Pieces of Paisley (45 page)

I finally manage to drag myself into a semi-coherent state, taking note of the stark white walls, the hum of the fluorescent lights above me, and the constant rising and falling of the machine breathing in time with me. I’m alone, and for the first time since my parents died, the solitude scares me. I hear the beep of the heart monitor start to quicken as my anxiety rises. I can’t scream for help and can’t see through my swollen eyes to find a button to call a nurse. The bathroom door flies open, and a massive form stands there. Or, is it my imagination? A nurse races in, giving me what I assume is a sedative before I can identify the form in my room. Everything darkens, and I hear murmuring voices.

The next time I wake, it’s dark. There’s a little overhead light behind me, but the sounds are the same. This time, however, I’m not alone. There’s a bear of a hand clutching mine. When I turn my head to see whose hand is clutching mine, I get shooting pains in my head, and I whimper with the suffering. My pitiful cries wake him, but I still can’t tell who he is.

“Shh, baby. Don’t try to move. I’ll get the nurse.” There’s a light kiss on top of my forehead, and though it has a familiar sound, I still can’t identify the voice.

The nurse comes in, checking monitors, typing things on her iPad, before acknowledging me. “Ms. Pierce, you gave us quite a scare. Don’t try to talk with the tube in your throat. I’ll see what we can do to get that taken out soon. Are you in pain?”

I nod my head to communicate.

“Can you hold up your fingers to tell me from one to ten, what your pain level is?” She seems kind. Her voice is patient and warm. I show her eight fingers and point to my head. Then six and point to my arm, which I realize, is in a cast. There’s a throb between my legs, and I almost motion a number for that region, but with the memories flooding my brain, I just start to cry instead. Quiet tears stream down my face pooling on my shoulder.

The mammoth of a man stands beside me the moment the waterworks start, wiping them away, caressing my cheek. I try like hell to focus on his face, to recognize him, to hold on to something familiar when the voice I’ve heard singing to me in my dreams softly whispers in my ear, “Don’t cry, Kitten. You’re safe.” Fucking Dax Cooper. Oddly, I just lean into his voice, my cheek rubbing against the stubble on his face. He kisses me softly on my cheek, sitting back down next to the bed. He picks up a guitar that must have been close by and starts to play, and within minutes, he’s lulled me back to sleep.

“Kitten, I need you to wake up. Come on, I know you’re tired, but the doctor’s here to see you and to take the tube out.” I open my eyes wider than it seems I have in years, the light blinding me as I reach up to cover them with my hand. There are cords everywhere; I can’t imagine how many machines are monitoring some function of my body. Once my eyes adjust to the light, everything comes into focus. Turning my head is still painful and I’m sporting a massive migraine, but the overall level of pain has definitely dropped since the last time I evaluated it.

The doctor catches my attention in his white lab coat. I just stare at him, waiting for him to speak since I can’t. He smiles at me, and I think I just heard Dax growl next to me, but it could have been a machine. “Hi, Ms. Pierce, I’m Dr. Johnson. You seem to be doing much better than the night you came in.” I just shrug. I don’t know how I felt the night I came in. I look over to Dax for comfort, but he is giving Dr. Johnson the death glare and wringing the life out of my hand in the process. Rounding the room again with my newfound vision, the doctor starts asking about pain levels, but he is more specific in his questions. He tells me that my skull has been fractured in multiple places, hence the reason for the migraine. I rate it at a seven; then change it to a six. My arm has been broken in two spots; it is uncomfortable but not really any pain, so I hold up a one. There are bruises and lacerations all over my back and sides from the brick wall. When questioned about them, I give him a one. Three of the toes on my right foot have been broken, and I show him three fingers. Every time I try to wiggle them, the little bastards shoot pain through my leg. Dr. Johnson hesitates – it doesn’t escape my attention that he has gone all around my body but skipped a large section. “Ms. Pierce, would you like us to go over the rest of your injuries privately?”

