Red Sky At Morning - DK4 (48 page)

That would be bad.

She wouldn’t get a biscuit.

Dar winced. Right now, the last thing on earth she wanted was a biscuit.

KERRY RUBBED HER hands and settled back against the wall, crossing her arms as she watched Dr. Steve fussing over Dar. It was cold in the emergency room, and she found herself wishing she had a sweatshirt.

Actually, she wished she wasn’t here at all, having to watch all the activity around Dar with a heavy, nervous knot in her stomach. Dr.

Steve had taken one look at her lover and sent them both straight to the hospital, with him driving right behind them.

What was worse was that Dar hadn’t protested. Even now, she was resting quietly on the padded rolling bed, with her eyes mostly closed as both doctor and nurses poked at her. That made Kerry realize whatever was wrong was serious, because otherwise she knew Dar would be pitching God’s own fit.

She wondered how Andrew and Ceci were coping out in the waiting room, where they’d reluctantly retired to wait after Andrew had carried Dar inside, an image that had imprinted itself on Kerry’s heart.“Kerry?”

Kerry jumped, then focused on Dr. Steve’s kindly face. “Oh, God.

Sorry.” She searched his eyes anxiously. “How’s she doing?”

“I’m guessing she feels like the turd end of a pig in a bog right about now,” the doctor told her. “She got herself real concussed there, and looks like she did more damage to her shoulder.”

“Oh.” Kerry’s brow knit. “Is she going to be okay?”

Dr. Steve patted her cheek. “Eventually, sweetheart,” he told her. “I need to get a CAT scan of that head, though. Would you mind going on in with her, just in case she realizes I’ve gone and stuck her inside a blinking white tube?”

“Sure.” Kerry felt a little better. “Anything I can do to help.”

THE CAT SCAN room was a short elevator trip away, and Kerry spent the moments gently rubbing her lover’s fingers as the blue eyes peered muzzily at her. “Hey, sweetie.”

“Ow,” Dar replied.

262
Melissa Good

“I know.” Kerry walked alongside the gurney as they exited the elevator and moved down the hallway. “Dar, honey, they need to take pictures of your head, okay?”

A groan.

“Yeah, I know, you hate that, but Dr. Steve really needs to see what’s going on in there,” Kerry told her. “So you just keep your eyes closed, and it won’t be that long, I promise.”

“Promise?” Dar mumbled.

“I promise,” Kerry repeated, as they rolled over to the big machine.

“Just keep your eyes closed, okay?”

“Okay,” Dar agreed. “Just stay here with me.”

Ooh.
Kerry eyed the plethora of machinery, then her lover’s pale face. “Don’t worry, I will. I promise.” She took hold of Dar’s hand and squeezed into a corner, as much out of the way as she could manage.

The technician came over and glanced at her. “Ma’am, you can wait over there.” He pointed toward a low bench, giving her a friendly smile.

Dar’s fingers tightened on hers, and Kerry met the tech’s eyes squarely. “No, I can’t,” she said. “My friend here is extremely claustrophobic and has a concussion. You don’t want her freaking out.”

The man glanced at Dar, then at Kerry. “Okay,” he agreed cheerfully. “I can buy that. Just try to stay as clear of the machine as you can.”Kerry was pleasantly surprised by the easy capitulation. “Thanks.”

She relaxed. “I will.”

The tech, a young blond-haired man about Kerry’s age, expertly arranged Dar on the table and moved the machine to cover her. “Was she in a car accident?”

“Ah, no,” Kerry replied. “She...um...”
Got hit in the head with a rifle?

No, you can’t say that.
“It’s complicated.”

“Okay.” The tech signaled to his partner, who was behind a console. “Whatever you say. I never argue with a lady wearing two cell phones and three pagers.”

Kerry glanced down at her belt, then felt herself blushing. “Ah, yeah.” She heard the machine start humming and felt Dar’s grip tighten painfully. “I’m carrying for both of us right now.” She chafed Dar’s fingers. “Easy, Dar, I’m here.”

The grip lessened, just a trifle. “I’ll always be here,” Kerry whispered.

“OKAY.” DR. STEVE ENTERED the emergency room alcove they’d been assigned. Andrew and Ceci were standing on one side of Dar’s rolling bed, and Kerry was on the other, all of them attempting to comfort her. “Sweetie pie, you did quite a job on yourself.”

Dar had her eyes open a little more now, having been pumped full of several syringes of things. “Yeah?”

