Page 16 of White Rabbit
“Thank you. Thank you for—”
“ No,Moya kokhána, do not thank me. Seeing your pretty brown eyes, hearing your voice, it’s all I need.”
All? I wanted to believe that, but I couldn’t. I supposed, time would tell.
Chapter 11
Valariy
Brecklyn didn’t believe me. A cloud crossed her eyes, even as I couldn’t stop touching her, holding her hand or brushing back her hair. Forcing myself to move slightly away, I plumped up the pillows against the headboard and helped her to sit up against them.
“I hate how weak I feel, but I guess it’s to be expected after lying still for a couple months. I feel like all my muscles are either tight or they’re limp, useless noodles.”
“Therapy will help with that. It would be worse if I didn’t have staff working with you the past few weeks. Your ex…”
“Wouldn’t pay for anything beyond what he was forced to?” she supplied, grimacing. “Mighty shitty of him since my condition was his fault. Also, for the record, he wasn’t my ex. He just…had me. I guess that’s how to put it.”
She averted her face, but not before I saw shame color her cheeks as her shoulders slumped and she frowned.
“So I learned.”
Brecklyn didn’t look at me while her fingers plucked at the blanket around her. “I cringe to hear what you learned.”
“That somehow you ended up at the Rusty Spike then Radomer Jovanovic took you from there.”
“That’s a way to put it.” She heaved a breath and looked back at me. I hated how sad she looked, how resigned she was to some fate she envisioned. Envisioned wrongly, if I had any say.
Holding her gaze, I took her hand. “You can tell me. It won’t change my feelings.”
Her quiet snort disagreed with me.
“I grew up in a typical middle class home in Iowa. A fourth daughter to parents who wanted a son…and an oops baby to boot. An inconvenience who could never really do anything to the standards of my parents or my older sisters who all expected me to live up to my siblings, the youngest of whom is fifteen years older than me. It was hard, but it pushed me, you know.”
I nodded while I tried to hide my anger at her being treated poorly. “I understand expectations. I am the oldest of my brothers and my father had exacting standards for me since I was destined to take over our family. I was never quite good enough for him.”
“We have that in common. Even when I got a full scholarship, I could have done better in their eyes. They didn’t agree with my career choice as a nurse.”
“You went to school to be a nurse?” I knew she was twenty-six and she’d arrived at the Rusty Spike two years ago, so she she couldn’t have graduated or been practicing long before that.
“Graduated early, too. I worked in the emergency department at one of the hospitals here. I was there until a couple months before…before I got the job at the club.”
“I don’t understand.” A lie. I knew deep in my gut that something bad had happened, but I wanted to leave that for her to tell me.
“I questioned a doctor. And when a patient died from being overdosed, it was blamed on me—by him. Even though I wasn’t working that day. Records showed I was, that I wasfilling in,but I wasn’t. I was in the city for a Christmas shopping trip. No one believed me. They believed him and then mysteriously other ‘incidents’ came up. Some one days I worked, many on days I was off. No one would listen to me. I was fired. My license was pulled.”
“His name? Which hospital?” I growled. There were several in the city, and I had a feeling it wasn’t Everand where she’d been a patient.
“Core Medical.”
“His name?” I asked again.
“Why?”
“I think my brother needs to do some investigation,” I hedged. At this point, she didn’t need to know that several of my brothers would be picking about everything about this doctor that they could find then dealing with Dr. Whoever.
“I suppose that’s okay. God knows how many people he’s hurt with his negligence.”
I took her hand. “Yes, justice must me served, must be assured.”
