Читать книгу Return of Dr Irresistible - Amalie Berlin - Страница 9

CHAPTER TWO

REECE RUBBED HIS HEAD, a headache starting between his brows. This was not how he’d pictured their reunion going. That had gone entirely differently. She’d been wearing something sparkly for starters.

‘Hey...’ His brain caught up with the situation now that the immediate emergency had passed. ‘You’re not dressed.’

‘I’m dressed just fine,’ she bit at him, and then her voice turned honey-sweet as she began to pet Gordy’s face and talk to him. ‘It’s going to be okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you.’

‘For the show,’ he cut in. He’d been waiting at the show the whole time to see her perform, and only now did it register with him that she wasn’t dressed for the ring at all. Jeans and a pink T-shirt with a white unicorn and a rainbow coming from its butt, while funny, wasn’t performance attire. ‘You haven’t performed yet. I figured you’d come at the end, the aerial act maybe, but you’re not dressed.’

‘I don’t perform any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘None of your business.’ Her words were angry, but she kept her tone sweet. Not for him, he realized. She looked back at Gordy and ruffled his ears. The sedative had taken the fight out of the little horse, but her touch and proximity soothed him. Despite the drug, he tilted his head against hers and accepted the comfort.

She had the touch. Reece forgot his irritation for a few seconds, remembering the way she’d sat with his head in her lap after the accident, petting his temples in much the same way she that she petted the horse’s face now too.

Two people in one body. In the ring she came alive—so full of energy that even when a trick failed she still held the audience in her hands. And the rest of the time she had that gentle touch that soothed any kind of animal. Even teenage boys. She’d been the only one he’d wanted around him after Dad had died.

The pink T-shirt had a growing spot of red on it where she’d clamped her arm to her side, cradling it protectively against her and using her other arm for Gordy.

‘Hurts?’

‘Adrenalin is wearing off,’ she murmured, ‘but I can wait.’

‘No doubt.’ He made a note to ask Mom all the things about Jolie that he’d never let her tell him before, when he had been trying so hard to stay in school and keep Jolie off his mind. Something was up with her, and it wasn’t just upset about Gordy’s accident. It might even be about more than his reason for being there, and the myriad other reasons she had to be angry with him. Not performing any more wasn’t something she’d have decided for the last week of the circus. It was older than his decision to close the show down. How much older, he had no idea.

He was saved from thinking further about what kind of knots Jolie might have worked herself into while he’d been away when Mack Bohannon escorted the vet into the stable and ushered Reece and Jolie out—two too many people for the small stall.

‘I know that’s not a proper sling.’ Jolie said, gesturing to the small injured horse from the gate, ‘but I couldn’t think of anything else we could do for him that might keep his digestion working properly and keep weight off that leg. We don’t have a sling small enough for him.’

‘I have one.’ The vet pulled a backpack off his shoulder and handed it to Mack, Jolie’s uncle and head of the Bohannon clan. Ultimately, Gordy’s future rested with Mack, who dug into the pack and retrieved the sling then proceeded to help the vet swap it with the makeshift one.

‘He’s going to be okay. He can heal this,’ Jolie said to Mack, who looked grim. Not the right look. Not one Reece wanted to see any more than Jolie did. Whatever her protestations, she didn’t need to watch the play-by-play.

He reached for her shoulder and tried to pivot her toward the door. ‘Let’s get your arm tended to.’

‘I’m not leaving yet.’ Mack looked back at her and she shook her head, her chin lifting, ‘I’m not leaving. You might need me.’

As easy as he’d like to be with Jolie of all people, he’d mistakenly thought perhaps time would have made her somewhat less stubborn. She’d always been this way when it came to Gordy, and Reece had started throwing his weight around to get her to mind him all those years ago when her mother had gotten her back when she’d been taken. That had been the first time his father had ever put him in charge of anyone in the company.

She thought him bossy? Well, she made him bossy.

The vet needed room to work and, knowing very well how hard it was to treat a patient when being hovered over, Reece made his decision. He scooped her legs from under her as his other arm caught across her back, and he carried her out of the stable.

* * *

Too stunned to say anything for a few seconds, it took them actually leaving the stables for Jolie’s indignation and terror to kick back in. ‘Reece! Reece, put me down. I need to stay with Gordy.’

‘You need your arm cleaned and inspected.’ Reece tightened his arms lest she take a mind to thrash free of his grip. ‘I’m done talking about it. Mom will have first-aid supplies in her RV.’

