Round Four #2
“Lucky you.” I peek across the room at the sound of approaching footsteps, my heart rate monitor quickening to a frantic tempo.
But no one stops in the doorway, and when I meet Oliver’s kind gaze, my cheeks firing with an embarrassed blush, he merely maintains his pleasant smile.
“Drive-thru coffee is better than a bitchin’ headache and a paper cup that makes the water taste like…
paper. My stomach hurts because I’m hungry, but the thought of eating makes me want to puke. ”
He rubs my fingers, dragging the pad of his thumb along my digits and massaging all the way to the tips.
“I could get you some juice. Maybe a sandwich. Francine will wander by with the lunch cart in an hour. If you’re especially kind to her, she’ll give you extras.
She’s currently favoring the boy a few rooms down, since he’s a total flirt and knows how to play the game.
But she had her hair permed recently, and she’s feeling a little self-conscious about it.
If you say something nice, she’ll be putty in your hands. ”
“Seems you know how to play the game, too.” My body slowly begins to thaw under the blankets, the tight grip my muscles cling to, relaxing. “Most guys wouldn’t notice she had her hair done, let alone that she was feeling weird about it.”
“Sisters,” he quips easily. “They like makeup and hair stuff, and they don’t like it when I ask, ‘Are you wearing that today?’ My mom was a staunch feminist who made sure I understood my obligation, as a man, not to be a useless pimple on society’s ass.”
“Your mom sounds like a smart woman. And your dad?”
His eyes dance playfully. “My dad was smart enough to know yes dear was the only correct response in a house where the women outnumbered the men. My school experience was relatively un-messy because of the things I learned at home.”
Phones trill in the hall, and nurses move constantly. They deal with patients. File paperwork. Shout orders. Sip coffee.
Was I a nurse?
I don’t think so.
“Whatever job I had before, that’s procedural memory, right?” I bring my eyes back to Oliver’s. “Like, if I were a chef, I’d still be able to cook a meal, right? Or if I were a nurse, I could probably stitch my own wounds?”
His eyes flicker to my ribs… hidden beneath seven layers of blanket. “I would think so, yes. Do you think you could suture yourself?”
“No.” Without even thinking about it, the answer spills across my tongue. “Probably means I wasn’t a nurse. Or a doctor.”
“Or a veterinarian. And since we’re going, you probably weren’t military, either.”
A knock at the door makes me startle, my breath exploding from my lungs, and the heart rate monitors screaming into the air around us.
My eyes shoot past Oliver’s and stop on a pair of cops in jeans and shirts.
One wears a puffy bomber jacket, the zipper open to reveal a badge hanging around his neck, while the other seems fine with his arms out.
Thick, tattooed arms. A scabbed knuckle or two. He has a firm jaw and fiery, unkind eyes.
My stomach revolts, filling my throat with acid.
But Oliver remains entirely relaxed, his easy smile curling, and his friendly eyes…
still friendly. He glances around and lifts his chin, giving the two permission to enter, and when the muscled one leads at the front, Oliver steals his hands out from beneath my blankets, abandoning me to the cold I’d temporarily forgotten about.
“Ramone.” He looks from one to the other. Though his tone turns to ice with the second. “Billy. The police station is literally three minutes up the road, so why’d it take so long to get here?”
Ramone—bomber jacket guy—rolls his eyes. “We had things to do. Jesus. Not everything is about you, Ollie.”
“So you’re our Jane Doe?” The other one, the tattooed one, strolls around my bed, his walk an arrogant swagger.
His entire demeanor… smug. He splits away from his partner and forces me onto my back.
Anything to keep both men in sight. “We were here last night, but you were unconscious, and Doctor Darling assured us you wouldn’t be awake anytime soon.
” He stops just two feet away and offers his hand.
“I’m Detective Caster. You can call me Billy, if you want.
” He nods toward the other. “Detective Devereaux. Ramone is his first name.”
“I’ll step out,” Ollie murmurs, inching away from my bed. “Leave you with a little privacy.”
“No.” I swing my arm wildly to the left, exploding from beneath seven layers of blanket and desperately latching on to his wrist, and because the damn heart rate monitor announces every sprinting beat pounding in my chest, I tear the tracker off my finger and pray the sound will stop.
“P-please don’t go.” I tremble all over.
My jaw. My shoulder. My entire torso, down into aching hips. “Please.”