Red Sky At Morning
263

“Yeah.” Dr. Steve walked over and rested his hands on the bed.

“I’m admitting you.”

Dar grimaced.

“Ah, ah, ah.” The doctor shook his finger at her. “It’s all your own fault, young lady. If you’d have stayed at home and rested like I told you do, you’d still be there, and not here.”

Dar’s lips twitched into a scowl. “I had something I had to do,” she protested tiredly.

“Uh-huh, and now what you have to do is spend some time in here, letting me fix you,” Dr. Steve replied. “You have a concussion, honey, and there’s some swelling in there because of that. You’re not going anywhere until I’m sure that’s gone.” He touched the side of her head, which was dark with bruising. “And I’m calling in an orthopedic surgeon to look at your shoulder.”

Dar’s blue eyes popped wide open, but then, so did Kerry’s, Ceci’s and Andrew’s. “What?”

Dr. Steve put a finger on Dar’s nose. “What part of that wasn’t in American English? Now you relax, and let them take you upstairs and get you comfortable.” He patted his profoundly unhappy-looking patient’s arm. “Don’t give the nurses a hard time. I like the ones here, and you’ll give me a bad name if you do.” With that, he left, after giving Andrew a reassuring pat on the back.

“Shit,” Dar exhaled.

“Now, Dardar.” Andrew put a hand on her shoulder. “Just you relax, like Steve said, and get you some rest.”

“In here?” Dar eyed the white ceiling. “Not likely.”

Kerry actually smiled. “I never thought I’d be glad to hear you griping,” she admitted. “But I know it means you feel better, so I am glad.”

Dar eyed her. “Easy for you to say. You get to go home,” she grumbled. “I have to stay here and be poked, prodded, messed with, and put up with God knows what.”

Kerry exchanged glances with her in-laws. “Honey, I’m going to go give them your insurance card, okay?” she said diplomatically. “I’ll be right back.” She tweaked Dar’s toe, then left, passing through the divider curtains and letting them fall closed behind her.

DAR CLOSED HER eyes and counted to twenty. Then she counted to twenty again. Then she opened her eyes and found she was still in the hallway, waiting to be shoved into the elevator. She closed her eyes again.

Dar didn’t like frustration. She usually dealt with it in one of two ways: she got rid of it by getting rid of its source, or she went out and did something physical until the feeling of rage faded. At the moment, neither of those two options was available to her.

264
Melissa Good
If she was being very honest with herself, it wasn’t the hospital she hated. The gurney started into motion with a jerk, and she opened her eyes to see the walls moving past. It was the lack of personal control over what was going on, and the fact that she was forced to allow strangers to invade her personal space and strip away her dignity.

Not to mention the damn gowns. Dar had let them put one on her, but she’d refused to remove her jeans, even after Dr. Steve had threatened her with a pair of surgical scissors. She still had them on now, providing extra warmth beneath the thin hospital sheet that covered her, smelling of bleach and antiseptic.

The elevator doors closed, and she listened to the nurse’s tuneless whistling as the car lurched into motion. That made her still-aching head hurt more, and she sighed, biting her tongue to keep from snapping at the man. The nausea had faded, and Dr. Steve had firmly strapped down her arm again, making the pain bearable; but the various aches and the aggravation were wearing very hard on her temper.

And Kerry had disappeared. Dar spent a moment glumly wondering if her cranky ill temper had finally pushed one button too many, even with her lover’s usual patience. The thought brought an irrational jolt to her chest as the fatigue wore down her defenses and let her darker insecurities surface.

Fortunately, she didn’t really have time to dwell on it, as the elevator doors opened and her porter pushed her out onto a relatively quiet hospital floor, with shoe-squeakingly clean floors and weave walls the color of road kill. Dar hated it immediately, especially when she was guided into a half-darkened room midway down the corridor.

“Here we are,” the man pushing her announced cheerfully. “Let me just swing you over here, and we’ll get you settled into this nice bed.”

Dar realized she was too tired to even be disgusted. She eyed the bed, then glanced around the room, realizing it was the only bed in it.

Could she have gotten that lucky? She’d been hoping, at the best, for either no room neighbor or a sleeping one. It was a fairly sizable room, too, with a wide bay window and a sort of padded daybed lounger near that, presumably for the patient to relax in.