I look over at Dax; he is the only person in the room that isn’t a medical professional. His eyes are swimming with kindness; I’d only seen them so soft when he looked at Julie that day at her desk. “Cameron, if you want to do this privately, I can step outside. I don’t mind. Or, I can stay here and hold your hand and try to walk through the heartache with you.” If I could reach up and kiss him, I would. His words are soft and sincere; he’d whispered them to me, giving me the choice. “Do you want me to wait in the hall?” I debate, and my guess is he already knows what happened. I don’t know how long he’s been here, but I’m pretty sure he was in the ambulance with me, how I’m not sure. This is going to be humiliating with or without him, but at least with him I won’t be submerged in solitude. I shake my head no and give his hand a small squeeze. When I look back at the doctor, he resumes speaking.

“There is no delicate way to put any of this. You were brutally raped. There was an object used for penetration other than a penis, although that was used as well. There was tearing both inside and out. Your uterine wall was torn as well. There are a lot of stitches, which is the discomfort you still feel. Unfortunately, until those come out and the swelling goes down, we can’t evaluate long-term damage. Hopefully, there won’t be any other than a few small scars.” He keeps talking, but I tune out. It appears Dax is listening intently, so I let my mind wander and block out the voices. At some point, they decide to take out the breathing tube leaving my throat feeling like there is a raging inferno burning through my esophagus. The nurse brings me water but doesn’t want me to drink much at one time. She asks if I want pain medication, but I just shake my head no. I want to hold on to a few moments of lucidity, even if I am in pain. The medical posse files out of the room leaving me alone with Dax.

Looking over at him, taking in his overwhelming presence, his beautiful green eyes staring at me, waiting for me to say something. “Dax, why are you here?” My voice is hoarse and comes off harsh, which is unintended.

“I’ve been with you since the police found you,” his voice is smooth and empathetic.

“But how?”

His eyes close slowly as if he is reliving an event he doesn’t really want to talk about. “My buddy, Fisher, is on the Greenville PD. I’ve talked to him a lot about you, so has Julie. When they found you and got your license out of your wallet, he recognized the name, although not the beautiful woman I had spoken so fondly of. He called me.” He pauses as if to collect his thoughts, “Geezus, Cameron, he scared the shit out of me. He wouldn’t give me any details and just asked if you had any family he could contact. I called Julie, and she said you didn’t have any that she was aware of and didn’t know how to reach any of your friends. I called Fisher back, found out where you were, and once I got to you, I couldn’t leave. I was in the ambulance with you, but I paid hell when we got here because I wasn’t a relative. Fisher managed to use his pull to get me in, and once I had been here for a couple of days, the nurses all knew me and left me alone.”

Silence fills the room. I don’t know what to say to this man. I have been nothing short of a raging bitch to him and stood him up for dinner; yet, here he sits.

“How long have I been here?”

“Today makes the eighth day.”

“You’ve never left?”

“No.”

“I kept hearing a guitar and someone singing to me. I thought it was an angel. That was you wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why does anyone do anything, Cameron?”

“I don’t like that.”

Confused, “You don’t like what?”

“You calling me Cameron.”

“I’m sorry. What would you prefer?”

“No.” I can see the pain in his eyes, as if he is about to face rejection after eight days of vigilant watch at my bedside. “My friends call me Cam – but from you….” I hesitate, not sure of what I am about to say. “I prefer Kitten, unless you used that with other women, in which case, you need to stop.” I can’t make eye contact with him, unsure of how he will take my revelation.

“Kitten is and has been reserved solely for you, Cam. I’ve never called anyone else Kitten. It just suited you the moment I saw you. You have this sweet look to you, but damn you have some sharp claws.” He smiles as he says it, and I know he means it as a compliment. “You look really tired. Are you in pain?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to sleep, and every time they give me pain medication it knocks me out.”

“You need to rest. I’ll get the nurse to give you something.” His voice is back to that no-nonsense alpha I had encountered in my office so many times.

In an attempt to lighten his mood, I say, “Don’t go all Dom on me, Dax. I just want to be present for a little while.”

