Chapter 7 Doc
DOC
The warmth of her skin as my fingertips sank into her side shivered up my arm. She was so… small. Her head barely came up to my shoulder. I hoisted her against me, pressing her to my side, and for a moment, I thought I felt her hold her breath.
Or maybe I was mistaken.
I wasn’t mistaken often, however.
I expected her to say something. She was a fiery woman, and I admired that about her. She was fierce, like many of the other women I came into contact with while still in the military. I always admired them.
How women could step into men’s spaces and dominate.
I was worried about her, though. She completely forgot the pictures we took earlier.
Point blank, no holds barred, completely forgotten.
That wasn’t good. Maybe I had her pain medication dose too high.
Was she taking too much of it at once? I’d have to check her bottle and measure it out once I got her settled in bed.
Or maybe she wanted to get you away from the crowd.
“Come on, Miss Elizabeth,” I said as I eased her bedroom door open. “Let’s get you back in bed.”
She grumbled something, but I didn’t catch it. The voice in my head, however, kept blurting things out.
I think she wanted to get you alone.
She needed you for something.
Don’t leave her side.
“All right,” I said as I pulled the covers over her body, “would you like to play some video games again while you settle?”
“No, I’m good,” she said as she pulled the comforter over her head.
My heart sank into my gut.
I hoped she wanted to play more.
We were so close to winning that one game.
Before you turned it off.
My eye twitched a bit and I resisted the urge to reach out and tuck a stray strand of that beautiful hair of hers behind her ear.
“Are you hungry, Miss Elizabeth?” I asked. “When was the last time you ate?”
Her nose peeked out from beneath the stacked comforter. “Do you always ask so many questions?”
I gazed around the room so that I didn’t feel like a creep for just staring down at her. “My apologies, Miss—”
“No,” she groaned as she tossed the blanket off her head. “I’m sorry, Doc. I—”
My eyes darted back to her, and I ended up caving to the urge to perch on the edge of the bed.
“What is it, Miss Elizabeth? What’s on your mind?”
She heaved the heaviest sigh I think I’d ever heard grace a woman’s lips.
She deserved better sounds to make than that.
“I’m not good with being cooped up, that’s all,” she said as she laid there and looked up at me.
I nodded softly. “I get it.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled as her gaze diverted back to the wall.
I reached for the blanket and pulled it back up over her shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”
“I need to contact my commanding officer.”
I just shook my head. “No technological outbound communications until Ranger says it’s safe.”
Her eyes closed. “Then I don’t need anything.”
I didn’t like this. I didn’t like her like this. I wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t suit her. The pain. The exhaustion. The sadness.
My hand found the hump of her knee on top of the covers and mindlessly settled there. “You really are safe here, Miss Elizabeth. I hope you know that.”
Another heavy sigh. “I know, Doc.”
I wish I knew what else to say. Surely there was something else to say. I’d always been shit with women. The only girl I ever had any decent relationship with was my sister.
Her memory made me swallow hard. “All right.”
I patted her knee one last time before I stood onto my feet. I gave her one last look, but she wasn’t even watching me. Just lying there with her still-bruised eyes gazing at the wall of the bedroom.
“Would you like the curtains open for a view, Miss Elizabeth?” I asked.
She just shook her head softly, though.
I officially ran out of things to ask.
“If you need anything,” I said as I turned and reached for the knob of the door, “please, don’t hesitate to ask. I am at your command.”
And just as I went to swing the door closed, the smallest voice hit my ears.
It was so small that I almost missed it.
“How are things with you and Anna?”
It took my brain a second to compute the soft question before my brow furrowed. “What?”
I watched her roll over in bed before she faced me, those beautiful gray eyes of hers peeking from just beyond the rim of the blanket.
My God, her eyes were beautiful.
“Oh, come on,” she said as she got comfortable in her new position. “You two are flirting every chance you get. I already have to listen to everyone else fuck in this place. Am I going to have to add you two to the list?”
I’d never been so stumped by a set of words in all my life. “You think Anna and I are—?”
She shrugged and cut me off. “I mean, you’re always together. Always talking, and laughing. She does the rounds with you. Isn’t that the kind of stuff two people do whenever they’re cooped up indoors and want to do things with each other?”
