Page 4 of Healed By Doc
Christ, just like I tried to do that night, I want to vanquish whatever demons are haunting her, consequences be damned.The thought that she still suffers even after that night is like a knife in my chest.
“Miss Dupree?”
She flinches at the sound of her name, her gaze slowly shifting from me to Saint. “Of course,” she says, and I hear her inhale and exhale shakily. “I’ll stay with Abby.”
“Good,” Saint says, seeming distracted. “Another MC member will be here shortly to bring Doc more supplies. His name is Ransom, and you can tell him to get you whatever else is needed. In the meantime, Sam, come with me?”
Samantha, the tall woman standing next to Cara, has a torn look that tells me she isn’t completely willing to follow Saint and leave me and Cara alone. By her expression, I know Cara has told her at least a little of our shared past. To be fair, anyone in my position might be expected to be angry and harbor vengeful thoughts over the past, but I don’t. The little girl who was used to hurt me was not at fault, and I hope my feelings show in my expression. Whether Sam sees it or not is up for debate, but she doesn’t voice her protest. She pats Cara’s shoulder, then follows Saint down the hall.
And then we’re alone.
A part of me wants to ask what she’s doing at a women’s shelter, but an agonized whimper from the medical room snaps our attention to the door. I shelve talking to Cara for later as we both walk back into the room, Cara going to the opposite side of the bed and taking the young woman’s hands.
“Abby,” I say softly for the sake of both women in the room. “I’m going to cut off your shirt so I can inspect the extent of your injuries. It will be less painful than trying to pull it over your head. I don’t want you to lift your arms. Okay?”
“I guess,” she says, eyes shifting trustingly to Cara. “My side hurts really bad. I think he broke my ribs.”
I nod, grabbing a pair of scissors to cut the seam on the side and along the sleeve, slowly peeling off her shirt and trying to leave her with as much dignity as I can. She winces as I inspect the deep bruising on her side. She’ll need to file a police report and get an x-ray, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her that. I’ve been around the shelter enough to know how terrified the victims can become at the mention of going to the cops, and could I blame them?
Five fucking years!
I force my jaw to unclench as I assess her other injuries, most I can attend to now, but the bruising on her side is the concerning. She’ll need pain meds to get her through the night, but the bruising could indicate internal bleeding. I can’t give her anything until I’ve ruled that out, which I can’t do until Ransom arrives with my equipment.
“What a lovely tattoo, Abby,” Cara says, her soft voice taking my patient’s focus away from what I’m doing. I look up to find her rubbing a thumb over the girl’s wrist. “A pretty rosebud. Does it have any particular meaning?”
For the first time, Abby smiles. “I got it last year when I lost a bet to my older sister. I was supposed to get it alone, but she saw how scared I was and decided to get one of her own.” The smile fades, and in its place, there’s sadness. “We haven’t spoken in months. She keeps asking to see me, but I couldn’t… She can’t see me like this. She’ll kill my boyfriend if she finds out he’s been hurting me.”
Cara notices the patient working herself into a panic attack and smoothly brings her back on track. “I never had siblings,” she says, her eyes lifting to mine, and something in me lurchesat the brief look. “Well, not ones that actually cared anyway. Tell me about your sister.”
“My sister?” I turn her hand to inspect the cut on her arm, not too deep, but she’ll need stitches so it doesn’t scar. From the looks of it, she probably bumped into a sharp object that tore through her shirt. It’s pretty ironic that over the years, I’ve treated more war injuries off the battlefield than on. “My sister and I are so different. She’s older than me, but our parents call her the problem child.”
“Why?”
“Well, let’s just say she doesn’t stand for any bullshit,” Abby says, wincing when I inspect the bruising on her shoulder. “One time in middle school, she kicked a boy in the shins for making fun of my hair.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with your hair?” Cara says, running a soothing hand over her head. “It’s beautiful.”
“Now, maybe.” Abby laughs. “But back then, I was experimenting with colors. I wanted to look cool to my sister’s friends, so I had it dyed red, and for a whole semester, I had kids call me a knock-off Ariel or the Goodwill mermaid. My sister kicked a lot of shins that semester.” She chuckles, going on about all the occasions her sister stepped in to protect her.
Ransom walks in moments later, but the women barely notice him step into the room, and he doesn’t draw too much attention to himself as he passes me all the things I sent for. I clean her wounds as I listen to the women chatter, and with every wince and pained sound, Cara manages to draw Abby’s focus with questions and stories of her own. It’s fascinating, and I find my mind drifting to her as I set up the portably ultrasound machine.
For the first time, I think of the woman and not the girl.
She is stunning, far more than I was prepared to see whenever I imagined what it would be like meeting her again. Even more surprising are these emotions she’s bringing out in me. I haven’t felt this kind of attraction to someone in a long time, and the fact that it’s her…
God, there must be something wrong with me.
Cara Dupree is the last woman I need to harbor any kind of desire for. Having her so close to me shouldn’t send lustful thoughts swimming under the weight of concern.
I should focus on the latter. On how this girl has lived for the past nine years.
The truth is, I looked for her when I was first released from prison. She’d been at the back of my mind all through my sentence, and I often wondered how she was doing. It couldn’t have been easy for her to go through what she had—to witness someone close to her lose their life, even if that person was her tormentor.
So, I went back to my old neighborhood with its rundown buildings and knocked on the door to the apartment that had changed my life. The first few minutes as someone shuffled behind that door had been the most nerve-wrecking of my life, and that is saying a lot, seeing as I’d just spent five years in prison. But I braced myself, hoping and praying like I rarely did that the person on the other side of the door would carry none of the shadows from that night.
Just one look, I promised myself.
One look and then I would be on my way. I would forget and forgive the past if I could only see the face of the girl who haunted my dreams. See that she was doing well and looking healthy.