‘No. What if they decide to put him down while I’m gone? He needs an advocate. He needs me there to promise to take care of him. See him through this again. I know he can heal.’ She twisted, testing his hold, and then locked onto him with a baleful glare. ‘Please.’ The word didn’t go well with the glare or the tone.

‘It won’t take long.’

‘It will take five minutes to walk to your mom’s RV. If you must have your way, my trailer is closer!’ As the words tumbled out, she realized what would convince him. ‘I have all the medical supplies anyway, I’m the EMT on staff. And I won’t fight you if you go there and we do this fast. Or just let me go do it myself and—’

‘You’re an EMT?’ He stopped walking and looked down at her, his eyes going from hers to her mouth long enough to distract her. Kissing...would be bad.

Don’t look at his mouth. ‘Can’t you walk and talk at the same time?’ Jolie barked at him, startling his gaze back to hers. ‘I am an EMT, yes.’ With the stable now officially out of sight, the firm heat of his big body and the prospect of being alone with Reece began to scare her more than Gordy’s plight. One crisis at a time, that’s all she could deal with. Not knowing what she might say or how she might react when she got her emotions sorted out? Well, that could cause another crisis. ‘Put me down and let me clean it myself, or start walking. Don’t just stand here while they might be making decisions without me!’

‘Didn’t you have to leave the circus to attend classes to become and EMT?’ What the hell? Why did he care so much about this?

‘Do you see my face? This is the face of someone who is freaking out. Put me down or I swear I will belt you with my broken arm...which isn’t broken...’

Reece scowled, but he started walking again and she almost relaxed. At least she stopped gritting her teeth.

‘I took a course over the summer when we were between seasons.’

It figured that he’d focus on her dislike of the outside world, like that was important right now. She could do things outside the circus, she just didn’t care to. When the circus off-seasoned at Bohannon Farm, as it did every year, it was like living at the circus. The only difference with the summer she’d gone to school had been that she’d had to spend time with a bunch of possibly dangerous weirdos who’d thought mowing the lawn every Saturday, frequenting the mall, and driving an SUV was something to brag about. ‘My trailer is that way.’ She pointed with her good arm, and he veered off, following the directions she supplied.

Within two minutes she was inside her cozy little home. ‘There’s supplies in the skinny cabinet above the sink.’

Reece put her down in front of the sink and the first thing he did was wash his hands. ‘Paper towels?’

She gestured to the other side of the counter and then opened the cabinet to start getting out supplies with her good arm, then thought better of it and stuck the bad one under the faucet. It would hurt, but if she was going to have pain she’d either control it or be the one in control of inflicting it.

Number-one rule or dealing with Reece? Don’t let him hurt her again. Even if it was that for-her-own-good kind of hurt.

No, especially the for-her-own-good kind of hurt. She’d had enough of that, thank you very much.

‘This doesn’t look good,’ he muttered, as he wrapped his hand around her wrist to take control of the flow of water over the wound. In that second she forgot all about her fear for Gordy and about the pain. She even forgot about how angry she was at him for what he was about to do to them all. Skin-to-skin contact was more potent than being carried, especially when it reminded her of how big he’d gotten. Hadn’t he supposed to have been full grown when he’d gone off to school? When did men stop getting bigger? Was he still growing? This was ridiculous.

Her chest ached when she looked up at him. ‘You’re too tall. Makes my neck hurt.’ She pretended that was where the pain was. It was better than give in to the urge to press against him and lean into the strength she’d seen in action. Give in to the urge to keep forgetting the bad things. Soak in the comfort she knew waited in his arms.

Stupid.

That should be rule number two—don’t let Reece comfort her ever again.

She pulled her arm from under the water and ripped a fresh paper towel from the roll to blot at it, then applied pressure to staunch the blood that started flowing again. The ache deep in her arm had subsided but it surged back to life when she put pressure on it. If she mentioned that, he’d have her at the emergency room faster than she could say, ‘Don’t put me to sleep, it’s just a broken arm.’ It’d be her front left leg if she were a quadruped, mirroring Gordy’s injury. Fate’s twisted sense of humor...

He caught her arm again and directed it under the counter light where he could examine the bite. It was well on its way to bruising and there were several ugly punctures and a shallow gash.

‘It doesn’t need stitches. There are a couple of punctures that I might put a stitch or two into, but if you have butterflies, that can hold for now.’ He watched her, his voice having lost that edge of irritation as soon as he’d gotten his way. His mouth hadn’t got the news that he was less irritated, though. His lips pressed together, hard and cranky. ‘Probably better anyway, in case an infection does start up—which happens way more often in punctures than cuts, you realize. And the reason we should have gotten this treated faster.’

