, I could tell a question had been asked.
“No, the latest tests shows her lungs are healing and the pneumonia is under control. But her dislocated ankle…”
I dropped my head to the pillow and blinked up at the ceiling. The words had brought a hazy memory of me running in terror, sliding over rocks until my foot had been caught between them. When I’d used both hands to try and free it, I remembered the sound my ankle had made and the flare of pain so sharp and deep, I’d almost passed out. I felt the sharp tingle of sweat as it gathered at my hairline, armpits and groin—an almost instinctive reaction to the fuzzy mental image and the echoes of my abject fear.
My stomach roiled at the memory and I knew I was going to throw up again. Twisting, I pulled myself up onto an elbow and tried to point my chin over the side of the bed. But even though I coughed and gagged, nothing came up. Probably because there wasn’t anything to come up.
The flurry of squeaks and thuds let me know that whoever had been in the hall was now inside the room but I didn’t turn my head. From where I was propped I could see the bag of urine hanging from one of the lower bedside hooks.
“She still has bouts of severe nausea and vomiting and until we get that under control, we can’t release her.” I recognized the voice as Dr. Flynn, one of the nicer doctors I’d had fluttering around me since the ventilator had been removed.
“What if we used one of them medical flight things to get her back to Missoula?” The question had been asked by a voice that sounded as deep as the growl of motorcycle pipes. A voice I knew and had memorized in a very short span of time almost a year ago, if I believed the date the nurse had given me when I’d first awakened was true.
“I don’t see a problem with that, but it’s costly,” Dr. Flynn answered as he moved around the corner of my bed. “Miss Kettering? How are you feeling?”
At his voice and the use of the name the hospital staff had been calling me, my mind released the image of trying to give out the only emergency information it had in memory.
Silo.
Silo had come.
The knowledge that he was there, finally there to save me from all the bad I’d been through, made me dizzy and I lost my grip on the side rail flopping back down onto the mattress. I felt hands, gentle and strong, turning me over onto my back even as they scooted me higher on the mattress. My eyes were whipping around the room, frantically searching for a glimpse of him.
“Si?” My voice was only a whispery croak comprised of more breath than sound.
“Right here, Shell.” And as his face came into view directly above me while the doctor stepped back, I felt the tears start. Felt the first couple of trickles roll down my cheeks before the dam behind my eyes opened fully, obscuring my view of his beautiful face.
At that moment, I didn’t care if he was just a biker and that he had been my one and only walk on the wild side. Nor did I care that he wasn’t a part of the social strata I inhabited. Or had until my dad’s actions had destroyed even that, making me a pariah in our social circles.
No.
Silo, my one and only one-night stand from ten months before, gathered me close into his chest and held me, wires, tubes and all. And continued to hold me tight against his chest until the familiar blackness claimed me once again.
*.*.*.*.*
He’d had to school his features when he’d first seen her even though it was from behind. But even from the back, he’d been shocked by her appearance.
Although the doctor had tried to warn him. Had given Silo the 4-1-1 on what they’d found out about her through visual exams and all the different tests they’d performed—which was all they could do since Shelly refused to talk about what had put her there in the first place. The last he’d heard from Lulu, Shelly had been doing good in Albuquerque. Getting on with her life and all that.
Common sense and his own fucking eyes told Silo that it had been an out and out lie.
At the sight of her hunched over the far side of the bed with the gown gaping from shoulder-blades to ass-crack, he was shocked at how she appeared. With all the visual bruises and welts, it almost looked as if she’d been beaten and then rolled down a thorny fucking hill or some such.
But it was when he’d turned her onto her back, seeing the cuts, scratches and bruises on her face, the cracked lips and her dull, dark circled eyes that he’d began to lose his control. Fury had roared through him as fast as a flash fire but died out just as quickly when he’d seen her tears. The doctor had said that she wouldn’t talk and hadn’t shown any curiosity, concern or emotion for her current circumstances.
She sure as shit was showing it now, he thought as he did the only thing he knew to do in that moment. Which was to hold her and let her lose her shit in peace. To grip her tight with one shaking hand as his other roamed lightly over the damaged skin of her back.
Fuck! Even her hair, whose color and shiny curls had first captured his attention, was now a dull, nappy ball of fuzz. What the fuck had happened to get her to that state?
Shelly’s crying didn’t really last all that long but Silo’s t-shirt was thoroughly soaked by the time he eased her limp body back against the pillows.
“Her body is depleted,” Dr. Flynn advised kindly. “She won’t have any kind of stamina for a while, even for extreme emotions.”
“You mean her crying made her pass out?” Silo had never heard of such a thing.
“Not a faint, I don’t think. She appears to be sleeping.” The doctor lifted Shelly’s eyelids and whisked a small flashlight over them. “Yes, just sleeping. We’ve been keeping her sedated to allow her lungs and ribs to heal.”
