by Sable Hunter
Her heart thundered in Drew’s ears. He knew what she was dealing with and his heart went out to her. His own desire ran deep in his veins, his own heart pounded at the silk of her skin beneath his and he’d had no chemicals to blame for his reaction.
He pulled the stethoscope away from her flesh. “Sounds good.”
Angelina gave him an odd look. “It does?” Briefly, she questioned his medical skills. Her heart had been going a mile a minute and she knew it. She opened her mouth to ask if he was sure, but it dawned on her that he was simply taking the drugs into account when formulating his assessment.
Drew couldn’t avoid the look on her face. He coiled the stethoscope and returned it to its compartment in the bag. “Let’s be honest here, Angelina. The drugs have created a certain…” He searched for the right word. “…condition within your body.”
Even though she knew he was aware of what was going on within her, Angelina was still mortified that she had to sit here and discuss something so private and intimate with this man. “Please…don’t.”
“It’s okay. You mentioned that it was hot in here. The temperature along with the drugs still lingering in your system are a perfect recipe to get your heart racing.” Drew silently wished that it was really him to blame for her heart beating so fast, but he knew the science pointed to her response being artificial.
“I see.”
He continued brusquely. “We probably should see to your dressings. I know you removed some of them for your…shower and I presume you haven’t replaced them.”
Angelina’s hands stilled in the process of rebuttoning her blouse. “I replaced the ones I could reach. I tried not to get the bandages on my lower back wet.” Shutting her eyes, the rude things the guards had said came back to her mind. She wasn’t model thin. Her ribs didn’t show. She wasn’t toned, she was soft. “Can I just undo it and keep it on? I’ll hold it up for you?”
“Of course, that will be fine.” He didn’t hesitate to accommodate her request. She’d been through enough during her time of captivity and even now she was in his home when she didn’t really want to be here.
Drew took a seat on the bed. “If you’d turn around, I’ll check your back first.”
Angelina did as she was told, thankful to be facing the opposite direction.
“The wounds on your back are healing, but one still looks raw.” He applied three strips to cover the sore place. Drew struggled to keep his focus, the curve of her hips and the graceful line of her back was a sweet distraction. The room was deafeningly silent.
“It must’ve been hell for you,” Drew whispered from behind his patient. He knew she needed to talk about it and if he could do this for her, he would be grateful for the opportunity.
Angelina stifled a hitch in her throat. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“You were very brave.” He tended to her other cuts and bruises with care. “Many people would’ve given up, given them what they wanted.” He paused. “I’m so proud of you.”
Drew’s words made her shiver. Although she was grateful she was no longer trapped in the nightmare of her abduction, Angelina still felt like a prisoner in her mind. The drugs would wear off eventually, she kept telling herself that. But the feeling she couldn’t shake was that, somehow, she’d been partly responsible for her abduction. If she hadn’t gone to the bar that night, she never would’ve wound up in the situation to begin with. “I shouldn’t have been there,” she said with a frog in her throat. “I didn’t have any business at that bar. I don’t go to places like that.”
Drew felt his heart break. He wanted to hug her pain away. “I know you don’t believe it right now, Angelina. But that’s nonsense and you know it. Those men were monsters. You didn’t do anything wrong and you didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to you.”
Angelina hadn’t been very forthcoming with details of her ordeal at the hands of her tormentors, but he could discern places where it looked like she’d been beaten with a whip. “Does it hurt?” he asked, pressing on the wound that had bled a bit through the gauze.
A slice of pain as sharp as a razor blade surged out from the injury. “Yessssss,” she hissed out her response through gritted teeth.
“Sorry. A stitch has popped open. I’m going to need you to lie on the bed so I can replace it.” He cleared a spot for her and Angelina eased down. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything to deaden the area with. This may hurt a bit.”
Angelina cringed at the idea, but she was also glad for it, maybe a bit of pain would keep her mind off the throb in her core. “Can you give me anything for the pain?”