He unfurled his fingers from her arm and her thinking cleared a little. She needed more of that. ‘You know, I can do the medicine and bandaging. You visit your mom. I need...I need you to go and I can take care of this myself.’ Him going would help. It had to help.

‘I’m almost done.’ The way he no longer met her eyes said that he felt something at least. It might be a ghost of the connection that they’d once had, but he still felt something.

‘I don’t care if you’re almost done. I want you to be somewhere else. Somewhere I’m not. I will finish up and then go back to the stables. You’re messing everything up.’ Her voice rose as she spoke, reaching to near shrillness at the end. ‘Because...you’re still...’

‘You can be calm if you want to be calm.’ He sure sounded calm. But then she remembered—he didn’t really care about them. This was just Doctor Man, who lived to treat patients. Or something.

‘I’m trying to be calm. You could hurry up some. You know I need to get back.’ Gordy needed her. Focus on that. ‘Except I forgot that you’re good at leaving people waiting.’ No, don’t focus on that. Gordy. Get it together.

He gave her a look and snagged her wrist again—no doubt to keep her from getting away. She’d have to climb out the window in her bedroom or squeeze through the one over the sink if she wanted to get out. His big body blocked the tiny kitchenette. And he continued to work at his own pace.

She tried deep breaths to calm down. She really was trying, that was the problem. She’d thought she could always be calm, but right now she couldn’t. Her heart hammered against her sternum like the beat of so many hooves in the ring. She could hear it, see it pulsing in her vision, and she knew that wasn’t good. Her deep breaths got shallow and fast, outside her control.

Everything was out of control.

‘They won’t euthanize him while I’m gone, right?’ she blurted out. ‘That’s the kind of thing that takes time and preparation, right?’ More words tumbled from her lips.

Like he knew anything. Or maybe he did. Maybe he was keeping her there forever for a reason. ‘They’d wait long enough to let people say goodbye if it came to that, right?’

Right? Right? God, she really did sound crazy. And she’d had a plan for speaking to him on the farm, when the dust had settled after they’d all settled in. Later. In the future.

‘Take a deep breath. In through your nose,’ Reece said, his voice firm and demanding. He wanted to control everything. Even how she breathed!

‘Jolie,’ he said her name again. ‘I think you’re having a panic attack. Slow down your breathing.’

‘I’m not panic attacking.’ Was that even a term? She’d said it wrong. Everything was wrong. That’s exactly the kind of inarticulate nonsense that would make him think twice about even considering her request when she got round to making it. And probably everything she’d said and done since she’d seen him again would add to that thinking twice and thrice, and whatever fourth, fifth and sixth were... Sure, no problem, he’d hand over the reins of his birthright to someone who might be a babbling idiot.

Jolie had no proof she could even lead picnic ants in a straight line to the potato salad. She knew she could do it. Or she thought she could. She’d been so sure before he’d got here. Before she’d fallen headlong into that deep place where she stuffed all the emotions that were too hard to put words to.

It would be better if she knew it in some logical manner that came with charts and graphs. Doctors probably loved charts and graphs!

‘I can’t breathe.’ She probably had caught some awful horse-bite disease. Everything was wrong. Everything.

He let go of her wrist suddenly and grabbed her hips. Half an accelerated heartbeat later she was sitting on the counter in front of him, gasping for air and shaking all over, helpless against the onslaught of tears that swamped her vision and poured down her cheeks.

Reece cupped her cheeks, tilting her head until he had her gaze. So blue. So steady.

He said something. His thumbs stroked her cheeks, wiping away the tears as they poured down. She had no idea what he was saying, calming sounds. Comforting sounds. And they reached her. The tears slowed along with her breathing, and behind them she felt a stampede of embarrassment. And confusion. What the heck had just happened...?

‘That was a panic attack?’ her voice rasped, the raw sound causing a few aftershock hiccups.

He nodded, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to his chest. Warm. Firm. Right where she’d wanted to be.

‘I’ve had some experience with them.’

It was hard to imagine anything rattling Reece like this. ‘They’re awful,’ she mumbled, drained, ashamed, and wantonly breaking rule number two.

‘Yes, they are.’

She’d stop breaking rule number two in a second, but right now she needed the hug. And with her face hidden by his chest she didn’t have to look him in the eye...

When she didn’t say anything else, he added, ‘They’re your family, and they love Gordy too. They’re not going to make any decisions while you’re getting your injury tended to.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know why... I don’t know what happened. I don’t usually act like a crazy person.’ She swiped her eyes again and pulled away, before she did something even crazier.