Stunned, he looks past me to Billy, then over to Ramone.
He’s a big brother—he’s said so half a dozen times already—and he promised to be my safe space. With furrowed brows and softening eyes, he steps closer again, lowering his voice. “They’re gonna want to get your statement. They won’t hurt you, I promise.”
Terror is a living, breathing beast in my veins. It’s fire in my blood. It’s lava in my belly. Tears form in the corners of my eyes, and dammit, frustration follows immediately after.
Why can’t I close my eyes and sleep?
Why am I afraid of the dark?
“I’ll stay.” Decided, he hitches himself onto the side of my bed and pastes on a chilly, not-so-friendly smile for Billy. “Changed my mind.”
“You don’t have somewhere else to be?” Billy’s voice is deeper than Ollie’s. Harder than Ramone’s. But his eyes, when he faces Ollie, prove the pair’s iciness goes both ways. “Collecting a witness statement rarely requires a doctor’s supervision.”
“Yeah, but I’m on my lunch break, which means she’s not my patient right now.
She’s my friend.” He fixes my blankets, covering our hands, and trades my death-grip for a repeat of the massage from earlier.
Then, leaning across the bed, he switches off the droning heart rate monitor and smiles at an irritated Detective Caster.
“I have all the time in the world, Billy. So you should get started.” He drops his gaze to mine and winks.
It’s discreet. It’s a secret. Jesus, it’s respite in the storm swirling in my brain.
Billy draws a long breath, agitation forcing his chest to swell larger.
Then he releases it again and takes out a notebook and a pen.
“Fine.” He leans against the window frame behind him, knocking the blinds askew and spilling light into my room until the spires feel like shards of glass scraping against my eyes.
He doesn’t know about that, though. Or that the rattle and crash of the weights in the base of the blinds is like cannon blasts in my ears.
He doesn’t know that my head pounds, and with every thump, my stomach curdles.
He merely settles in, oblivious to my pain, and pastes on an expression that hints toward friendliness.
Fake as it is. “Your investigation has taken an interesting turn, Ms. Doe. You don’t remember who you are? You don’t know your name?”
I shake my head and fight the voice in the back of my brain, the one screaming, he doesn’t believe you! “I don’t remember my name. Or that I was hit by a car.” Swallowing, I bring my focus around to Ramone. He scares me less… barely. “I woke up here like this.”
“Why were you on the road?” Billy presses. “It was below freezing last night, Miss Doe, but you came in wearing a shirt and jeans. Where did you leave your car?”
I drag my blankets up and swipe an errant tear from the corner of my eye. “I don’t know.”
“Where were you coming from?”
“I don’t know,” I rasp. “I don’t remember.”
“Where were you going?”
“Billy,” Ollie snarls in quiet warning. “She doesn’t know.”
“Am I in trouble?” I search Billy’s hard stare, then I turn to study Ramone’s. “You make it sound like I’ve done something wrong.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Ollie argues.
“It’s just that Billy’s momma never taught him any manners, and you being on the road all alone at night, heading toward a town as small as ours, has us wondering why.
” He rubs my hand with the pad of his thumb, while above the blankets, he pins Billy with a look.
“There have been no crimes committed, Detective Caster, and despite what the elders think, being a stranger in this town is not a violation of the law. I’m gonna need you to check yourself before you set my patient’s recovery back, or I might be inclined to pay you a visit at Love & War this afternoon. ”
Confused, I glance from one man to the other, from the cop with dark hair, to the doctor whose locks are a shade away from true blond.
They glare at one another, waves of anger and tension pulsing in the air as a million words go unsaid, and the sting of exclusion brings fresh tears to my eyes.
But then Billy breaks, shaking his head and lowering the notebook.
He sets his hands on the windowsill on either side of his hips and sighs. “I’m sorry, Miss Doe.”
“I don’t like being called that.” I swallow the dread balled in my throat and swing my eyes back to Ollie. “Jane Doe isn’t… it’s…” I exhale a shuddering, aching breath. “It’s not me. It feels off.”
“It’s procedure,” Billy cuts in. “Until we’ve formally identified you, we have to—”
“Respect her wishes,” Ollie inserts. “She doesn’t want to be called Jane or Miss Doe.
I’m certain we can be creative enough to muddle our way through this.
” He meets my eyes and flashes a gentle smile.
“Ma’am sounds a little douchey, but we’ll work with what we’ve got and figure the rest out later. ”