He was her hero.
“Miss Myers? We’ve had a cancellation. Are you ready to come through now?” A nurse approached her with a beautiful smile.
April frowned. “A cancellation?”
The woman moved in a little closer. “Someone who was supposed to be seeing triage had to go straight through as an emergency,” she explained quietly.
“Oh, right. Yes, of course.” April shot to her feet and followed the nurse down the corridor to a little cubicle.
“My name’s Susie. It’s your leg, I understand?” The nurse studied her notes.
“Yes, but actually my head hurts as well,” April admitted.
“Mmhmm. You were attacked, I hear?” Susie spoke in a soft voice.
“Yes, but he didn’t, I mean, I wasn’t…he tried to, but…”
“It’s all right, dear.” The nurse put a warm arm around her when she burst into tears as the dreadful memories came flooding back.
“We might need to get that leg X-rayed if the doctor thinks it needs it. Is there any chance you could be pregnant?” Susie almost whispered.
April shook her head. “He didn’t… You know…”
“Well, that’s good.” Susie patted her arm as she lay on the bed. “And there’s no chance that before that…?”
April stared up at her. “No, I’m on the pill.”
“And you’re all up to date?”
April frowned. She always took her pill at 6:15pm. It was just before she left for the bus if she was on the late shift, or just before her dinner if she wasn’t working. She even carried a spare in her purse just in case she wasn’t at home when it was time. There was absolutely no way she’d ever forget—
She gasped. With everything that’d happened last night…
“Oh no. I forgot it last night.” With all the fuss she had made about Master Steve forgetting the condom, now it had been her turn to forget.
Susie chuckled. “Don’t worry. We’ll put you down for a scan instead, just to be on the safe side. Does it hurt anywhere else?”
“My head. He kept slamming it against the door and he pulled my hair real tight,” April replied.
“We’ll get that checked out too,” Susie promised her as the curtain was suddenly pulled back and the doctor came in.
April felt even worse when they had finished prodding and poking her and was pleased to finally be sent down for her scan. It was quite scary in the small, darkened room, and confined spaces had never been her favorite thing, but the lady at the computer seemed quite competent and it didn’t take long to get both her leg and head seen to.
“Hmm, you’ve wrenched your leg, but it doesn’t look like anything major,” the doctor told her as he examined the results a short while later. “And you’ll have a lovely bruise on the back of your head for a while, but at least your hair disguises it.” He smiled at her and she sighed with relief.
“Thank you,” she told him and the nurse, relieved it was all over.
“Er, Miss Myers, before you go there’s just one more thing that’s been troubling us,” the doctor went on.
Her heart was in her mouth. She had noticed the doctor and Susie whispering earlier, but assumed it was something to do with her notes.
“What is it?” Her throat went dry.
“We noticed some slightly older bruising on your face. Is there anything you need to report?” His voice was gentler as he asked her, and she felt herself blush. She had completely forgotten about the black eye and the marks on her cheeks, and hadn’t bothered with any make-up this morning.
“Oh, yes. He’d hit me a couple of days ago too. The cops know all about it,” she assured them.
“You’re sure?” the doctor still looked concerned.
“Yes, sir. Sergeant Ratner has all the details.” She nodded.
“All right. Just report to the desk on your way out.” He smiled as she quickly got up.
She was given a prescription for some painkillers and pointed in the direction of the pharmacy. Finding it was pretty straightforward, although she chose the stairs in favor of the elevator. Although only mild, her claustrophobia had had quite enough to contend with for one day already.
After picking up her medication, she tried to retrace her steps but ended up nearer to the wards than the outpatients department. She contemplated asking a passing doctor for directions, but he seemed far too busy to stop and help her. She carried on walking and was surprised when she heard raised voices from one of the rooms.
Following the sound, she opened the door, her heart pumping fast.
“You won’t get away with it, bitch! My brother did nothing to you and you know it! He told us all about your kinky little habits. Once the cops find out about you they’ll drop the charges and you’ll be the one behind bars!” A girl in a red coat had her back to the door as she threatened the patient.
April gasped as she watched the girl reach up to a bag connected to a drip. The woman in the bed was wired up to all manner of monitors and had several bags hanging from her drip stand.
A high-pitched squeal resonated from one of the machines as the girl in the coat angrily yanked one of the plugs from the wall. A flat line ran the length of one of the monitors.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Get off her!” April’s voice was much louder than she expected as anger and horror swept through her in equal measures.
The girl turned around sharply. “Mind your own fucking business!” she yelled at her. She wasn’t small, and towered over April’s tiny frame.
April saw red. She had had her full quota of bullies for one week already and wasn’t about to put up with it any longer. As the girl dismissed her and reached back up for the bag, April grabbed her arm and twisted it around her back. This time she didn’t hold back.
“Press your call button,” April shouted to the lady in the bed.
“She took it,” the woman replied weakly. She looked like she was about to cry as her pale face stared up at them both.
