“I’d be less of an intrusion if I napped in the other room,” she said, and when he paused, added, “I promise to sit on the couch the rest of the day and follow your instructions without argument.”
She didn’t want to spend another whole day in his cabin. Prolonging the inevitable. But she needed the bed. Her head was starting to hurt and she was feeling a bit nauseous, too. She shouldn’t have had that last piece of toast.
“I’m going to hold you to that promise,” the doctor said as he saw her to the door of the room and let her walk alone to the bed.
“I know.”
He stood there until she was settled on the four-poster she’d made that morning with a cover from the trunk over her.
“Sleep well, Cara.”
She kind of thought he’d smiled at her as he left the room.
Clearly, the man needed her to be a successful project.
THERE WAS NOT a hell of a lot to do in a cabin that had only one main room and only burner-phone contact with the outside world. He’d been so busy sending himself on hikes, even on the one day it had rained since he’d been there, and bumbling blindly around the interior of the place, making his right eye work—or else—that he’d failed to consider that the hours would be long and excruciatingly empty with a patient sharing the space.
He offered her the option to choose a book from the library he’d brought up with him. It covered an entire wall of the cabin. She did, and they read for a while. Until lunch, which she’d offered to help him make. He hoped his refusal didn’t come out sounding as desperate as it felt. He’d been looking forward to the ten minutes alone in the little kitchen that it would take him to grill up some cheese sandwiches.
Out of habit, when they first sat down, he studied the bruises and cuts on her face, making certain there was no sign of infection.
“You really don’t have to look at me right before you eat,” she said. “I’m fine with you looking away.”
“You say that as if you wouldn’t find it painful to have someone look at you and need to look away.”
Her shrug touched him. The ease with which she blew off pain bothered him, too.
“You’re used to walking around with bruises on your face.”
“You can see the scars, Doctor. They aren’t all that noticeable when I have makeup on, but you know this isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way. Which is why I know I’m fine. I’ve never taken even so much as a morning off from work in the past.”
“You weren’t left for dead in the past. Hadn’t faced a night of exposure. And you’re right, I’ve seen the scars. A couple of the cuts you have right now, most particularly the one on your lateral left cheek, had I not butterflied it, would have left a much deeper scar than the ones already there.”
“I thanked you for them. The butterflies.”
“I’m not looking for thanks.” He wasn’t looking for anything. But he got kind of frustrated when she silently finished half a sandwich. Some answers would be nice.
“I’m of the opinion that these current injuries are worse than those left from previous beatings.”
She didn’t respond.
“How did you go to work...on those mornings you didn’t take off?” His conversational skills definitely rusty, he filled his mouth with sandwich.
“Shawn owns a surfing school. I run...ran...the business end. Taking registrations, billing, scheduling, that kind of thing. A lot of it I could do from home.”
He focused on the way the bruise to the right of her lip moved when she spoke. It was showing no signs of the yellowing that would tell him it was healing with the rest of them.
He didn’t have to know her story. Her health was the only thing that concerned him. Still, they had to do something. “So, you hid out until you looked better. What about the scars?” he asked even as he remembered her mention of makeup.
“I didn’t always hide out,” she said. “Everyone knew that I sucked at surfing. As many times as Shawn tried to teach me, I just couldn’t make myself stay up on the board. Anytime I had bruises, he’d just say I’d tried to go surfing again.”
“And doctors believed him? What about the reports...”
“No doctors,” she said, her tone firm. Then she glanced at him, almost apologetically, it seemed, and said, “I’m not real fond of those who work in your profession.”
Interesting.
“No offense,” she added, biting into the second half of her sandwich. “You’ve been great. I feel fine. Well enough to leave...”
He raised his eyebrow, glad that the right side of his face, including the eye itself, still moved along with the left.
“...I know,” she said after a second under his silent look. “I promised I’d stay at least until tomorrow.”
They finished eating. He didn’t ask why she disliked doctors. She didn’t talk about leaving. He let her help him clean up—because it consisted of throwing away the napkins on which he’d set their sandwiches and washing out the glasses they’d used for their tea.
All that was left, then, was moving back to the living area—she on the couch, he with his book in the easy chair next to a side table with a lamp. He could read just fine. He could do most things just fine.
His right eye wasn’t getting the exercise it needed, though. Every hour mattered.
* * *
CARA COULDN’T STOP looking at him. The first time had been an accident. He’d turned a page; she’d looked up and caught his eye. Sort of. He hadn’t been focused on her, but she’d been in his line of vision. Usually a person would have fully focused, once caught out with that kind of sideways glance, right?
Without even a hint that he’d seen her, he looked out the window to the left of him. She’d waited for him to say something. Eventually he’d gone back to his reading.
And so had she.
She wouldn’t have expected that a woman so close to leaving the earth would care at all about broadening her mind, but the book she’d chosen—mostly because he’d been waiting for her to make a choice and it had been right in front of her—dealt with international espionage. Nothing she had any familiarity with whatsoever. The writing style was good. And the story was actually interesting enough to take her mind off the interminable wait.
Except for the break she took every ten minutes or so to look at him. Mostly, he was reading. Or staring out that window.
Maybe he saw something in the dry desert landscaping in the front yard that she was missing. Lots of sagebrush. Trees, because they were up on a mountain. But it was mostly rock and dirt with patches of weedy grass. Rough ground, all of it.
As she well knew. Cold ground, too, where it wasn’t exposed to direct sunlight.
He was doing it again. Turning his eyes enough that he had to see her watching him. Saying nothing.
He definitely had his secrets.
But that was fine. So did she.
Santa Raquel, California
LILA WAS IN her office, tending to a pile of paperwork—state compliance forms—early Friday evening. It had been two days since the near all-nighter she’d pulled pursuant to Edward’s call for help. She’d slept nearly twelve hours straight on Thursday after work, but she still didn’t feel rested.