Hidden Depths(28)
“No. No hospital.” Her voice didn’t even sound as if it was hers.
“Look, I stitched up your wound, but I’m no doctor. I have no way of knowing whether you might have internal injuries or something might be broken.”
Two conditions with which she unfortunately had plenty of experience and she knew she didn’t have either right now. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not a doctor either.” He paused. “Or are you?” he added sardonically.
She said nothing.
“Is Andrea Prentiss really even your name?”
She closed her eyes, feeling the dull magic of the whiskey. She felt so warm and safe, with only the manageable pain of the knife wound, stitched up and bandaged. Life was good right now and that was all she had ever really asked for.
She drifted off to sleep again, at the last hearing his soft voice. “We will talk, Andrea.”
The second time she awoke a hand was at her shoulder nudging her, and the pain was sharper. Evan Reynolds was seated on the bed beside her, holding out some tablets and a glass of water. “You were moaning in your sleep and going for your bandage. I was worried you’d hurt yourself. Here take these.”
She did, automatically, as he added, “They’re codeine. I found them in a knapsack I’d forgotten about. They should help.”
Instead of the khaki pants, he was in gray sweats this time and a Yale T-shirt. The room was dark too, just the illumination from the moonlight through the windows.
She drank the whole glass of water.
“Are you hungry? I can make some soup.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m fine.”
“When was the last time you’ve eaten?”
She felt her head clear a bit despite the codeine, which probably wouldn’t have kicked in yet anyway. Now would come the questions. And she had never wanted those. She really just wanted to go back to sleep.
As if he heard her thoughts, he warned, “You’re not going back to sleep this time. You’ve been out for almost a full day.”
That caused her to sit up a little. “I have?” The croak she remembered in her voice from the last time she had tried to talk was gone.
“Yes, and I have to change your bandage. I still worry about internal damage.”
“Don’t. I know what that feels like. I don’t have it.”
He frowned at her, but let it go. The implements to change her bandage were ready on the night table and he pulled the bed covers down to her hips and pulled up the shirt she just noticed she was wearing so it bared her wound. As he bent over her, she registered a number of sensations simultaneously. The soft cotton of the shirt, which must have been his, the fact that her hair was tied back in some version of a long braid so it was not all wild around her as she last remembered it, and the warmth of his breath on her abdomen as he carefully peeled back the bandage, washed the wound with a warm white washcloth, reapplying some salve, and then applied a clean bandage. All these things overwhelmed her at once. She felt…taken care of.
It made her want to burst out in tears. But hell, she’d put him through enough.
As he got up to discard the used bandage, she pulled her shirt down and her covers up. But before she could snuggle up to drift off again, he was back beside her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Really, Andrea. You have to stay awake. You need to eat something. Or at the very least don’t you need to use the bathroom?”
The observation embarrassed her and she mumbled, “Of course,” starting to will her languid limbs into motion again, trying to get out of bed. God, she was so very tired.
His arm came around her waist. “Here, let me help you.”
He walked—well, half carried her—to the adjoining bathroom, but she managed to do her business while he waited outside. When she was done, he led her to an armchair by the windows and urged her gently down.
“Sit here for a second while I change the sheets. Does it still hurt much?”
“No, no, it’s fine. I’m just tired.” Her head fell back against the cushion of the chair, but she forced it up again. “I’ll get out of your hair soon. I promise.”
He was ripping the sheets off the bed, throwing them into a corner, and efficiently putting on another set. “And how would you do that?” he muttered. When he was done, he turned to look squarely at her. “This island isn’t that big. I went around it at least twice while you were out trying to see if there was any trace of a boat. But I didn’t find one.”
She said nothing.
“How the hell did you get here, Andrea?”
She shook her head.
“More to the point, where have you been? Where did you get that knife wound?”