Hmm. Maybe they were out of double rooms.
Well, Dar wasn’t going to argue with that. Sharing the space was one thing she’d been truly dreading. She waited until the rolling bed was even with the stationary one and the nurse had lowered the rails, then before he could grab hold of her, she moved herself from one to the other in a single, fluid motion.

“Hey,” the nurse blurted. “Honey, I was going to help you.”

“I know,” Dar exhaled. “It’s okay.” The effort had exhausted her, and she lay back against the pillows and allowed the nurse to fuss with the blankets.

“Are you one of those really independent people?” The man’s voice was sympathetic. “I’m like that, too.”

Red Sky At Morning
265

Dar glanced at him. “Yeah, I guess I am,” she admitted.

“Well, you just take it easy, okay? They’ll take good care of you up here, even if you don’t want them to,” the nurse chuckled. “The floor nurse will be in soon to take your vitals and get your chart started, and then they’ll bring you up some dinner.” He checked a tag on Dar’s arm.

“They’ll probably want you to take your jeans off, too.”

Dar’s eyebrow edged up.

“Don’t let them intimidate you,” the man whispered, giving her a wink. “Sleep in ’em if you want.” He grinned and patted Dar’s leg, then made his way out of the room.

Hmm.
Dar had to smile, just a little. Then she sighed and let her head fall back, her mind turning over vague worries and more concrete ones, like what the hell they were going to do with her shoulder. Her head turned, and she peered at her own arm in worried annoyance.

Then she looked around the room, which was depressing and silent.

Surprising how alone you can feel inside a busy place like a hospital.
Dar closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment of shockingly pungent self-pity. She really didn’t want to be here.

She just wanted to go home.

KERRY PAUSED IN the doorway for a moment, watching the quiet figure lying on the bed. There was something so vulnerable about Dar, she almost didn’t want to walk in, for fear of startling her lover too badly. She took a breath, hesitating before she called out. “Hey.”

Dar’s head came up and she looked around, their eyes meeting with an almost palpable intensity. “Hey.” Dar managed a smile.

“Thought you went on home.”

Kerry walked over to the bed. “You thought wrong.” She eased the bag on her shoulder off and let it drop to the ground. “I’m not going anywhere.” She leaned on the railing, absorbing the look on Dar’s face.

“I’m staying right here with you.”

Dar felt a little ashamed. “Hey, you don’t have to do that,” she replied. “Not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but you need to go get some rest yourself.”

“No.” Kerry spoke the truth she felt in her heart and saw in Dar’s eyes. “Mom and Dad are going to stay at our place and keep Chino company.” She took Dar’s hand. “This is where I want to be, and you’re not convincing me otherwise, so just forget it.”

Dar’s eyes dropped to the blanket, then lifted again, filled with simple, yet poignant gratitude. “Thanks,” she said, softly. “I’m feeling pretty ragged right now.”

“I know,” Kerry replied. “Dr. Steve said some of that is from your concussion, and he knows you must be hurting a lot, but they can’t give you much for the pain because of your head.”

Dar nodded. “I figured that out.” She glanced around the room. “At 266
Melissa Good
least it’s quiet in here, hmm?”

Kerry also looked around. “Yeah, not bad.” She nodded at the window. “Nice view.”

Dar studied her profile, seeing the slight tensing of the muscles on either side of Kerry’s mouth. “Did you arrange for this?”

Now the green eyes drifted around and met hers, and the hidden smile emerged fully, making those eyes twinkle. “Yes, I did,” Kerry replied. “And you’re in no condition to argue with me about it.”

Despite the aches and the pains and the aggravation, Dar suddenly felt much better. “You know something?”

“Hmm?” A blonde eyebrow raised in question.

“You’re better than ice cream.”

The smile turned into a broad grin, which wrinkled Kerry’s nose up and transformed her entire face. “There goes my life’s goal...now what do I do?” she laughed. “C’mon, tiger. Let’s get those jeans off. I brought your travel bag in, and it has real pajamas in it.”

Dar relaxed and accepted her fate. “Oho,” she remarked wryly.

“Now I know why you arranged for a private room.”

“Absolutely.” Kerry agreed with the banter. “You’re helpless and alone in my clutches here, and I can do whatever I want to you.” She removed one of Dar’s socks and tickled the bottom of her foot. “I am in total control.”

Dar snickered. “You know, Ker, that would be more effective if you didn’t have that cute little nose.”

A sigh. “I’d never be cast as a domineering world conqueror, huh?”