Drew hesitated, a bottle of antiseptic in his hand.
“I didn’t mean that pain.” Angelina blushed. If he only knew how much her body ached to be taken care of by him. “Maybe an anti-anxiety or a pain killer?”
Drew poured a splash of antiseptic over the cut. “I’m sorry. I don’t really have that kind of thing with me.” Angelina didn’t ask, but he felt compelled to explain a bit more. “I know, a doctor who doesn’t dole out painkillers, or prescription meds by the jarful is as rare and old-fashioned as a dodo bird. I’ve seen too many people get hooked on that kind of stuff. Seen too many people’s lives go off track,” or off a bridge, “to prescribe them unless absolutely necessary. There are other ways to do things.”
“That’s okay, I’ll make it.” The air got heavy between them and Angelina wanted the weight to go away. She considered asking more, something clearly had happened to make him feel this way, but now wasn’t the time to press. “I feel guilty about the abduction because Aliyah suffered because of me.”
“I know, but you have to look at it this way, if you hadn’t been abducted those other women would’ve been sold into slavery. Your release triggered theirs. Also, because you were abducted and Aliyah was traded for you, we had the opportunity to take down a whole terrorist cell.”
“Oh, I never thought about it that way,” she said quietly.
A few more seconds passed and Drew spoke up, “I was shot by a Taser once,” he said off-handedly while he threaded the needle. Immediately he felt stupid. “I’m sorry. I don’t imagine it was anything like what you experienced when they electrocuted you.”
The memory of the pain surged through Angelina’s brain and she was thankful for the distraction from the other things she was feeling. “It hurt like the dickens.”
Drew couldn’t help but chuckle. “Dickens.” The girl was so proper and reserved. He doubted she’d ever uttered a swear word in her life.
Angelina tried to look over her shoulder at him. “Pardon me?”
He felt like such an ass for laughing while they were discussing her injuries, but Drew just couldn’t help it. “Sorry. You’re just so proper.”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“No, of course not. It’s refreshing in today’s society. I bet you’ve never ever swore in your life. This may sting a bit.” He pulled the needle through her skin.
“Fudge!” Angelina bellowed when the tip of the needle passed through her.
Drew couldn’t help but laugh again. “I apologize again. This is not the right time for me to be behaving like this. I beg your pardon, Dr. Montoya, but you’re just so cute.”
Cute? “I’m more worldly than you realize. I’m not some innocent bookworm you know, Dr. Haley,” she said the words but even she didn’t believe them. Angelina’s nose had been buried in a book as long as she could remember. Rafe was the adventure seeker in the family. She always felt safest with science, with things she could explain.
“Like I said, I respect you for not cursing. I wasn’t trying to put you down. It’s just so rare these days. I applaud you for it.”
She hadn’t known him for a long time, but his respect was one of the things Angelina craved from him and it felt good to know she had it. Her emotions were unpredictable. She would drift from aroused beyond belief, to upset, to enjoying her time and talking with Drew. She didn
’t know if the drug affected her emotions as well as her body, but she was all over the place. For the moment, she felt good, almost normal even though she was lying in a stranger’s house, having injuries tended to that she’d earned at the hands of a madman. “I was raised a certain way. And to be honest, I’ve never felt compelled to curse.”
“Never stubbed your toe and lost it?” He began the next stitch.
“I don’t consider that worth such language.”
“Never been so angry or felt something so bad, or so good, that no word other than fuck would do?” Drew hadn’t meant to, but he was sure she’d picked up on what he meant by ‘so good’.
Angelina had definitely thought the words. She’d spent hours in bed at night, twisting in the sheets with desire, wishing a man would come along and make her scream like a banshee. The tingle started to spread out across her skin again. If any man could make her curse like a pirate, it was Drew Haley.
Angelina shook her head in frustration.
He halted his hand just as the needle tip was about to plunge into her skin again. “Did I hurt you? Do you need a break?”