Silo shifted his position, not realizing or caring he’d gone into his take-charge pose of arms crossed on chest and feet planted wide. “Want that med-flight thing arranged as soon as fucking possible. I’ll be traveling with her.”
“Like I advised earlier, it will be costly,” the doctor murmured, eyes wide behind his glasses. “And we aren’t allowed to release her until we have some assurance that her medical bills will be paid.”
Silo reached into his back pocket for his wallet. The chain that ran from the worn leather and secured it to his jeans clinked at his movement. “Use this card to pay the goddamn bill and this one for the plane.”
“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Kettering,” the doctor stuttered, but reached for the small rectangles of plastic anyway. “Both bills will run in the thousands…”
“Don’t give a fuck. Have limits on both in the thousands.” He turned to the smaller man, not aware of the deep scowl his face held at the doctor’s disbelief that Silo could afford to take care of his girl. “You gonna stand there with your goddamn mouth open or are you gonna get to it?”
The doct
or nodded, his eyes on the small plastic rectangles in his hands.
“I’ll want a fucking copy of the bill before I sign the receipt in order to review the goddamn charges,” Silo barked. He was no longer using his ‘indoor voice’ and saw the doc jump at both his volume and probably his tone. “Since this is an AS-fucking-AP sitch, need you to make that happen. Standing here with your mouth open is not the way to do it.”
“Sitch?” Dr. Flynn questioned with a frown.
“Situation,” Silo explained turning back to the broken girl on the bed. Neither he nor the doctor moved or spoke for a few moments. Not until Silo glanced at him over his shoulder. “What part of haul ass didn’t you get?”
“As soon as the paperwork in printed, I’ll have a nurse bring it to you in the visitor’s lounge as I arrange for the flight back to Mississippi.”
“Missoula! I’m taking her to Missoula, Montana!” Silo’s bellowed correction was very loud in the small room and he saw Shelly’s legs jerk in response, assuring him the doctor’s verdict regarding sleeping versus fainting was right on the money. Maybe I can trust the dick-wad after all, he thought, turning back to his girl. “And I ain’t gonna be in no visitor’s lounge. Have them bring me the fucking bill right here.”
Silo snagged the back of the only visitor’s chair and dragged it close to her bed before seating himself, his back to the door and the doctor who still stood in place.
“Ah. Certainly, Mr. Kettering.” Silo heard the squeak of the other man’s shoes on the shiny linoleum as the doctor finally left the room. Once he was alone with Shelly, Silo picked up her hand, only idly noticing her rough ring-less fingers and broken, dirty and chipped nails.
What the fuck happened to you, princess? He wondered as he brought his other hand up to brush her matted hair away from her face. His eyes began a slow roam as he again took in her appearance. The fresh, dewy skin he’d so admired months before was now chapped and almost scaly. Silo pushed up off the chair and pulled the covers from the end of the bed. Just as the doctor had said, her right ankle was swollen to almost three times the size of the other. Dislocated was the term the medico had used. Didn’t that mean the joint had disconnected? But how?
His gaze moved over the bottom of her feet which were heavily bandaged and led him to think of her running barefoot through god knew what in order to get away. But get away from what or who? And at the mental image of her running, being so scared and hurting so badly but still determined to get herself clear of whatever she was caught up in, both saddened him and infuriated him all at the same time.
The woman in the bed wasn’t Shelly, at least not the Shelly he’d had the pleasure to be with. No, the girl he’d bedded, who had returned his kisses and caresses with such fervor, had been warm and vibrant, snarky and feisty, more beautiful than a Montana dawn with her gilded curls and snapping blue eyes.
As he eased his large form into the much smaller chair that seem to groan in protest, Silo experienced an unexpected wave of tiredness. It had taken more than twenty four hours to get to her and the flights he’d managed to snag took him further away before the last connecting one brought him to Albuquerque on such short notice.
To her.
Only to a ‘her’ he’d never expected to see.
Closing his eyes, he slid down in the chair in order to rest his head on the tall back. The memory of Shelly from before came immediately to mind, of her as she’d looked when he’d first met her across her sister’s hospital bed so many months ago. Back then, she’d been gorgeous, gregarious and full of attitude which had quickly captured his attention. While he’d never been one to seek out civilian women, there’d just been fucking something about Shelly that’d made him want to get in there. All the way in there. And it hadn’t taken much detective work to figure out the hotel she’d been staying in.
A classy girl would choose the classiest hotel in town.
So he’d made a point of waiting in the bar, somehow knowing that she’d need alcohol before going to her room after seeing Lulu. And he’d not been disappointed when she’d bustled in and ordered a double shot of Crown. That first drink had swiftly led to a second, and it was during her next round that she’d slowed down a bit and noticed him.
The noticing had led to a conversation that had turned into flirting. And even though his desire for the woman had ridden him hard throughout their time in the bar, he’d kept it simple and light. She’d been the first to bring it up.
‘Come upstairs with me, Silo,’ she’d breathed when there’d been a lull in their conversation. ‘I’ll get Joe here to sell us a bottle and we can go to my room.’
