Page 57 of Every Broken Piece
I don’t miss Gabe’s brow lift when I’m told no screens. I make the mistake of meeting his humorous gaze and the tightening of his lips to keep himself from grinning.
“I’ll make sure she follows your instructions,” he says to the doctor without taking his eyes off me.
When I scowl at him, the infuriating man winks. I have no doubt he’ll try to be my prison warden, and I can’t have that. I have things to do, but I don’t know how to get rid of him. Worse, I don’t know if Iwantto get rid of him.
The doctor gives instructions on the medications I should be taking. I don’t do prescription medication. Ever. So I won’t be filling the script.
After a few signatures and a folder full of the written instructions the doctor went over, I’m set free.
Earlier a nurse helped me shower and put on clean clothes while Gabe stepped out to take more phone calls. If the nursethought it strange that my fiancé wasn’t helping me, she didn’t say, and I wasn’t about to explain.
Gabe walks ahead as a nurse pushes my wheelchair through the hospital lobby, his head on a swivel as if he’s preparing for an attack. Outside he approaches a large, black SUV waiting by the curb. I stare up at it from my seat in the wheelchair. How the heck am I going to climb intothat?
“I guess I wasn’t thinking when I rented it,” Gabe says. “Or rather when Jack rented it.” He studies the open passenger door for a moment. “I’ll lift you in.”
“What?No.” He’s not picking me up. He’s a big guy. I’m a small woman. I have no doubt he can do it. I just don’t want him to do it. I don’t want his hands on me. I’m having a hard enough time keeping my feelings for this man in check. Him carrying me would batter my defenses more than I’m willing to allow.
He sucks his lips in, contemplating the car situation. “I can try to find some steps.”
With a sigh of frustration, I push off from the wheelchair to stand. Gabe gently grabs my elbow to steady me as the world tilts just a little. I don’t have time for this. Being attacked put me way behind on running away. But I guess that was my attacker’s intention.
Score one for him.
“Just get me up there.” I’m irritated and my tone shows it, but Gabe doesn’t react and gently swings me up into his arms. The world tilts as I’m pressed against his hard chest. Then he’s placing me in the passenger seat and reaching across to pull the seatbelt, snapping it into place.
“All good?” When he turns his head, he’s so close that I can see each individual eyelash and feel the soft warmth of his breath fan across my cheek. He’s not wearing his glasses. He made a point of telling me they’re only for reading. I made a point ofnottelling him that I wouldn’t mind if he wore them all the time.
“A-all good.” I lick my lips.
His gaze drops to my mouth, then lower to my throat where I’m sure he can see my pulse thundering, before snapping back up to my eyes. “You sure you’re okay? Feeling nauseous?”
Feeling breathless because he’s so close and I want to kiss him like I wanted to kiss him last night in the darkness of my room. This is so inappropriate it’s not even funny.
“Not at all.”
He smirks, retreats, then closes the door to round the hood of the car and climb into the driver’s side. He taps a few times on his phone then hands it to me.
“Type in your address.”
I enter it in, and he pulls away as a mechanical, definitely Australian accented woman’s voice fills the cab of the car. I raise my brows at him. He grins back.
As he follows the Aussie’s directions, I watch the houses get smaller and smaller and the neighborhoods more and more run down. I nervously pick at my cuticles, suddenly anxious to have larger than life Gabe invading the sanctuary of my small apartment.
His hand settles over mine, stilling my fingers. I curl them into my palm, the nails biting into the soft skin.
“All good?” he asks with a worried glance.
I nod and look away.
It’s glaringly obvious that I don’t live in the best neighborhood when we pull up in a car that cost six times my yearly rent. It’s an old neighborhood that had once been affluent but has dramatically fallen to decay and despair. The building needs a major facelift. The bricks are cracking, the steps leading to the entrance crumbling. The iron railing is rusted and loose and can’t be trusted. There’s trash matted into the gutters. An abandon car sits parked across the street, one tire flat, another gone, tall weeds surrounding it.
Gabe’s gaze jumps from the shabby and neglected building to the boarded-up businesses lining the street, his jaw working as he grinds his teeth, his blue eyes flinty.
“You can just drop me off here.”And leave. Go back to Colorado, to your penthouse apartment featured in Architectural Digest.Or to his mountain retreat. Yes, I’ve read all about his various homes.
“Not happening,” he says as he unbuckles his seatbelt and hops out of the car.
I already have my door open and am attempting to slide down when he reaches in and gently plucks me out, settling me on my feet until I stop swaying. It’s the picking me up and swinging me around that makes me dizzy. Definitely not his large hands that wrap around my waist or how he handles me like I’m made of the finest porcelain.
