Always a Warrior(40)
On an abrupt surge of panic, she frantically yanked off the sheet. “I have to find my daughter. Get the police. It’s been too long. They could be anywhere.”
“You’re in no condition to go anywhere,” the doctor spoke gently but firmly as he forced her back down.
She struggled weakly despite the agony stabbing into her body. “No!”
“Nurse, sedative!” the doctor ordered briskly. “He wants to see her, but she has to remain calm.”
The needle slid into her arm. Firm pressure built then the needle slid from her skin. He?
Who? She dropped into dreamless sleep, those questions circling her mind along with fear for her daughter.
She once again clawed her way to painful consciousness and slowly lifted her lashes. The hospital room was a blur. The glare of even dim lights hurt despite the dark of night outside the window. Slowly, gingerly, whimpering as she narrowed her eyes, she sat up. A long dark shadow moved and the lights dimmed further. A fuzzy shadow hovered beside her bed. She squinted until her visitor came into sharper focus.
ALWAYS A WARRIOR Patricia Bruening
59
“Damien?” she croaked, her mind fuzzy with drugs and lingering pain. She shook her head and a sharp dagger of pain stabbed her. A ragged gasp escaped her.
The chair scraped the floor as Damien shifted closer. “Are you all right?”
“Stupid question,” she snapped testily. “I have to find Stacy.”
“She’s fine. She’s with your mother.”
That gentle assurance should have calmed her. It didn’t.
“Shit,” she groaned weakly, not entirely from the pain or the drugs. “I’ll never hear the end of this.”
“How are you feeling?”
“It hurts, Damien!” she snapped irately and winced at another sharp escalation of pain.
She squirmed restlessly, seeking a position that hurt a little less. “Play chicken with a car and a brick wall and see how you feel.”
He nodded slowly as he raked his sharp stare over her. His eyes went darker and turned implacable.
“What do you remember?”
“Everything.” She related the details of the accident, including her part in causing it.
“Resourceful,” he commented quietly. Then his eyes hardened, his expression turned harsh and relentless, as he once again became the professional soldier. “Why the hell didn’t you just stay put?”
“Stacy was gone! No one was there!” she yelled in a mix of hurt and anger that had nothing to with the pain in her skull. “You didn’t bother to tell me you were taking her. I was scared and alone. He pointed a gun at me! I thought I was dead. I thought Stacy was ….” Her voice hitched on a guttural sob. “I thought you ….”
She cringed and broke off at the sudden blaze of fury in his eyes. A fierce scowl marred his features as he loomed over her.
“You thought I what?” he demanded in a low, dangerous growl.
Cringing back against the upraised hospital bed, the pillows cushioning her head, she shook her head. Tears gathered in her eyes and she turned her head, looking away from him.
Tremors of pain, emotional and physical, rocked her. She closed her eyes on a whimper of confusion and fear.
He gripped her chin, forced her head back. She opened her eyes warily and flinched at his harsh expression.
“You thought I or someone else kidnapped her.” He didn’t ask. His words made a grim statement of betrayal. He glared hard at her as he said bitterly, “I would never harm a child. I am not a traitor, Laurie. Whatever happens, believe that.”
He abruptly pulled back and sat on the edge of the chair. “You should have stayed at the cabin.”
Her lower lip trembled and she clamped her teeth on it. That small pain could not compete with the rest of the aches and throbs.
“I was terrified, Damien,” she murmured as tears spilled over her lashes. “And alone—
can’t you understand that?” She begged for just the smallest amount of compassion. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
She tore her blurry gaze from him, clenched her shaking hand into a tight fist on the sheet covering her. Through a combination of drugs, pain, and exhaustion, she did not possess the strength to argue or plead further. She didn’t even try to speak past the lump in her throat. Her heart hurt and her body hurt. Her mind whirled in confused circles. Nothing made sense.
ALWAYS A WARRIOR Patricia Bruening
60
Damien’s hand covered her fist, massaging gently until her fingers uncurled and entwined with his. She reluctantly opened her eyes again, peering at him through a veil of tears.