“Bitch!” April pushed the girl in the coat against the wall, keeping her arm twisted tightly behind her the whole time. She hitched up her knee and dug it into the small of the girl’s back, pinning her in place.
“You won’t get away with this!” the girl hissed. “Why don’t you just butt out?”
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but you’ve got no right to interfere with a patient’s meds.” April’s tone was fierce as she gritted her teeth, and the girl tried to struggle free.
“She’s falsely accused my brother of raping her!” the girl growled. “But she asked for it, literally!”
April felt her blood boil as she realized who these women were. Memories of Mark Trammell’s insistence that she ask him into her bedroom and then to undress her flashed into her mind. Bile rose in her throat.
“You’re Mary-Lou Trammell!” It wasn’t a question, more of an accusation.
She saw the girl’s body twitch and she knew she was right. Mary-Lou tried to face her, but April held her firm.
“Who the hell are you?” the girl snarled.
“I’m the girl your dear brother tried to claim as his next victim.” April spat out venom along with her words. Her leg was already tiring and she placed her foot back on the floor.
Mary-Lou gasped. “You’re April Myers?”
“So you knew what he was planning to do?” April was stunned for a second. He’d planned it and his sister knew all about it!
“Too right, you bitch! You deserved it too. You’ve been fucking with my fiancé. Well, Greg wants nothing to do with you, d’ya hear? He just feels sorry for you, that’s all. You leave him alone.” Mary-Lou shrieked like a banshee.
April pushed her arm a little farther up the girl’s back and watched her flinch. “Correction, bitch, I want nothing to do with that two-timing fucker. If you can’t hold onto him now what the hell do you think you’re doing starting a family with him?” All April’s sympathy for the girl had vanished now that she’d seen exact
ly what she was like. She still felt a little sorry for the baby though; the poor little thing hadn’t asked to be conceived, after all.
“What do you know about it? I am holding onto him. As long as he thinks I’m pregnant, that boy ain’t going nowhere! Not even with you, slut!”
April tightened her grip a little more and Mary-Lou howled in agony.
“What do you mean, thinks you’re pregnant?”
“Well, even you must know he’s not the sharpest tool in the box. He’s completely convinced I’m carrying his baby and that’s good enough to hold him right where I want him—despite what you might be trying.”
April seethed. “He’s got proof. He saw your test.”
Mary-Lou snorted. “He didn’t see me take a test. He saw the results of my cousin’s test, that’s all. It was enough to convince him for a while. Once we’re married I’ll either get pregnant or stage a miscarriage. Either way, he won’t leave me.” She sneered and kicked out at April, who quickly jerked out of the way.
“You lying little cow!” April felt like she had been left off her leash. Now knowing that she wasn’t dealing with a pregnant woman gave her a ticket to freedom, which she grabbed with both hands. She swung the girl around and, as Mary-Lou’s fist came up to hit her in the face, April grabbed it, twisted her arm, and tossed the larger girl down to the floor.
Mary-Lou shrieked, probably in surprise more than pain, as her large frame slapped unceremoniously onto the cold tiled floor. She lay on her back staring up in horror at her assailant. April put a foot on the girl’s abdomen, trapping her in place just as someone shouted from the doorway.
“That’s enough, darlin’.” Master Steve stood there with two colleagues. He had a shit-eating grin on his face.
April stared at the three men, shocked.
“I think we’ve got enough evidence. I’ll take her now.” A uniformed officer came toward her and April slowly lifted her foot from the scowling woman.
“You won’t get away with this!” Mary-Lou hollered at her as she was helped to her feet by the officer.
“No, Miss Trammell. You won’t get away with this,” he corrected her, pulling her arms around her back.
“I think she broke my arm!” Mary-Lou howled as the cuffs were clamped onto her wrists.
Master Steve was beside his girl in an instant. “I doubt that very much. Now an inch or two higher maybe…”
“You saw?” April stared at him as he put an arm around her.
“And heard every word,” the officer informed her with a grin. “We’ve got everything we need to put her away along with that dipshit brother of hers.”
“But…” April stammered.
“You were doing such a good job it seemed a pity to spoil your fun,” Master Steve explained. “And you managed to get more information from her than either of us would have, I’m guessing.”
“So you…?”
“We were just around the corner when we heard the commotion. You were here a split second before us,” Dave explained with a grin. He was at the woman’s bedside, patting her hand reassuringly. The patient looked quite relieved now that the drama was all over. “There was so much hollering going on you couldn’t have heard us come in. We were going to intervene, but someone had other ideas.” He nodded toward Master Steve.
“I was interested to see if you’d totally forgotten everything I taught you.” Master Steve looked a little sheepish.
April felt a flush of pride sweep through her whole system as he smiled at her.
“Looks like it was only a temporary memory lapse, you did great,” he assured her, hugging her tighter.
In that moment April felt that she was ten feet tall. She went hot as she blushed and couldn’t stop the big smile which flooded her face. She had actually impressed Master Steve!