“No. I’m fine. Just frustrated.”
Drew grunted an acknowledgement. He hated to do it, if he could have engaged her a bit more clearly, he would have, but he was focused on making sure the stitches were done perfectly, skin as smooth and gorgeous as Angelina’s deserved his full attention.
“I got used to the electrocutions. I know, funny huh? Getting used to something like that. It hurt like the…the dickens. But with the electricity, at least I knew they weren’t going to kill me. Or at least, I was fairly confident they weren’t. It seemed more like their sick way of getting off. As if they were sadists.” To her surprise, Angelina wasn’t crying, she actually felt like a weight was being taken off her chest. She turned her head and lowered her cheek onto the soft blanket.
“The waterboarding though…”
Behind her, Drew was finishing up his last stitch. The mention of waterboarding grabbed his attention and he tied the end with care while focusing on her every word.
“Now that was a different scenario.” Angelina closed her eyes and she could almost feel it. “The water. The darkness. Drowning is such a scary sensation to experience.” Her eyes began to tear up.
Drew placed a hand on her back for comfort. He was a man, a big man, and even he didn’t know how he’d handle waterboarding. “You’re safe now.”
Wiping a tear from her cheek, Angelina continued. “Even if they didn’t plan to kill me, it would’ve been so easy for me to die. They wouldn’t have cared. I remember this one man, the others referred to him as Moshe. He would always tell me that he didn’t care if I lived or died. ‘There are more fat American women where you came from,’ he’d say to the other guards and they’d laugh and laugh and laugh.” Now the tears were coming fast and hard. “But as hard as those things were…nothing was as bad as the drugs.”
“Angelina, you don’t have to say anymore.” He’d pushed too hard too fast.
Angelina responded with a nod. He didn’t want to hear anymore. She couldn’t blame him. “If you’d help me move the IV pole into place, I think I can get myself arranged for the night.”
“Absolutely.” Drew rose from his knees and came to her aid. It was hard to watch her try to manage alone, but he could tell by the way she spoke that she’d welcome no interference. When she was through, he helped her up into a sitting position and Angelina buttoned her shirt back up.
“You’re going to be okay. You know that, don’t you?”
It was as if his words set off a reaction. She visibly wilted in front of him.
“Don’t, baby.” Going to sit on the bed next to her, Drew gathered the weeping woman into his arms. “You’re safe now. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Angelina.” She cried into his chest, leaving dark blots on his shirt. “I’m here for you now and I promise, I’m going to get you through this.”
Angelina wanted to believe him, she wanted it more than anything.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Angelina rolled over and opened her eyes. The room was dim, only a small amount of light filtered in through the half-open door. She sat bolt upright on the bed. “Where am I?” For a moment, she didn’t know. Then, slowly things started to come back to her. “Drew’s house,” she breathed the words out with relief.
For the last few days, she’d kept to the room Drew had welcomed her to use. He and Hattie both came to check on her, but all she really wanted to do was sleep. Her emotional state was fragile and the chronic exhaustion she’d been feeling had caught up with her. It was understandable, she’d been through hell and back. Being at Aliyah’s compound had made her feel safer, but the place still had a bunker feel to it that never fully calmed her nerves. But here, even in a near-stranger’s home, she felt secure for the first time since the kidnapping. She was back in America, on friendly soil, and soon she’d be just another normal person going about her normal day.
Glancing out the window, she could see it wasn’t quite nightfall. She’d been asleep several hours, but her stomach was growling. She needed to find something to eat. Unhooking the IV, she put the empty bag in the garbage. Hopefully, Hattie had left something in the fridge she could raid.
…Sitting in his favorite chair in the room at the bottom of the stairs, Drew snapped a book shut. “I was wondering if you were ever going to come down. If you hadn’t shown yourself tonight, I was coming up after you.” Standing from the couch, he tossed his book down on the coffee table. “Good.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s eat.”
