Home to Whiskey Creek (Whiskey Creek #4)(12)
Author: Brenda Novak

“Maybe I should’ve gone to the hospital.” The fewer people who saw her beaten up, the better. But she’d never dreamed that her plan to avoid medical care could be thwarted by slivers. When she was in Noah’s truck insisting he bring her home, she’d been hurting but hurting everywhere. She’d assumed all the injuries would heal with time, had no clue she’d need this kind of help.

Relaxing into his chair, he sighed. “’Bout time you said that. Come on, I’ll take you.”

Somewhat dazed by the drugs, she rose up on her elbows. Did they really have to go to the hospital? They’d made it this far…. “How much longer do you think it’ll take to get the rest?”

“I haven’t seen what I’m up against, of course. But I’m guessing…twenty minutes?”

Did it really matter that they were on her butt cheeks? Gran was sitting right there. She was asleep, but Noah wasn’t hoping to touch anything he shouldn’t. Chances were the E.R. doctor would be a man, if they did go to the hospital.

“That’s not long.” Twenty minutes would certainly be shorter than going to the emergency room. She didn’t think she had the strength to get up. She definitely knew she couldn’t walk, not without staggering. And how would they explain that she was doped up?

That could get Noah in trouble.

“No…but you’d have to take off your shorts,” he pointed out.

She didn’t plan on ever seeing Noah again, anyway. They might pass each other once or twice over the next few months while she was in town, but she could muster a wave and move on, couldn’t she? Forget that this ever happened?

Gathering her nerve, she reached beneath her to undo her cutoffs. Then she wiggled them, along with her panties, down over her hips.

“Hurry,” she said. As innocuous as her actions were, she didn’t want to add to her humiliation by having Gran wake up to such a sight.

She’d taken him by surprise. His sudden silence and stillness told her that.

“You don’t have a problem with finishing, do you?” Was the painkiller she’d taken affecting her decision-making ability? Maybe. She felt sort of…distant and relaxed, despite what was going on.

He cleared his throat again. “I’m thinking…maybe we should wake Milly and let her do this part.”

“Except she couldn’t see well enough to do the other part.”

Tension hung thick and heavy in the room—awkwardness, embarrassment, hesitation. She’d already bared her ass and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.

“It’s just a butt, no big deal.” She kept her face turned into the couch because she didn’t want to look at him. He’d changed since high school, but not enough that she couldn’t recognize him—or see the resemblance to Cody. There was also the hero worship she’d once felt. This was worse than walking up and congratulating him on a good baseball game….

But finishing what they’d begun seemed the most direct route to accomplishing their goal. She’d get through it and then she’d forget about it. Noah wasn’t part of the life she’d built since leaving Whiskey Creek. He didn’t matter. No doubt he’d forget this by tomorrow, too. He hadn’t even remembered her, and she’d watched him for two years with such longing….

“I know you can’t be shy,” she prodded when he didn’t move.

“I’m definitely not shy, but I’ve never touched a woman who…who’s been—”

“Noah, I wasn’t raped last night.” She wondered what he’d think if she told him the only rape she’d ever suffered had been instigated by his brother and carried out by his teammates, that the man who’d thrown her down the mine shaft was one of those teammates. “Just get the job done, okay? I understand the difference between removing a few slivers and…and other activities.”

“Maybe it would be easier if you didn’t cringe every time I touch you.”

After everything he’d been in high school, and she saw no reason his status in Whiskey Creek would’ve changed, it probably came as a shock that she didn’t want his hands on her. As far as she was concerned, a dose of indifference now and then would be good for his ego. “This isn’t exactly a pleasurable process.”

“I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about earlier when I was trying to get you out of the mountains.”

Because of who he was. He was the twin brother of the man who’d caused her so much pain. They weren’t identical, but there was a strong family resemblance and that was a hurdle she had to clear whenever she looked at him, even if it was merely a glance.

But he didn’t understand that, of course, and she couldn’t tell him. So she cut to what mattered at this particular moment.

“Don’t worry. I’m not that fragile.” Not anymore, anyway. It’d been fifteen years since she was raped by a handful of Whiskey Creek’s most popular athletes. She’d slept with two men since, men she’d cared about and hoped to have a deeper relationship with. The last one she’d married. With three years’ therapy in her early twenties, she’d gotten past the trauma.

Anyway, having Noah help her out with a medical problem had nothing to do with sex or rape, even if it dealt with the same general region of her body. “Can you please, er, hurry? You’ve already gotten an eyeful, and you’re holding the needle. It doesn’t make sense to stop.”

“Right.” Despite his reluctance, his hand, when he touched her, was warm and firm. She jerked as he went after one of the deeper slivers, and he cupped her bottom. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to soothe her or hold her still, but he immediately realized what he was doing and let go.

“You hangin’ in?” he murmured after several minutes.

For the most part, Adelaide couldn’t feel pain anymore. She seemed to be floating somewhere up near the ceiling, looking down on the scene. “Yeah.”

She wasn’t sure how much longer it took. She didn’t care. She was too tired to care about anything except drifting off to sleep….

She woke because something had changed. He was rubbing antibiotic ointment on her, which felt good despite all the reasons it shouldn’t. Somehow she’d lost her anxiety. Pure exhaustion, and painkiller, had carried her beyond that.

“You ready for bed?” He helped get her shorts up. Then he woke Gran and walked her into her room. When he returned to find Adelaide unable to drag herself off the couch, he offered to help her, too. She said no, that she’d be fine right where she was, but when he lifted her in his arms and brought her to bed, she didn’t argue.