“What in hell’s going on here?” A large nurse suddenly appeared in the doorway, looking totally bemused. “Y’all having a party or something?”
“Not yet,” Master Steve told her with a smile, “But we intend to.”
“Sorry ma’am, I was just removing the rubbish.” The officer took Mary-Lou out of the room with a smirk. His prisoner narrowed her eyes and seethed, but didn’t dare speak as she was taken outside.
“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked the lady in the bed, while resetting the monitor. It had only been monitoring her vitals, not actually supporting them.
She smiled. “Much better now,” she told her, looking over toward April.
“She was also trying to do something with those bottles up there,” April explained with a frown.
The nurse checked the drip-stand. “Was she now? There’s painkillers and fluids in these. Good job she didn’t manage to detach anything important.”
Master Steve seethed. “She must have been watching the room for hours to get a chance like that. Officer Riley had been out there all day. He only came over for a minute to update us because we thought Miss Watson had gone to sleep and we didn’t want to disturb her.”
“I was sleeping. I must have nodded off while you were talking to me. I’m really sorry. I woke up to find that woman messing with the tubes. If she hadn’t started mouthing off at me I might have taken her for one of the nurses just going off duty in that coat. That’s why I yelled. I knew something wasn’t right.”
“It’s all right, Kayleigh. You did the right thing, though you could have just pressed your buzzer. I’d have been here in an instant.” The nurse patted her other hand.
“The bitch had removed it,” April explained to the nurse.
“So that bastard tried it on with you as well? I’m Kayleigh, by the way.” She smiled weakly at April, who neared the bed.
“April. Yeah. He didn’t get too far though, thanks to these two,” April told her, gesturing to the two men.
“Well, he won’t be doing it to anyone else, that’s for sure,” Dave interjected. “We’ve got him under lock and key and that’s just where he’ll be staying for a long time to come now that we’ve got all the evidence we need.”
“Hmm, I think there’s just a few more things we still need to hear from this one,” Master Steve said sternly, turning to face her.
April felt her stomach lurch. In all the excitement she had forgotten she hadn’t given them her statement yet. She sighed. Master Steve was sure to give her a good roasting over allowing the fuckwad to get into her home again. Somehow she knew she could handle it though. She suddenly felt as though she could handle anything now.
“I think Kayleigh needs to get some rest now,” the nurse told them as she straightened the bed.
“Come back and see me, April?” Kayleigh smiled.
“Of course. You take care.”
“And…thank you.” Kayleigh’s voice was weak, but April heard all right.
“You’re welcome.” She felt a warm glow inside her as she left the room, still in Master Steve’s arms.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be ready so soon,” Master Steve told her as they headed down the corridor and toward the stairwell.
“It didn’t take that long.” She smiled.
“You’re lucky. Last time I had an X-ray I had to wait hours. We were just gonna finish up here and come keep you company,” Dave told her.
April flushed. “Oh.” She didn’t quite know what else to say.
Master Steve stopped her on the stair. “What is it, darlin’?”
He could read her like a book.
She shook her head. “I didn’t have an X-ray. I had a scan.” She didn’t want to look into his face as she could feel his eyes burning into her. She felt hot right through.
“Is that a fact?” Master Steve tipped her chin up, forcing her to look into his warm, brown eyes.”
“Just a precaution,” she whispered.
Master Steve grunted.
“Anything I should know?” Dave asked with a smirk.
“No. Nothing at all.” Master Steve put his arm around her again and continued to lead her down the stai
rs very carefully.
April could practically see the cogs turning in his head. She grinned. He seemed bemused, not at all unhappy.
“Where do you want to do this?” Dave asked as they left the hospital.
Master Steve pouted. “Your place?” He asked April.
She nodded and felt him hold her a little tighter as he led her over to his car.
“I’ll take mine,” Dave called over as he took out his keys. “I’ll see you there.”
“Don’t drive too fast,” Master Steve told him.
Dave smirked. “I might just have to make a stop on the way. See you in around an hour?” He winked.
Master Steve nodded and April got the impression there was a whole unspoken conversation going on here she wasn’t a party to.
“Let’s get you home.” Master Steve rushed over to open the door for her and helped her into his massive SUV. He fastened her seat belt before climbing behind the wheel and gunning the engine.
“Are we in a hurry?” She noticed that he seemed to be driving a little faster than she expected.
“Oh, yeah.”
She grinned. Master Steve obviously had his own agenda and she was sure she’d find out about it soon enough.
She was right. As soon as they pulled up on her driveway, Master Steve whizzed around to help her out.
She giggled as he put his arms around her waist and lifted her down from her seat. It was good to feel his big, warm hands on her body again.
“Are you sure everything was OK with your check-up?” he asked as they entered her house. She guessed he’d just watched her limping again.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I told you.” She had spent the journey home telling him about her appointment, and showed him the meds she had been given.
“Good.” He led her straight to the bedroom.
April took a deep breath.
Waiting on April Page 13