Her question had me absolutely perplexed.
I wasn’t sure how long I was silent, but I heard the blankets rustling.
“Sorry, Doc. Just trying to make a friend. Forget I said—”
“She reminds me of my sister.”
I blurted out the words before I could swallow them whole. I didn’t want to talk about my sister. I didn’t want to conjure her memory. I didn’t want to remember how much it hurt not to have my best friend around.
My poor baby sister.
“Doc,” she asked curtly.
It ripped me out of my trance, and I cleared my throat. “My apologies, Miss Elizabeth. What was that?”
She turned back toward me while lying in bed. She studied me with a pinched brow and wrinkled nose. “Did you say your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“She died,” I said before I could catch the words.
Her face fell. “Oh.”
The silence was too much. “Pneumonia. She was fourteen.”
“I’m really sorry, Doc.”
I nodded before the corner of my eye caught the pain medication bottle perched on the bedside table.
I busied myself with going over and checking how much was still in it.
The calculations in my brain were quick, and it only took me seconds to determine that she wasn’t overdoing it on her pain medicine.
If anything, she wasn’t taking enough.
“Let’s get another dose in you, Miss Elizabeth,” I said.
I expected her to fight back. To protest. To tell me that she didn’t need it. But instead, all she did was push herself upright in bed. That was good. It was good to see her pushing ranges of motion strengthening.
It took her best friend, Marla, a while to build back those types of strengthening motions.
“Here,” I said as I walked over to her side of the bed. “I’ll bring it to you.”
“Thanks,” she said softly.
I crouched down before I reached up and peeled the comforter away from her face. My eyes studied some of the bruising that was now finally fading into that sickly looking yellow that always denoted time and length of healing.
“Slowly,” I said as I brought the little cup to her lips. “Small sips.”
And for once, she did as I asked.
Her eyes held mine, and I held hers. Gray to gray.
Strength to strength. She was beautiful, Miss Elizabeth.
Even in the sunlight that poured through the exam room downstairs, she had this hair that twinkled like twilight.
Such the opposite of my hair. She had these random freckles all over her body, too.
Not like the scattered freckles I had everywhere, but she had patches of them.
She had one on the small of her back to the left.
She had one just up under her right arm.
She had another small patch of it behind her left ear, of all places.
“I’m done,” she said.
Her voice snapped me out of my trance and I moved the cup away from her lips. “Need some water?”
She just shook her head and placed it back down against the pillow.
I stood to my feet. I tried to ignore the way my knees popped like rice krispies.
I went into the attached bathroom that this particular bedroom in my estate afforded and I washed out the medicine cup.
I took it back out to where I had found it and tipped it over against the edge of the bedside table so that it could dry out for when she needed it next.
But it wasn’t until I got back to standing in the doorframe that I heard her voice again.
“I’m really sorry for your loss, Doc.”
My back straightened with her words. Tears prickled the backs of my eyes. That pressure in my throat that was so hard to swallow down at the funeral returned.
I’d never get the sound of her last gurgling breath out of my mind so long as I lived.
I miss you so much, Sadie.
“Like I said, Miss Elizabeth,” I said as I turned in the doorway and faced her one last time, “if you need anything, no matter how great or small, don’t ever hesitate to ask.”
“Doc.”
“Hmm?” I hummed as I turned again to face her.
I watched her study me for a while. “Thank you for taking care of Em for me.”
It took me a moment to realize she was talking about Marla. “You don’t have to thank—”
“She was half-dead when she found you guys.” I heard the tears in her voice, but I didn’t interrupt her. “I’ll never be able to thank you for saving her life.”
I tilted my head. “You never have to thank me for something like that. I was glad to help. And I’m equally glad that she found us, Miss Elizabeth.”
She nodded as she settled back down against the bed.
I went to slip out the door again before that beautiful voice of hers caught my attention one last time.
“I’m glad that you guys found me, too.”
My heart slammed so hard against my chest that surely she could hear it. “As am I, Miss Elizabeth. Now get some rest. I’ll be back when it’s time for your next meal.”
I swung the door closed before she had a chance to protest.
Or a chance to stump my brain with more questions.