Chapter 3 #3
“Only the finest for my girl.”
He turned away, out of sight, drawers opening and closing the only sound she heard. A gust of wind slammed at the door as if begging to be let in.
My girl.
What was he doing?
Did he mean… what did he mean?
A cramp, low and twisting, took her out of her thoughts as her ankle turned into Linda Blair’s head in The Exorcist.
“AUUUUGH!” she groaned, the slide of her bare calf against the comforter excruciating.
Moore was there in an instant, hands on her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“Cramp!”
“Where?”
“Leg!”
Sliding his hands under the covers, he started massaging her calf.
“Wrong leg!”
“Sorry.” Fixing the error, his fingers pressed into her calf, pins and needles warring with spasms. Nothing about her body was going to make sense for a long time, until all the systems were back online and in synch.
“Have to get used to this,” she rasped.
“My massage?”
“My dysfunction.”
“What dysfunction?”
“My body. It’s not the greatest.”
For the barest of seconds, his hands hesitated, then his thumbs resumed their slow, steady, deep rhythm in the thick muscle of her calf.
“Your body is great.” Long caresses, less urgent, more smooth and silky, made fire run along her skin. Not pins and needles, either.
This was a burning need for him.
“It’s decided to be more of a one-woman band than a carefully conducted symphony. And I’m falling apart.”
“You’re healing. It’s coming back to life and probably doesn’t know what to do.”
“I was just thinking that.”
The kettle whistle began its early warning and he moved away, the absence of his touch making Colleen feel abandoned.
But if he came back into this bed and touched her again, she would feel the same twin reactions her corporeal self was having as she warmed up:
Touch me!
Don’t touch me!
Because Moore’s touch was just as excruciating as the painful tingling of her skin. She wanted it to mean what she wanted it to mean, and it didn’t. Wouldn’t.
Because Moore didn’t love her the way she loved him.
“You go to the bathroom. I’ll get you some nice, warm water.”
“No, I can wait.”
Rolling to her side, she paused for a few breaths, letting her tired muscles figure out what to do next.
Moore took her at her word and fussed around the kitchen, coming back for the mug he’d used for rum earlier.
Swinging one leg, then the other, off the edge of the bed, she pulled the heavy comforter over her shoulders with her good arm and stopped, her injured shoulder screaming, the pain twisting her muscles and nerves to the point where she couldn’t breathe.
Forcing air in and out through the pain was an act of will.
He was right.
She needed to rest first.
Pick me! Pick me! her bladder screamed, refusing to be ignored.
Looked like she had no choice.
Bathroom it was.
When her soles hit the floor, she let out a little gasp. Each foot seemed to have a brick inside the skin, the heaviness pulling her legs down. Sliding forward on her butt a bit, she braced herself.
Other than a racing heart and a flesh suit over her bones that was a heat map of different temperatures, she was just fine.
Well, not really fine, but it was easier to pretend than to think about the truth.
“SCORE!” Moore shouted from the kitchen. “A jar of peanut butter. Expiration date two months ago.”
Her stomach gurgled as if responding to the call of her people.
“Moore, the mighty hunter. You found your prey.”
“I am a fearless killer of legumes.”
“Given how you shoot, a peanut is probably the only thing you could kill, and only in peanut butter form.”
“Hey! I’m not that bad a shot.”
“I’ve watched you hunt. You couldn’t hit Randy the Moose from fifty feet while he was humping Kenny’s trailer.”
“Why would I ever want to shoot Randy?”
“See?”
“Is this any way to treat the man who brings you sustenance?” Emerging from the kitchen in his underwear, Moore carried a baking tray with two steaming mugs on it, the jar of peanut butter, and two spoons, all on a piece of spread-out cheesecloth meant to be a lace doily. “High tea for m’lady?”
Twisting around to see, she burst out laughing.
Then began to cough.
Hard.
Racking sounds, deep in her chest, registered in her ears. Her lungs wouldn’t stop squeezing inside her, like a rag being drained of every drop. Each hollow rebound of her breath made it harder to inhale again.
Her body was no longer hers. It was firmly under the control of the icy water she’d been submerged in, systems working in whatever way possible to recalibrate.
Setting the tray on the wooden trunk, Moore came to her as she slowly breathed, smaller coughs jumping in here and there, interlopers in her attempt to even out.
“You’re shivering,” he said as she nodded, then acquiesced to Moore’s warmth, his body next to hers, arm wrapped around her, joining her under the down comforter. As they sat on the edge of the bed together, Colleen struggled to normalize her breathing.
“Breathe with me,” he said softly. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.”
Colleen wanted to protest that she knew how, and in fact, she was normally the one saying those words to patients.
She couldn’t though.
Because she was the patient.
And she needed Moore to take charge.