Chapter Ten
F ine?
Iris had been prepared for opposition. A lot of it. Sage had warned her. Her own three years of friendship with Scott Martin had informed her. And she got fine ?
Because of the drugs?
Or the sex? Did he think close proximity when he was at his worst would end any attraction between them once and for all?
The idea had merit. Enough that she was willing to explore the possibility. To hope for it, even. Feeling better about the hours and days ahead, energized to get on with them, she said, “Dr. Abbot will be in shortly. Once he signs your discharge papers we can go.”
“There will be ground rules.”
With her sudden new lease on life, she nodded, and said, “Probably a good idea.”
“I’m the boss in my home.”
“Understood.” Unless he thought he was going to go against medical protocol. Iris wasn’t the least bit averse to calling in the troops if need be. Sage had already insisted on that one. It was the only reason she wasn’t flying home immediately. If Scott didn’t comply with doctor’s orders, Sage, Gray and Leigh would be on the next plane to San Diego.
“Fine. Then, if you could please lay the clothes you brought on the bed, I’ll get dressed so we can be ready to go as soon as the paperwork is done.”
No could do. “You’re supposed to wait for a final check, first.” She told him what she’d been told. “Something about wound seepage.” And vitals.
“So no clothes. I’d still like some privacy.”
He was going to get up. She just knew it. The look on his face. The way he was still holding the edge of his covers as though ready to throw them off. Without being privy to his postsurgical instructions, he could seriously hurt himself.
Perhaps she’d been a bit premature in her celebration of their future together.
They weren’t even home yet, and the battle had started.
“You can’t get up yet, Scott,” she said, her tone firm because it had to be. “You had a completely torn MCL, stage three, the worst. There can’t be any weight-bearing right now and your crutches aren’t here yet.”
She used logic because it was his go-to language.
The glare coming at her from his blue eyes, beneath the tousled strands of his blond hair, almost amused her.
But not quite.
He was not going to be an easy patient.
And while she was still on board with the idea that being together over the next week would kill any attraction between them, she started to have serious doubts about their friendship surviving.
Holding her gaze with his steely stare, making her feel a little bit like a losing defendant on his witness stand, he said, “I have to pee.”
Maybe he did. Maybe he was just trying to unnerve her.
She’d seen a plastic, turquoise, distinctively shaped container on the bottom shelf of the stand beside his bed when she’d come in. Reached for it.
Handed it to him.
And left the room.
* * *
He was not leaving a filled urinal for Iris, or anyone, to empty. Sitting up fully, with no support at his back, Scott lost his breath, winced, but, with his hands clutching mattress and sheet, he didn’t lie back again.
As the first wave of pain passed, he slowly released the grip of one hand and pulled back the covers. Getting his first look at his left leg. Though he couldn’t remember the fall, he’d been aware of the bandage running from his calf up his thigh on his left side since he’d regained consciousness.
Had another moment of acute nausea as he bent to get a look and his back shocked him again. He hadn’t been prepared for the discoloration on his shin, either.
Didn’t matter. He was getting out of there.
Which he couldn’t do if he reinjured himself. Perhaps waiting to hear doctor’s orders, to know what he’d done to himself, and what the doctor had done to fix him, was the wisest choice.
Along with waiting for crutches.
For his back, not his knee. Other than a dull throb, he couldn’t feel the knee at the moment. The back most definitely did not want to bear weight.
Or movement.
He’d deal with it. Grin and bear it.
Just needed a sec to prepare.
With his hands behind him, he started to lean back against the mattress. Slowly. As imperceptively as he could manage while still making progress toward the goal.
“Scott?” Iris’s voice came from just the other side of the door. “You okay?”
He didn’t want to use the muscles, or energy, required by talking. Didn’t want a slew of medical personnel to come running.
And so, gritting his teeth, let go with his hands and fell back against the mattress. Feeling the sweat roll down between his shoulder blades. Lying back for a brief second, he closed his eyes, and said, “Fine. It’s safe to come in.”
And when the door opened, he found the wherewithal to clear his expression, meet her gaze fully with eyes wide open. The pain had receded.
He wasn’t moving again until he’d been told how to do so without killing himself.
And when Iris reached toward the urinal he’d set on the table beside his head so it would be in easy reach once he was standing, his tone was filled with plenty of aggression when he said, “You touch that and I’m getting up right now to stop you and walk out of here.”
He meant it, too.
She didn’t need to know that, in that moment, intention and capability were at odds.
As soon as his talk with the doc, they wouldn’t be.
Luckly, Iris took him at his word. Sitting back in her chair, she didn’t glance toward the plastic container again.
And Scott felt a little better about the hours ahead.
He’d established his boundaries.
No matter what, Scott was in charge.
* * *
The man was going to be a royal pain in her ass.
And as long as they managed to still be friends when it was all over, Iris was fully okay with that. She’d been dreading the idea of sleeping under the same roof as him.
Until she’d seen his condition.
Then she’d been determined that she’d stay whether he wanted her to or not. In a head-to-head battle on that one, she had the physical ability to win, not him.
At least that first night.
No way he could shove her body out the door. Or even off the couch where she intended to sleep.
As she watched the orderly help him from the wheelchair to the front seat of her car, lowering the back of the seat so that he was half reclining, and shoving a couple of pillows on the floor to support his knee, she noticed the wince that never left his face. The bead of sweat on his lip.
And her heart hurt for a second.
She’d been in the kind of pain that did that to you.
Knew how utterly helpless it made you feel.
And before even leaving the parking lot, she’d called Dale to ask the writer to meet them at Scott’s place to help her get him inside.
