Torch (Take It Off) (3 page)

“You were very lucky,” the doctor said, interrupting my momentary freak-out.

“Lucky?”

“Your injuries are not serious considering the extent of the fire.” He glanced at the stranger and then back at me. “You have first-degree burns in places on your hands and second-degree burns on your wrists. We kept you heavily sedated for the first couple days to keep you comfortable. But I’m afraid there is still going to be pain. Your skin is damaged. There may be scarring. We are keeping it clean and medicated with antibiotics to help with infection. The dressings must be changed every eight hours. Unfortunately, this will aggravate the pain. The burns on your hands are considerably less and should heal much faster. I’d like to keep you here for another day and, baring no complications or sign or infection, you can leave. I will prescribe you pain medicine for the pain and the nurse will go over how to change your dressings.” He paused with his bad news, then said, “Miss Parks, is there someone that we can contact for you? A relative, a spouse? Someone who will be able to help you during the next few weeks?”

I wanted to say yes. I didn’t want to see the flash of pity that would surely creep into his eyes when I said no. But there was no one. There hadn’t been for a very long time.

“No.”

“I see. Well, in that case, you can come by twice a day to have your bandages changed by the staff.”

“I can manage,” I said a little too harshly.

He nodded curtly. “I would like to examine you now, if that’s okay?”

I nodded.

“I’ll wait outside,” the stranger said and then disappeared.

I suffered through the exam, barely able to concentrate on the doctor or his invasive questions. I couldn’t help but keep glancing at the door, wondering if he had left. Wondering if I would see him again.

After the doctor finished torturing me and poking at the huge bruise covering my shoulder and upper arm (likely from when I fell over in the chair), he took his leave, but not before promising to come back later. Oh, joy.

I heard the deep baritone of a man talking and the doctor giving a short reply. Before the door could completely close, it was pushed open and a dark head appeared. “Can I come in?”

I nodded.

He was carrying a new pitcher of water, identical to the one sitting beside the bed. He gestured toward it. “The nurse gave me some fresh water with ice. It’s probably better than the tap water I gave you,” he said sheepishly.

I was embarrassed to realize I would have drunk sewer water if he were offering it to me.

I watched as he poured me a new glass and transferred the straw from the old cup into the new one and extended it to me. I took it, though curling my fingers around it proved to be harder than I thought, but I did it, proud that I didn’t wince at the pain of my skin stretching over bone.

He regarded me through those crystal-blue eyes as I drank down half of the water. It was icy cold and felt like little needles against my throat, but I continued to drink, my body greedily demanding more.

When I was finished, he took the cup without me asking and placed it on a table that he wheeled right up near my lap.

“You’re a fireman?” I asked. “You’re the one who…?”

He nodded. “I’m a firefighter.”

“You threw me into a pool.” I scowled.

He grinned. “You were on fire.”

“Well, there is that,” I allowed. Talking to him was entirely too easy. Looking at him was entirely too easy. I couldn’t forget the reason he was here. “You saved my life.”

“All in a day’s work,” he said, giving a little shrug.

“Should I call the nurse?” I asked.

Alarm wiped the barely there smirk off his face and stiffened his posture. He leaned a little closer, those eyes sweeping over my body. “Are you in pain?”

“We might need something for swelling,” I replied. “I’ve never seen anyone’s head grow so much so fast.” Was I flirting?

Oh my God, I was totally flirting.

Relief filled his eyes and he grinned. His teeth were bright against the dark of his scruff. “Think she’d give me a sponge bath too?”

The image of him naked and dripping wet with water had the stupid monitor beeping all over again. I hated that stupid thing.

He glanced between me and the monitor, a sly smile curving his lips. When the nurse came in and pressed the button and checked the screen, he winked at me.

He winked.

That small gesture had me clenching my thighs together beneath the scratchy blankets.

After the nurse warned him about too much excitement (I was going to die of embarrassment), we were alone again.

“I have to say…” His eyes gleamed. “You are much more amusing when you’re awake.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve been here?” I said, all trace of flirting aside.

“I’ve been a couple other times.”

“A couple?”

He shrugged nonchalantly.

“But why?” I blurted before my manners could rear their ugly head.

He seemed to balk at that question, like he wasn’t really sure what to say or how to say it.

“I get it,” I told him. “It’s like some fireman follow-up policy? Checking in to make sure the victim is okay?”

“Yeah, just following up.”

I nodded. “As you can see, I’m going to be fine.”

“You told the doctor someone tried to kill you.”

“Well, I didn’t tie myself to the chair and light my house on fire.”

His fists clenched at his sides, like my words made him angry. The muscles in the side of his jaw ticked—a movement I found very distracting.

“Who would try to kill you?” he asked after a few moments.

“That’s exactly what we would like to know as well,” said a new voice as someone swept into the room.

It was two cops. One female, one male. I had no doubt in my mind that whenever they interrogated someone, the blonde played the good cop and the short, stalky man played the bad cop. “Katie Parks?” the man asked, looking at me.

“Yes.”

“We’re here to discuss the events from four nights ago.”

“That’s my cue to leave,” the fireman said from my side.