He lets out a roaring laugh. “Kitten, you don’t know shit about me going Dom, but you will. I’ll give you this one since you’ve been asleep for over a week, but don’t test me in the future. I won’t be so lenient.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything.”

“How bad has this been publicized?”

“You mean what happened to you?” I just nod, dreading what he is about to tell me. “It hasn’t. I mean, there were news reports about a woman being raped and beaten but no mention of your name, and baby, even if someone had gotten a picture to release to the press, you weren’t recognizable when they found you.”

“So no one knows where I am?”

“Well, I do. Julie does. She said she would take care of anyone at work who needed to know and field questions about your absence to anyone who didn’t need to know. Your cell phone was pretty much demolished. I guess it got stomped on, so I wasn’t able to call any of your friends, and I didn’t know of any family to try to find.”

I just nod my head. I know I need to reach out to my family, not blood related, but the only family I have. There are five of us girls who are thick as thieves, who have held me up, and me them, since my parents died, my Fishes. “I need you to call my girlfriends. They’re the only family I have.”

“Okay. Just tell me their names and numbers, and I’ll call them.” He fumbles around the room looking for a pen and piece of paper to write on. When he turns back to me, tears are streaming down my face. “No, no, no, don’t cry. I’ll call them. It’s okay.”

“I don’t know any of their phone numbers,” I wail. “They’ve all just been programmed in my phone for so long that I never have to dial them.”

He is stifling laughter. “Just give me their names. I’ll get Fisher to find their numbers.”

“You’re laughing at me,” I am pouting.

“No, sweetheart, I’m not. I realize that if I lost my phone, I don’t think I could even call my parents. Ahh, the age of technology. So let me have it. Give me their names, and I’ll call Fisher.”

“Piper Pritchard, Charlotte Barton, Sutton Leigh, and Rachel Gordon.” I look up at him with hopeful eyes. I need my girls, desperately. “Dax?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“How bad do I look?”

He hesitates, undoubtedly trying to find the least painful words he can. “Umm. Cam, that’s kind of an unfair question.”

“You said when they found me my face was unrecognizable. Is it still?”

“No, most of the swelling is gone, and the bruises have turned yellowish green. There are a lot of scratches on your face, but they’re healing. Your lip was busted open pretty badly, but they sewed it back together. Geez, Cam. You’re still fucking beautiful. Do you want a mirror?”

I just nod. He starts looking around the room for one, but other than the one in the bathroom there doesn’t seem to be one present. “I’ll be right back,” he says as he turns out of the room. When he comes back, he says a nurse will bring one up from the maternity ward. As promised, a few minutes later, a huge mirror on wheels strolls through the door. “Kitten, what you look like isn’t important. The fact that you’re alive is.”

He gives me fair warning, but I am not prepared for what I see. My head is enormous, my face sickly shades of green, blue, and yellow. My eye sockets are almost hollow looking, lip busted and swollen covered in stitches, more bruising around my neck and ears. Everywhere I look, there is something wrong, out of place, not the right color. Tears fill my eyes. Dax anticipates my reaction and moves in front of the mirror to block my view. He crouches down in front of me as I sit on the side of the bed. He takes both hands and gently kisses the side of my mouth. When I close my eyes, the tears escape.

“Baby, you’re going to look good as new in no time. You’re still just as beautiful as you were the day you stood me up.” He winks at me eliciting a small grin. I have no idea why he’s here or why he’s been here. I have no idea why I want him to stay. He feels safe. I feel protected. Tilting his head, he rests his forehead on mine, searching my eyes, for what I don’t know. A smile graces his full lips, and he kisses me on the nose.

“I’m sorry, Dax.”

“For what?”

“For standing you up that night for dinner, for your spending eight days in this crappy place, for putting you in a position that makes you feel like you need to protect me, for being such a bitch when you came to my office.” I can’t fathom why he has stayed with me after I dismissed him. He makes me want to tear down the walls I’ve spent years erecting, yet I know if I let him in, he will have the power to destroy me when he leaves.