A night of RICE and RICH would, according to the doctor, alleviate some of his current discomfort. As would the therapy that he was to start, minimally, in the morning. They’d already arranged for someone to come to the cottage—Scott’s orders and at his expense.
He didn’t speak on the way home. Just laid his head back and closed his eyes, and for the first time since she’d seen him that day, she was truly worried.
Telling herself the doctor wouldn’t have released him if he didn’t think Scott would be safe, no matter how determined the prosecutor might be, she promised herself she’d take his blood pressure as soon as they got home, and call for help if there was even a hint of something being amiss.
“You missed a turn.” His voice didn’t sound like him. And when she glanced over, his eyes were closed.
“How would you know?”
“My eyes work just fine.” He didn’t quite snap, but the grouchy tone was there.
“The light was red around the corner. The movie is just getting out. I preferred to go straight and make the next turn as there is no business there that will be letting out a throng of people who will slow our progress.” And leave him there in agony with each even slight nudge of the car.
“Smart woman,” he said then.
“At least one of us has some brains in the situation,” she mumbled, showing him she had a grouch in her, too. “You need to take some pain medication. Even if just for tonight.”
The doctor had strongly recommended that he take one more dose before he left the hospital. Just to get home.
Super Prosecutor had firmly refused.
She couldn’t tell whether his grunt was a disregard for her opinion, or his own reluctant concession. And didn’t want to waste his energy trying to find out.
They’d reached their final turn and she was knotted with tension, worrying about getting him inside without him passing out. Was thinking about driving down for her office chair, which was on wheels, to get him inside as she took the steep, single-lane road down to Ocean Breeze and the cottages that were all that occupied the private lane.
Wishing, for a second, that Sage and Gray had flown home. She was a strong woman, but Scott, at over six feet tall, still had a lot of poundage on her. No matter how determined her conviction, there were some things she wouldn’t be able to do.
What if she hurt him?
The fear was cut off at the knees as soon as she turned onto Ocean Breeze. Not only was Dale standing in Scott’s driveway, but half a dozen other residents were there, too. All waiting to offer a hand if needed.
She almost cried at the sight. And to snuff out the unwanted well of emotion, said, “Wake up, Martin, you’ve got a welcoming committee,” in a dry tone.
His eyes opened fully, and he lifted his head. Only to groan and then, turn white as he moved the seat into a more upright position.
“Just for tonight, can you please graciously accept the help being offered?” she asked, dreading the possibility that he’d send everyone away and she’d have to get him settled in bed by herself. She’d do it. She had her plan. Her desk chair. And bed could be the couch for the night if it had to be. It was lower. No lifting on her part.
“I had every intention of doing so,” he told her. “I’m independent and determined but I am not lacking in intelligence.” He took a deep breath. And then said, “I also have no intention of going back to that hospital tonight.”
That made her smile. And to touch his shoulder as she said, “I know this is hard, but you’ll be through it before you know it.” She was speaking from experience.
Not that he was ever going to know that.
* * *
Scott might not admit it to anyone except himself, but he was inordinately relieved to see the turnout of Ocean Breeze residents in his driveway. Machismo was great, but it hadn’t gotten him out to Iris’s car at the hospital, and he’d been dreading the trip into his cottage.
Once there, he’d be fine. Figure things out.
As it was, he did pretty damned good. With a man on each side of him, supporting his back and his weight, he managed to use them as crutches and get his one-legged walk to propel him slowly inside. The trip didn’t do his back any good. He was sweating by the time he was propped with his leg elevated on his couch.
Which was when he noticed Harper, the accomplished choreographer who lived next door to him, entering the cottage behind Iris, carrying his crutches. Iris’s hands were filled with the rest of the stuff they’d brought home from the hospital.
Including a pad for his bed so the mattress didn’t get soiled.
From wound seepage, he’d told himself the nurse had meant as she’d rambled on in her no-nonsense tone about things he’d rather not be topics of conversation with Iris Shiprock present.
He was to report if he had any change in bowel movements. Great. He’d be sure to run that one up the flagpole.
“Seriously, Iris, I can stay tonight, if you’d like. I don’t have rehearsal until noon tomorrow, and that way you wouldn’t have to miss your early-morning shoot.”
Iris had been commissioned to do a series of photographs of the sun rising over various parts of the city for a tourist site. He’d forgotten.
Felt like a fool. And knew a moment of near panic, too. He’d been counting on her being with him that night.
Just for the night.
Hadn’t thought about her needing to be home to shower and get to work.
“Like I said, I’ve already got it covered,” Iris was saying, in a tone that got Scott’s full attention. “I called and put the photo shoot back a couple of weeks. And I’ve got all the instructions from the hospital.” She sounded…proprietary.
And he liked it.
Which sent all kinds of warning signals along his very sore spine. Whether he was better or not in the morning, he was going to have to fake it well enough to get Iris out of his home.
When he’d been accepting her presence under duress, he’d been okay with it. For the one night, of course.
But no way could he have her there if either of them took ownership of her right to be the one helping him.
“Besides,” Iris said, pulling things out of her bag and setting them up on the bar he’d built between the kitchen and living room, “I gave Sage my word…”
Ahh… Scott relaxed back as well as he could under the circumstances. Feeling better as the wave of disappointment passed through him.
Iris wasn’t getting all possessive over him.
She was keeping the promise she’d made to her best friend.
Who was his twin sister.
Not him.
He was free once again to resent the hell out of her occupancy of his private space.
And would get around to it.
As soon as he got the excruciating pain shooting through his back and shocking his left knee under control.
Pain was a state of mind.
And apparently he was going to need every ounce of his mental control to get his in line.
If his choice was to deal with out-of-line meanderings where Iris was concerned, or become a master of pain management, he’d take the pain challenge every time.