‘Yeah? And what’re we gonna do up in your place, beautiful?’ He remembered that his question had brought pink to her cheeks but had made her iced-blue eyes sparkle.
Jutting out her chin but unable to look at him, she’d replied, “whatever we want to, big guy.”
That was all it had taken for them to high-tail it upstairs and let go of the social nice-nice to get down to doing what seemed to come naturally to the two of them.
And they’d never even gotten round to getting a bottle from bartender Joe.
“Mr. Kettering? Dr. Flynn asked me to bring this to you,” a voice called from the doorway and Silo was thankful for the interruption. Comparing the Shelly of ‘then’ to the poor woman in the hospital bed was too much for him to handle especially in his exhausted state.
“Thanks,” he rumbled, reaching for the half-inch pile of paper that comprised Shelly’s hospital bill.
The nurse checked Shelly’s machines and IV line while Silo sat back in the chair and began to go through the items listed on just the first page. Fuck! It was going to take him forever to go through every damn thing itemized on the sheets. But it had to be done since he knew mistakes could be made with double entries or keying in a wrong code so that ‘tissues’ could be turned into ‘codeine’ without anyone the wiser.
“We tried to clean her up more,” the nurse whispered apropos of nothing and Silo saw the older woman was standing next to the bed, gazing at Shelly. “But the dirt was almost embedded into her skin. She let us wash her hair but wouldn’t let us use a brush or a comb on it. The chart shows that she’s missing clumps of hair in the back. Dr. Flynn thought someone might have dragged her by it at some point, yanking it out from the roots.”
Silo found himself swallowing deep and hard even as his fists clenched, crinkling the papers still in his hands.
“We all think she’d been out in that canyon for a couple of days, Mr. Kettering,” she continued, her eyes moving to him. “But she won’t tell us how she got to be there or why.”
He could only nod as he looked back at the woman who was once his girl for the briefest of times. His next words, the only words he could force out of his throat at that moment came directly from his Hellion heart as a vow.
“I’m here now and will make sure I get to the fucking bottom of it.”
He raised his gaze back to the nurse.
“And I’ll make motherfucking sure she gets back to good.”
Chapter Three
It seemed to take forever to get Shelly admitted to the hospital in Missoula. He’d had to fill out form after fucking form with questions Silo couldn’t even begin to guess the answers to. The kind of questions he and Shelly hadn’t gotten anywhere near to talking about in their shared night together. Although he could’ve fucking answered other ones, those of the physical variety without a thought. Those along the lines of favorite position (missionary), tattoos (a dragonfly on her left ass cheek, done in greens, yellow and blue) and vocalization when hitting it (high keening whine which made his balls ache at just the memory).
Meeting with the doctor assigned to her case hadn’t been any easier. While this one in Missoula was more approachable and seemed less fearful of Silo than the doc in California, he still got on his last nerve. It was the questions, the motherfucking questions that Silo had no answers for that left him stuttering, had him breathing
weird and out of cadence.
“Mr. Kettering? I know this is intrusive and these questions seem to be…off the grid. But they’re important. We need to determine what your sister actually went through in order to treat her.” The guy didn’t seem much older than Silo, more like Bishop’s age in his late-thirties. But Trey had said he was ‘the man’. And Trey, his president and brother in the Hellions would know since Trey’s aunt Stella was now the head nurse at that particular hospital.
Taking a deep breath and second guessing if it was the right thing to do, Silo got truthful with the 4-1-1.
“She ain’t my fucking sister. Her name is Michelle Palmer, but I know her as Shelly,” Silo announced, watching the other man carefully as he made his admission. “I met her through her real sister, Lulu and last I heard, she was doing well.”
The other man, who had been periodically reading from his computer monitor, sat back in his chair. “Damn. The Palmer case? Like the guy on TV who was caught laundering money in New Mexico?”
“One and the same,” Silo affirmed with a nod. “He’s the dad and the fucking whacko who had Shelly’s sister, Lulu, fucking kidnapped after she’d discovered then ran from the doings with the some of the accounts.”
“Yeah, I heard about that.” And Silo knew the guy had seen the same shit on the news as everyone else. It had been a big deal on TV and even a bigger deal in their neck of the woods. But it had been what had brought Shelly to Missoula and onto Silo’s radar.
“You think that’s what caused her to be out on that county road…” the doctor’s voice trailed off as if he had no words for what had happened to the injured woman that had been airlifted to his hospital.
Silo shrugged, which on any other person would’ve appeared casual but on him spoke volumes and carried more emotion than he’d allow his face to show. “Dunno. She wouldn’t talk to the people in Albuquerque and she’s been fucking sedated most of the time I’ve been with her. Aim to fucking get to the root of it, though.”
The doc’s eyes moved back to the computer screen as Silo glanced at the man’s nameplate. Doctor D. Peyton, it read. “Did Dr. Flynn tell you all of it?”
A Civilian for Silo Page 2
