Chapter 9 Doc
DOC
Bet it’s not doctor’s orders, getting your brains fucked out.
I damn near ran into a fucking wall taking a corner too sharply as the sentence slid around in my head. Her giggle. Goddamn it, that sound.
I wondered if she giggled with little neck kisses.
“Stop it, Doc. She’s your patient,” I hissed at myself.
There was something I was missing. A connection that my brain hadn’t made yet. What in the hell was it about that woman? I had multiple degrees. I knew multiple languages. I remembered just about every fucking thing that I read, but somehow, Miss Elizabeth mystified me.
I couldn’t figure her out.
She was hot, then cold. Not talkative at all, and then she wanted to mention sex. Sometimes she smiled, most times she didn’t, and the smiles didn’t have anything in common.
I would know. I remembered every smile she graced me with.
I did my best to run the computations in my head. I turned around every single smile I’d seen her make since she came under my care to try and find a common ground. Something that I could use to make her smile over and over again.
It was like the damned answer stared me right in the fucking face.
“What in the world is it with this woman?” I whispered to myself.
She shut something down in me that I didn’t have a name for yet. My brain, which had an answer for everything, kept coming up empty. I mindlessly did my rounds, dipping in silently on the women to make sure I knew where they all were before I headed to my office.
I needed to decompress with something I understood.
“Ah, an old friend,” I said as I plucked the DSM-IV off my bookshelf.
What?
A bit of light reading never hurt anybody.
I flipped the page, my finger sliding along the lines of the words as I sped-read my way through the new material.
It had been a while since I’d been able to pick this book up.
Usually, it only took me a week or so to devour material in this thick of a manuscript.
But with everything that had kicked off with the crew and all of the patients who came under my command, my focus tugged elsewhere.
My eyes flickered toward the clock.
Only ten minutes passed.
I sighed as I shifted in my chair. I crossed my leg over my knee and reached for my whiskey before I realized I didn’t pour one for myself. Fucking hell. I looked up at the clock again.
“Drink, then read,” I said as I snapped the manual closed.
I went on the hunt for a drink and found myself staring at the clock on the stove. I shook my head and downed it, then poured another one.
I found my eyes gravitating to the microwave clock.
“Oh, get a grip,” I muttered as I swiped my drink off the countertop.
“You cooking tonight?” Brutus asked.
I whipped around from the fridge with my whiskey in my hand. “Hey, Brutus.”
The massive man narrowed his eyes and repeated himself. “You cooking, Doc?”
I shook my head and closed the fridge. “No. Not unless you need someone to, then I can.”
He stared at me for a moment before nodding to my drink. “You got another one of those?”
I motioned with my drink up to one of the cabinets. “In the back. Replace it if you drink the last glass.”
Brutus grunted with a nod of his head before he lumbered toward the cabinet. I took a glug of my drink.
“Any chance you know what you’re cooking tonight?” I asked.
He reached for the whiskey at the back of the cabinet of cups. “Not sure yet. Any requests?”
I quirked an eyebrow. “You take requests?”
He just shrugged as he pulled a coffee mug out of the cabinet. I watched him look at it. He turned it over in his hand. He dipped his nose in it to sniff it. He even blew into it.
And then, he uncapped the whiskey and filled the mug up. “Does ‘Miss Elizabeth’ need a new diet?”
I blinked. “Why did you put her name in quotes?”
“Because she’s the only person you refer to like that.”
“What’s wrong with being respectful?”
“You respect Cap, but you don’t call him ‘Mister Cap’.”
“That doesn’t even sound right.”
“And ‘Miss Elizabeth’ does?”
I just stared at him.
“Sometimes the girls have requests,” Brutus said as he placed the whiskey back. “Wasn’t sure if you had a suggestion from one of the girls.”
Fuck, what did Miss Elizabeth like to eat? Something easy. Something that’ll settle easy on her stomach, especially since her ribcage was still giving her a fuss.
“Something soupy, maybe?” I asked. “Easy on the digestive tract? Doesn’t produce a lot of gas?”
Brutus eyed me over the rim of his mug of whiskey. “Brothy, not a lot of fiber. Got it.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
A rare grin crooked his face. “Having dinner with Miss Liz tonight?”