I would much rather talk to him than the police.

“And you are?” the female police officer said, pulling out her pad and pen like she was going to write it down. I knew she wasn’t going to. She just wanted to know his name. I really couldn’t blame her.

“Holt. Holt Arkain”

His name sizzled me like a bolt of lightning straight to the heart. I’d never heard that name before, but it fit him so well. Strong yet rugged… casual yet unique.

“You’re the guy who pulled her from the fire,” the male cop said.

Holt nodded.

“You know the victim?”

“Uh, no. I was just…” He glanced at me. “Following up to make sure she was okay.”

Something about the way he said it made me think he was here for more than that. But it must have been the pain meds because the officers nodded and then he was walking out the door… I would probably never see him again.

“Holt?” I said, liking the way his name seemed to slip right into my vocabulary.

He stopped his retreat and looked over his shoulder at me. “Yes?”

“Thank you. For saving my life.”

There it was, that cocky grin again. “My pleasure.”

And then he was gone. I couldn’t help but notice how the “good cop” suddenly looked like the bad one. Perhaps she’d been hoping for his phone number.

I felt a little gleeful knowing she wasn’t going to get it.

Of course, I likely would never see him again either.

All trace of glee went away. In fact, I wave of weariness washed over me. The officer cleared his throat and looked at me expectantly. I didn’t know what I could tell them. I didn’t know anything.

3

As it turned out, I learned a lot more from the police officers than they learned from me. They stayed in my room for almost an hour, asking me question after question.
Do you have any enemies? Did you see the arsonist who set fire to your home? Why didn’t you wake up when they dragged you from your bed and tied you to a chair? Who could want to kill you?

On and on the questions went.

I didn’t have an answer for any of them. The honest truth was I had no enemies (that I knew of), I couldn’t see the person with the match, and I also really wanted to know why I didn’t wake up while being tied to chair. The most logical thing I could come up with was that this was some random act of violence carried out by some seriously unbalanced psycho.

After listening to me repeat my answers over and over, I think the police were coming around to my way of thinking as well. It could have been a burglary gone wrong. It could have been a stupid prank that got out of hand. It could have been a million and one things—all of which made me extremely exhausted to think about.

When the nurse finally ordered them out of my room I was practically in tears. I hated crying. It was a useless waste of energy. Energy that could be better spent doing something that would actually help my situation.

And the situation was pretty grim.

My home was completely destroyed.

According to the police, there was nothing left to salvage.

I did have insurance that would likely cover the home and everything inside, but that really didn’t make me feel any better. Everything I owned was gone. The life I built for myself, the life I wanted so badly, was now reduced to a pile of blackened ash.

You’ll just start over,
I told myself in an effort to lift my spirits. It didn’t work. Starting over was something I hated. I had done it so often in the past few years that doing it again made me want to scream bloody murder.

Bloody murder.
Okay, that was a bad choice of words.

The idea of starting over again made me want to punch a whole bunch of people in the face.

Yeah, that was better.

If I focused on the anger inside me, I wouldn’t have room to think about how utterly devastating it felt to lose everything. I really thought I finally found my place in the world. It hadn’t been a large place, but it was mine and that meant more to me than anything.

But with the single strike of a match, everything I ever wanted was consumed by flames.

I drifted off into a fitful sleep, the memory of the fire taunting my subconscious. Just when the memories threatened to choke me, a man with icy-blue eyes appeared and like a bucket of water, his mere presence doused me—extinguishing the worst of my fear.

As the night wore on, pain began to throb. It felt like my skin was on fire all over again—it burned and tingled. I wanted to rip at the bandages and just scrape off the tender, damaged skin until there was nothing left of my wrists but bone. The skin on my hands screamed at me, feeling tight and puckered. All I could do was lie there and wonder how long the pain was going to last. When would I know some relief?

When the sun rose, I decided I wasn’t going to even pretend to sleep anymore and I pushed the button for the nurse.

“The pain,” I told her when she appeared, “it’s worse than yesterday.”

She nodded empathetically. “That’s because the doctor has lowered the dose of pain medication you’re on—you were on a much higher dose when you arrived.”

“So the pain isn’t going to go away?”

She frowned. “You will be feeling some pain. Burns are very painful. But it’s about time for your regular dose, so I can give you that. Once it kicks in, I’m going to have to change your bandages.”

I bit back a groan. She was only doing her job; I wasn’t going to make her feel bad for it.

True to her word, just as I was getting some relief from the pain, she appeared carrying clean bandages and some supplies. “Look who I found out in the hall,” the nurse said, propping open the door with her foot.

It opened wide when Holt shouldered through, his eyes going straight to the bed where I lay. I reached up to brush the hair out of my eyes, taking a moment to worry about the way I looked before stinging pain reminded me I was an idiot for worrying about the way I looked.

He appeared beside me soundlessly and brushed back the tangled hair, tucking it behind my ear. But instead of pulling away, he trailed his fingertips lightly across my cheek over to the bridge of my nose where he trailed them downward before lifting his hand away.

“You have a million freckles,” he said, those icy eyes looking anything but frozen.