It had just been the shock of seeing him again for the first time. But that shock was gone, it couldn’t last forever. So it was done. She willed it to be done and she was the one in control of her emotions...not the other way around. Never again. Focus on one big emotion at a time, that was the key to remaining tethered to her sanity. And right now that one big emotion had to be concern for Gordy. He needed her. She could fall apart later.

Forget that the last time she’d been this scared she’d been sixteen and watching Reece drive away into the world alone, and remember how all the faith she’d put in him—all the worry she’d had for him—had meant nothing. In the end he had been just like her father, who, incidentally, had been good at hugging too.

She should remember all that. If Reece was going to consider her request, it wouldn’t be because he cared so much about them. She had to find another angle. ‘You should finish.’ Because she’d freaked out before they’d got to bandaging.

He nodded, looked at her longer than she was comfortable with him looking, then resumed treatment—dabbing on ointment, placing a couple of rectangles of gauze onto the wound, which he had her hold in place so he could deal with the tape.

‘Don’t worry about this. You’re just wound tight right now. We all are. I’m worried about him too.’ A couple of rips of tape later and he replaced her fingers with white cloth tape, guaranteed to hold even if she should bleed again and get the whole mess wet. ‘If it starts feeling hot or hurting more, tell me.’

‘I know. Antibiotics.’ She pretended he hadn’t said anything about worrying about Gordy. He could turn his worry on and off like a light switch or he didn’t really feel anything. Or Doctor Worry was different from the worry of mortal men who couldn’t worry and fret over loved ones while ignoring them utterly.

‘If I had my kit, I’d start you on them right now,’ he muttered, and smoothed down the last strip of tape. ‘You haven’t got any bigger, have you?’ He squinted at her in a way she could only deem as judgmental.

‘I’m big enough. Not everyone aspires to be a giant’s stunt double.’ Sarcasm: Her Refuge. Her voice-activated ten-foot pole for keeping things away, keeping things from getting to her.

‘I’m not judging. I was considering your weight for prescription purposes.’

‘Oh.’ Okay, so maybe she wasn’t totally done being crazy. But it was easier to jump to a negative conclusion than to think that he cared. He was still here to destroy her everything. Time to go. She slid off the counter on the other side of him and hurried to the door. ‘Lock it when you leave.’ Not waiting for an answer, she took the stairs at a near run.

‘Do you want some pain relievers?’ he called from behind her. She heard the question as the door swung shut but didn’t go back inside to answer him. Pain relievers? Hell, yes, she’d like some. She’d also like some amnesia pills. And she’d like him to take them too and forget the last ten minutes.

Even if the small part of her mind that was currently sane said that no one would put Gordy down without giving her time to say goodbye, she was still more than half-terrified she’d get back to the stables and find him already gone.

* * *

Reece stared at the screen door for several seconds, expecting it to open again and for Jolie to come back for some ibuprofen or something. But she didn’t.

He shook a couple of pills out, laid them on yet another paper towel and folded it around the pills so he could stick them in his pocket. Before the night was over, someone would need them. Possibly him. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that panic attacks were contagious. That he’d somehow given her the one he’d been fighting all evening.

A mess of paper towels and tape littered the counter, so he spent time tidying it up before he left. That was one thing always ground into the circus kids: keep your living area tidy. When it’s small, and on wheels, you had to be as tidy and deferential to everyone else as you could be. And you had to be okay with making things work, even if that meant taking a shower with the garden hose behind the RV because you were on a schedule and all the other showers were occupied. You learned to make the best of things. He could control the physical mess he left behind, and the only speculation he could offer to the emotional devastation he knew he’d leave in his wake? He could only hope that they could make the best of it.

It was their nature. It was her nature.

Three years age difference between them, but circus kids grew up fast. Especially Jolie. When they’d gotten her back, she’d never really been a normal little kid. Always looking over her shoulder. Always afraid something would go wrong. Children learned behavior, like worrying, and she’d learned it then and learned it well.

He’d spent the last ten years trying not to think about what she’d learned by him leaving.

He still didn’t want to think about that, even with it staring him in the face.

His worry for Jolie could cripple him. It certainly would’ve had him running back home to her that first week away at school if he’d so much as let his mother mention her name. It had been his only survival tactic. The only way for him to stay in school had been to quit Jolie cold turkey.

She might be the same size, but she’d changed in other discouraging ways. He’d probably played a part in that. Thirty minutes in her presence had dredged up more questions than just how she was going to handle him closing down the circus.