“You didn’t mark your page.”
“Pardon me?”
“Your book.”
Drew followed her gaze, as she pointed at the coffee table to the book lying flat on top of a stack of People magazines. Hattie loved her gossip rags.
“You didn’t mark your page before closing it. I know I hate when I forget. Takes me forever to find the page I was on.”
Drew offered her his arm. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m not gonna read that book after all.”
“But it looked like you were right near the end.”
“Watch your step.” He guided her around a protruding buffet. “I was at the end.”
Angelina halted their progress in the middle of the tight hallway. “I’m confused.”
“I read the end first.”
“You read the end first?”
“Sure do.” They were off again, walking arm and arm. “I read the end first. If it doesn’t have a happy or satisfying ending, I don’t bother reading the book. That particular book, The Fault In Our Stars seems like it’s missing at least twenty pages. It actually ends in the middle of a sentence.”
“I suppose you fast-forward to the end of movies also.” Angelina leaned her head back and had a good laugh at her own joke. “Oh, my goodness. You do!”
“Don’t laugh at me. I have my reasons.” They’d arrived in the kitchen and Drew led his charge to the big antique table and pulled out a Duncan Phyfe chair for her. “You have a seat. Hattie made a special dinner, just for you.”
Angelina glanced around the table, it appeared to be set for a special occasion. “Are we having a late Thanksgiving meal or something?”
Drew pulled an oven mitt from a cabinet drawer. “Maybe. You’ll see in a few minutes. Drink?”
“Water is fine, please.”
Drew gathered wine glasses from the table. “Life’s too short don’t you think? To not have a happy ending, I mean. That’s why I read the back of the book first. I have a pretty busy schedule and I’ve read too many books that were either bad or just had an unsatisfying ending. I don’t waste time on them anymore. Life is precious. We come into it and are gone before we know it, so I try to live every day to the fullest.” He placed large glasses of water on the table at the two place settings.
“Life itself doesn’t always have a happy ending. In fact, we all die in the end. So, how do you reconcile that?”
Angelina’s stark outlook took Drew by surprise. “Life is different, it’s not the ending that count’s so much as how we live it.”
“I guess that explains why we’re having Thanksgiving this time of year.” Angelina kept up the conversation, she was learning silence invited too much opportunity to dwell on her own problems.
“Absolutely, you’re here and you’re safe. That’s reason enough to celebrate.” Drew took the seat across from her. He sipped from his glass and Angelina did as well, mirroring his behavior. “I take it you’ve been sleeping well. I know the room is a bit small, but the bed is comfortable. I sleep in there sometimes myself. My bed can feel too big at times. Too…empty.”
There was something on his face that she couldn’t define, his eyes were hooded, she could almost feel the heat of his gaze. Angelina reached for her drink again, needing any excuse to look away. If he looked at her like that for even a second longer, she might vault herself right out of her chair and onto his lap. “Yes, the bed and the room are very comfortable, thank you.”
A timer sounded and Drew got up and out of his seat. When he opened the oven, Angelina was assailed by the most delicious smells she’d ever inhaled in her life. Seeing the look on her face, he smirked. “Hattie felt so bad about hurting you the other day, she prepared a surprise to make up for it.”
“How unnecessary!” Angelina chimed in, she didn’t want to be a burden. “She didn’t hurt me. Really. Isn’t she going to join us?”
“She had plans.” He left out the part about him giving her a gentle push out the door.
“Close your eyes.” Drew insisted as he stood at the open oven door. When she did, he scooped two hot plates out and carried them to the table. “You can open them now.”
A heaping plate of food steamed in front of Angelina’s eyes. “What in the world?” Three thick slices of turkey sat tucked tight against a heaping pile of mashed potatoes. A cob of corn teetered close to the edge of the plate, only being held in place by a stack of some sort of root vegetable. “This looks incredible.” She looked up at Drew with big eyes.