My stomach did a summersault. “Curse of a redhead,” I replied, my voice scraping from my throat. Geez, could I be any more unsexy?

The nurse didn’t say anything, but I felt her stare and I tore my eyes away from him to peek at her. She was watching us as she placed all her supplies on the small rolling table beside me.

“Is this a bad time?” Holt asked, not once looking away from my face.

“You’re just in time for the torture,” I replied.

“I’ll be as gentle as I can,” the nurse said, settling beside me. “Maybe it’s good he’s here. He can distract you from the discomfort.”

“You’re in pain?” he said, his glacial eyes sharpened. His full, kissable lips pulled into a straight line, like the idea of me being in pain made him unhappy.

“It’s not so bad,” I said, realizing I didn’t want him to see how much it hurt.

“I’m just going to remove the bandages, apply this antibiotic, and then rewrap it,” the nurse said, drawing away my attention.

Holt grabbed a chair and pulled it up beside the bed, sitting down and propping those humungous feet of his up on the end of the mattress.

“Your feet are huge,” I blurted.

He grinned. “You look like you’re twelve.”

“I do not!”

He face grew serious. “How old are you anyway?”

“Asking a lady her age is impolite,” the nurse said as she peeled away what was left of the bandage.

If he replied, I didn’t hear. All my attention was sucked down onto my wrist. It looked like a package of raw hamburger. Shiny, raw hamburger. In some places, the skin was bubbled up and loose; in others, the skin was completely gone, leaving behind nothing but red, fleshy-looking parts. The air brushed over it, and I bit down on my lower lip. I never knew air had the ability to inflict pain.

“It’s going to look real bad, but that’s just the skin’s way of healing. Don’t be upset by what you see.”

But I was upset. It looked awful and it felt worse. I knew it would heal, and I didn’t care about the scars it would leave behind, but in that moment, my injuries were a reminder of everything I endured—everything I lost.

I stared down at the mess as the nurse went about cleaning the area and applying the antibiotic. A fine sheen of cold sweat broke out over my forehead and my stomach turned.

Something warm and solid landed on my thigh. I could feel the heat of it even through the blankets that covered my legs. My eyes moved away from the burn and toward the hand that was lying in my lap. Slowly, my gaze traveled up his arm, past his shoulder and unshaven jaw to collide with his eyes. His thumb drew a lazy circle over the blanket, and I forgot about everything else going on around me.

If a single touch from him could make the entire world fall away, then what would his kiss be like?

“So will you smack me if I ask you how old you are again?” he said. I stared at his mouth as he formed the words.

I shook my head. “I’m twenty-two.”

His fingers tightened around my thigh for a second before relaxing once more. “That’s good.”

Why was that good? “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Almost done,” the nurse said. I had completely forgotten she was there. I looked back at my wrist, thankful it was already being covered with a fresh bandage. “One more to go,” she said, moving around the other side of the bed.

Holt pushed away and stood up. Instantly, my thigh missed the warmth of his palm. “I’ll explain what I’m doing with this one so you’ll know what to do when you’re released tomorrow.”

I nodded as he moved around to the side the nurse just left.

“Who will you be staying with? When they get here, I’ll gladly come in and explain to them how to change these. It would be easier for someone with two hands to use.”

“I’ll be staying by myself,” I said, watching as she revealed the other wrist. This one looked exactly the same. “I’ll be able to do this, though.”

The nurse glanced up, pity flashing into her eyes. I hated it. “You’re going to be alone?”

I wonder what she would say if I told her I’d pretty much been alone since the age of fifteen. Instead, I just nodded.

She frowned. “Maybe I should speak to the doctor. Perhaps delaying your release would be best.”

“No!” I said quickly. “That isn’t necessary. Thank you. I’ll be just fine.”

“But we don’t normally release burn victims without someone to help them.”

Burn victim.
Her words made my ears ring. I was a burn victim. Someone tried to kill me. I had no idea why.

Before I could tumble into that black hole of worry, Holt’s voice pulled me back. “Where are you going to stay?”

I hadn’t really thought about it. It was hard to wrap my head around the thought that my little house was gone. I’d only gotten to live there for barely a year. “A hotel, I guess,” I replied.

He frowned.

The nurse began explaining what to do with the bandages and medicine. I paid attention, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill onto my cheeks. I was no baby, but this hurt. The kind of pain I hoped I never had to feel again.

The doctor came in as the nurse collected her supplies. He stopped at the foot of my bed and stared down at me the way he had yesterday. “I received some of your lab results.” He looked over at Holt before continuing.

“It’s okay. He can stay,” I said. I knew I barely knew him (okay, I didn’t know him at all), but there was something about him that just made me comfortable.

“You had traces of gamma hydroxybutyric acid, commonly known as GHB, in your blood stream.”

“Isn’t that the date rape drug?” I asked, confused. Then a whole other kind of alarm swamped me. Oh my God, was I raped? Immediately, I started to pay attention to certain parts of me… like the parts between my legs. Did it feel different? Did I feel different? Why hadn’t I thought of this before? I had no clue how I ended up tied to that chair in my living room… What else did I not remember?