“I’m sure you can just call her ‘Lizzie.’ I’ve been told that’s what she prefers.”
“Oh, so none of us can use your nickname for her?”
I was frustrated. “It’s not a—”
His rumbling chuckle broke through my words. “You’re easy to ruffle, Doc. Gotta work on that.”
My face sank. “Just because I’m having dinner with Miss Elizabeth doesn’t mean anything is going on.”
He sipped his whiskey. “Never said anything was.”
“I feel like that’s what you’re insinuating.”
His grin stayed put. “Oh, you do now, huh?”
“Yeah, and I don’t appreciate it. She’s my patient. She relies on me for advice and guidance about her body. I take that very seriously.”
“Mhm.”
“Besides,” I said with a wave of my hand, “you know how you feel about everyone fucking all the time around here?”
That made his grin fall away as his nose wrinkled.
“Yeah,” I said with a nod of my head, “Miss Elizabeth is the same way. So I’m just going to get her out of the house for a couple of hours tonight while everything dies down.”
“Can I join?” Brutus asked.
I chuckled as I sipped my drink. I walked past him and patted him on the arm before I watched him down his entire drink.
“Mind if I have another?” he asked.
I had to hold back a bark of laughter. “Enjoy your evening.”
“Yeah, with headphones,” he grumbled.
I laughed as I slipped out of the kitchen.
But all too soon, my eyes searched for the nearest clock.
I had to get a fucking grip.
“Book,” I muttered as I made my way back to the library, “you just need to read. Clear your head. Get back on a rhythm and routine.”
Somehow I managed to pass the time. I flipped the pages of the DSM and earmarked pages I wanted to come back to in order to do more research.
I thought about doing another psych doctorate, but this time leaning more toward the forensics side instead of the clinical side.
That meant research for yet another doctorate dissertation, and that type of research couldn’t start too soon.
The two glasses of whiskey didn’t hurt the passage of time, relaxing me enough to focus, but by the time the smells of dinner wafted through my home, I heard Cap and Ghost laughing with the girls downstairs.
I snapped my book closed and practically tossed it back onto the shelf.
I waited until everyone else got their food.
Not that I was ashamed or anything. But this bunch was a nosy group, and the last thing I wanted was Miss Elizabeth to shirk off the idea of food simply because everyone wanted to ask her cheeky questions as to why we were eating dinner together.
She needed her walk, she needed sustenance, and she needed a break from all of the nighttime sounds.
I understood that.
I also wanted to make sure she felt comfortable in my home.
When Cap and Ghost retired upstairs with their women, I knew it was my time to shine.
I raced to fill up a couple of covered bowls with the wonderful tortellini soup Brutus made.
I stole some garlic bread and made up a quick fruit salad with the fruit we had in the fridge.
And after grabbing a couple of ice-cold drinks, I went and set everything up outside by the pool.
I went to retrieve her from the bedroom upstairs.
“Miss Elizabeth,” I said as I knocked softly on her door.
I was shocked when she opened it. “Hey, Doc.”
I blinked. “You shouldn’t be out of bed, Miss Elizabeth.”
She smiled up at me. “How did you expect me to get into clothes for tonight, Doc?”
The sheer mention of her clothing had my eyes scouring down her body. I swallowed hard and offered her my arm. “Very well, then. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll take the long way around and get your walk in first.”
“My hero,” she said as she took it in kind.
The instant her skin settled against mine, I wondered if it was a bad idea.
Suddenly I forgot why I showed up. Why I had knocked on her door.
Suddenly all that mattered was the warmth of her softly-tanned skin against mine.
I noticed over the time she was with us that she didn’t enjoy using the cane much.
I saw it glistening in all its glory in one of the back corners of the room just as she slipped out and closed the door, but I couldn’t pay too much attention to it.
Dinner!
That was why I knocked on her door.
I steadied my arm as she leaned against me, and I felt the weight of her limp while we walked.
“Scale of one to ten?” I asked as we started our journey toward the stairs.
“Hmm?”
“Your hip. The pain. Scale of one to ten.”
