Text (Take It Off #4)(25)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“Nah. I caught a couple hours of sleep.”

“Where?”

“Right here.”

He slept in the chair beside my bed? Damn if that didn’t make my heart turn over.

“I should talk to the police.” I started to push myself up.

He moved quickly, gently pressing me back down. “I already talked to them.”

“You did?”

He nodded. “Yes. I gave them a description, his name, and his address.”

Relief made me weak, and I leaned back against the pillow. “Did they arrest him?”

The area around Nathan’s eyes became pinched. “Not yet.”

Well, this wasn’t good. “Why not?”

“They’re still looking for him.”

“Where is he?” I demanded.

“We aren’t sure. They’ve got men out in the woods where you were. He’s just… gone.”

“They believe us, right?” I worried. What if they thought I was lying? What if no one believed us? He would just get away with what he did.

“Yes, Honor, they believe us. They found the hole you were in.”

My stomach tightened at the thought of that nasty hole. I had another thought that had me sitting up quickly. My head swam, but I ignored it. “The necklace!”

“I gave it to them.” He reassured me. “I showed them the picture you texted me too.”

“What was her name?” I whispered. I needed to know the name of the girl who wasn’t as lucky as I was.

He frowned. “Honor—”

“Her name,” I said firmly, cutting off whatever protest he was about to spew.

“Mary.”

I was silent while the name sank in. The horrors she must have experienced in her final hours of life were things no woman should ever have to endure. Memories of the truck, of my kidnapper pinning me down and putting his… his… parts in my face assaulted me.

I squeezed my eyes closed, willing away the images.

“Hey,” Nathan said, and I felt the bed dip beneath his weight. “What’s going on in there?” I felt his finger tap my forehead.

I opened my eyes and stared into his blue irises. “How do you forget?” I whispered.

He knew what I meant. I could see it on his face. It was the kind of understanding that told me he too had experienced things that would forever leave a mark on his soul.

He trailed the backs of his knuckles over my cheek and then tucked my hair behind my ear. “You don’t,” he said gently. “You just have to find a way to live with it and go on.”

“Will it get easier?”

I saw the war wage in his eyes. He wanted to tell me yes. He wanted to take away some of what I was feeling. But Nathan was no liar; that much I knew to the deepest places within me. He wasn’t the kind of man to sugarcoat something that couldn’t be sweetened.

“I don’t know, baby,” he said gently. “I sure hope so.”

My chest felt tight and my stomach was jittery. Hearing such tenderness out of this large and steely man did things—very good things—to my body.

It was the stuff I wrote about.

The stuff I never really thought existed outside of those pages.

My fingers itched; they longed to touch him. He was so close, and he watched me so carefully that I couldn’t resist slowly reaching out to trace along the jagged scar that stretched across his cheekbone. He didn’t flinch or pull away. He sat there completely still while my fingers caressed him.

“What happened to you?” I whispered.

He caught my fingers and pulled them away, wrapping his around mine, dwarfing my hand in his, and pulled it close to his chest. I waited for his answer, curious and patient at the same time. I knew whatever answer he would give would not come easy, and I didn’t mind waiting. Nathan was a man worth waiting for.

The door made a loud scraping sound as it opened and dragged across the floor. Irritation skittered through me because someone dared to interrupt this moment. I didn’t want anyone else in here. I only wanted Nathan.

Get a grip, I told myself. This isn’t some cheesy soap opera. This is real life. You got shit to do.

But even my thoughts couldn’t keep my eyes from straying from him.

“Miss Calhoun,” an older doctor in a white coat said. “Glad to see you’re awake.” He carried a clipboard (didn’t they always?) and had the traditional stethoscope hung around his neck.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked as Nathan released my hand and returned to his chair beside the bed.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“The police are here. They would like to take your statement.”

Nathan sat up a little higher in his chair but said nothing. I nodded. “That’s fine. I’m sorry I slept so long.”

“Your body needed the rest, Miss Calhoun. We gave you something to help you sleep. From here on out, you will be getting Naproxen, which is similar to a strong Motrin.”

I nodded.

“Are you in pain?”

“A little,” I admitted. “But it’s not as bad as before.”

The doctor glanced at the clipboard. “Most of your injuries are superficial and will heal quickly. You have a lot of bruising, some swelling, and a bump on your head. It doesn’t appear that you have a concussion. We put three stitches in your hand and removed the glass that was beneath the skin.”

I glanced down at my hand, which was bandaged. How had I not realized I had stitches until he pointed it out? It must have been from the glass in the truck.

“Our biggest concern is your ribs.” The doctor continued.

“They’re broken,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. Several of them. You appear to have suffered blunt force trauma to your torso area.”

“He kicked me,” I reiterated.

The doctor cleared his throat. “You have heavy bruising, swelling, and mild tissue damage. Have you ever had a broken rib before?”

“No.” I’d never had a broken bone at all.

“It’s quite painful. There really is no treatment for a broken rib, just pain management, which is what the Naproxen is for. Years ago, doctors used compression bandages to treat broken ribs, but its since been deemed unsafe. You see, the risks of having broken ribs is that you’re at a high risk for pneumonia.”

Pneumonia? That was weird.

“She was out in the rain, in the cold, all night,” Nathan said.

“I’m aware,” the doctor replied. “So far, you show no signs of becoming ill.”