The show music had stopped a while ago, so Mom was either at her RV or the mess tent. She always liked to eat with everyone. Keightly Circus really did band together as a family, which was the hardest part of shutting it down. They ate together. Off-seasoned together. Raised their children together. The elderly performers even tended to retire to the same places...

He flipped the lock on the doorknob and stepped out, giving it a good pull. Locked up. As requested. Now to find Mom and get more information.

* * *

An hour later, having received the lecture from his mother that Reece had been dodging for a decade, he walked into the stables with two plates and bottles of water.

He found Jolie alone with Gordy, who was now utterly unconscious. A simple cot had been slid into the remaining space in Gordy’s stall and Jolie sat on it, her back to the wall and her legs dangling, eyes fixed on the small white stallion. Though by her glazed look, she wasn’t really looking at Gordy.

Reece knew only too well that you could stare right into your past if left to your own thoughts long enough. Usually at the memories you least needed to focus on. The ones you’d probably be better off forgetting entirely.

Since he’d stepped foot onto the lot, when he’d had any time alone with his thoughts, he got images of his father’s blood, muddying the sawdust and sand in the ring...

‘What are you doing? You look sick. Is the food really that bad?’ Jolie’s voice cut through his haze. Thinking too hard was contagious too...

‘It’s fine. I’m fine. Brought dinner. Thought you might be hungry and I’d like to know what the vet said.’ He nodded toward the cot—it was big enough for both of them to sit on without touching each other, provided it stood the weight. ‘You mind?’

A suspicious squint answered him, but that was better than the panic earlier. Her green eyes still had that glassy look, like emotion wasn’t too far beneath the surface. She was the first to look away, but she held up her good hand for the plate, freeing one of his so he could fish the water bottles from his pockets before he sat. ‘So?’

‘He said front-leg breaks are worse than back, which aside from his circulation issues... I don’t really understand.’ She rested the plate on her thigh, freeing her hands to shuffle the water bottle off to the other side. It must still be hurting. ‘Not sure if he means that they happen more frequently or if they are harder to splint, harder to heal, harder on the horse, or if it’s Gordy-specific...’ She gestured to the new harness on Gordy with the toe of her boot. ‘But that sling is more comfy and it’s not bound by notches. They got it perfectly seated. Mack said it’s possible he twisted something inside when he fell, so it was good that we got him on his feet so fast. They couldn’t feel anything when palpating his belly, but he was out of it by then and couldn’t have told them it hurt even if the pain was blistering.’

‘Prognosis?’ He looked at the food, not able to bring himself to take a bite yet. She hadn’t either, even if she was using her feet to gesture so her hands could keep hold of her dinner. Well, hand. She wasn’t using the injured arm for anything but keeping her water tucked against her thigh.

‘Oh...’ She breathed the word, her tone confirming the worst, and that she wouldn’t agree with it until forced to. ‘He said it’s rough... We would try...’

But.

She didn’t actually say it but he still heard it.

He put his bottle down, fished the pills from his pocket and placed them beside her leg. ‘Anti-inflammatories,’ he murmured, leaving her to take them or not, and went back to the conversation about Gordy. ‘So what’s the next step?’

‘Sit with him. Keep him comfortable. Watch for signs of colic.’ She took the pills. ‘And I have both pain medicine and tranquilizers to inject if he gets worse.’

‘You did really well with the tranquilizer earlier. Hit the vein the first time. Did you take courses on animal care too?’

‘No, I learned to care for people, but I’ve given injections and done blood draws on the horses before. And I read. A lot.’

He remembered that. She read anything zoological in nature, didn’t matter if it dealt with the horses and dogs that were in the show or wild animals, which had not been in the show since her twice great-grandfather had been mauled by a lion during an act. The circus was always dangerous, but it had got a little less dangerous when they’d got back to their roots and away from the exotic-animal fad popular from the Victorian era.

‘Thank you for dinner.’

He kept his eyes on the food, but not looking at her didn’t keep memories at bay. He made himself eat. It would be a long night, as he had every intention of spending it here at her side. ‘You’re welcome.’ He looked at her again. Dammit.

The wild auburn curls had been worked into some kind of fancy braid so he could see her clearly even in the dim light of the stable. Still the prettiest girl he’d ever seen in the flesh. Even prettier than when he’d left. She might have cried again since she’d left her trailer—her wide-set green eyes looked bigger, glassy, and heartbroken. There was a little crease between her brows that said she frowned more than she should, and even now, with her expression mostly blank, the shadow of that unhappy crease remained.

‘I know it’s not the right time for this, but I wanted to apologize,’ Reece said, feeling his way through the words as he went.

‘For leaving us?’