She drew in a steady breath. “Oh, I don’t know. Sort of bounces between five and six right now.”
“Let me know if you need to rest.”
We got to the top of the steps, and I felt her pause.
I didn’t bother asking if she needed a rest. I simply stopped with her, and was shocked when she just…
stood there. Was that the trick? Not bringing attention to things?
I could do that. I could do my best to read her body language.
It wasn’t my strong suit, but it wasn’t as if I was bad at it.
Besides, something in my gut told me that she’d just brush it off if I asked her if she needed a moment.
So I followed her body instead of her verbal commands.
She held out at the top of the steps until she finally reached her free hand toward the banister.
I stepped down and girded the arm she held. “One step at a time. Take it slow, Miss Elizabeth.”
She shot me a look. “I can walk down some stairs.”
“I know you can.”
She took them gingerly, one by one, until we were at the bottom. I noticed that she leaned into me a bit more as we walked down the hallway that parted my estate home in half. It dumped us out into the kitchen with Anna and Brutus scrubbing away the residue of dinner off the countertops and dishes.
“Hey, hey! Look who’s up!” Anna chirped as she turned around and saw us.
I felt Miss Elizabeth tense up at my side.
Huh. That was interesting.
Did she not like Anna?
“Hey, Bee,” she said as she nudged Brutus. “Look who’s decided to grace us with her lovely presence!”
Brutus peered over his shoulder and nodded before he went back to scrubbing. “Lizzie.”
She nodded back. “Brutus.”
Anna bounded over to us. “You look good. How do you feel?”
Miss Elizabeth looked up at me before she answered. “Hungry. Ready for my pain medication.”
Anna clicked her tongue and swatted the woman at my side playfully with the rag in her hand. “Don’t tell me Doc’s slave-drivin’ ya with those walks of his. Doc, take it easy on the girl, would you? She’s only got two hips.”
“Anna,” Brutus said.
“What?” she asked as she turned back around.
Brutus tossed her another wet rag. “Go wipe down the table.”
Anna stuck her tongue out and mocked him in a low voice. “Go wipe down the table. Go fetch the water from the river. Go get the candles so we’ve got light in case the power goes out.”
Miss Elizabeth giggled. “You do an impression of him well.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Brutus murmured beneath his breath.
I caught it then, just before I turned away.
Anna had crossed back to the table, rag in hand, quiet for once, and I watched her glance over at Miss Elizabeth with something that wasn’t teasing at all.
It was soft. Careful. The kind of look someone gives a person they’re rooting for but don’t quite know how to say it to yet.
It was gone in a blink, buried under Anna picking up where she left off, but I’d seen it. I filed it away.
“Come,” I said as I ushered her toward the sliding back door, “before dinner gets cold.”
Anna shouted after us. “Doc and Lizzie sittin’ in a tree!”
Miss Elizabeth shouted right back at her, on time and on pitch. “I will kick your fucking ass!”
Anna fell apart in laughter while I escorted Miss Elizabeth outside, and I found that she giggled a bit to herself as well. I watched as she turned toward my backyard, but I found myself so enamored with how she looked beneath the moonlight that I couldn’t pull my eyes away.
“Wow,” she whispered.
I saw the lightning bugs reflecting in those steel gray eyes of hers. They held such stoicism, so many secrets. And yet, when she reached out and caught a firefly on her fingertip, they lit up with a childlike wonder that had my attention arrested.
“Did you know that lightning bugs are one of the last living creatures on the planet that utilizes bioluminescence?” I asked.
“Is that like the stuff I see online, where someone puts their feet in the ocean and it lights up blue?”
I watched as she lifted her finger, and the lightning bug took flight once more. “Yes. It’s exactly like that.”
She smiled up at me. “What else do you know about lightning bugs?”
“You want me to talk about lightning bugs?”
She shrugged. “I want you to talk about whatever you wish to talk about.”
I lost myself a little bit to her at that moment. Even though it was unprofessional. Even though it wasn’t like me. Even though there was a chance I’d regret it, getting attached to a patient, I couldn’t help the thrill that rushed through my veins.
Someone wanted me to talk.
And not about medicine.
I could get used to this.