Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
He was leaving too? I was going to be alone…here…
“Where am I?” I asked.
A sympathetic glint in his eyes didn’t help ease me. The room was spacious, but there were no windows. The walls were bare, and other than one lone black leather recliner in the corner, there was no other furniture, except for a narrow table with medical equipment on it.
“You’re safe. That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid,” he said as he adjusted the bag that my IV was attached to. “Your only concern is to heal.”
I wanted to argue that I had many concerns, and that was not at the top of the list. Who I was happened to be my main concern. Why couldn’t I remember that? How did someone just forget their own name?
“They will send Jayda down here to see to you soon. You’ll like her,” he told me.
Jayda. He was sending another female down here. That gave me some ease, although I wasn’t sure why it mattered. She was a stranger too.
“She’s nice?” I asked, feeling my eyes growing heavy, and things began to fade away into darkness.
“Yes.” His reply sounded as if it were far away.
“She’s been asleep since I got down here.” A feminine voice broke into my dreams.
“Has she moved or made any noises?” It was him. The beautiful man with the blond hair. He was back.
“Whimpered a few times. Whoever the bastard is who did this needs to be taken underground.” The woman sounded angry.
Did she mean dead, as in six feet under?
“I’ll find him,” he replied.
I tensed but kept my eyes closed. Was he planning on killing the person who had beaten me up? Why would he do that? This man didn’t know me. He couldn’t even tell me my name. But I was here. He’d helped me—or someone had helped me. I couldn’t remember. Just like everything else in my life.
“Good,” the woman said with a relieved sigh.
“Try and see what you can get out of her. She may remember who she is when she wakes up.”
“I’m not grilling her with questions. Doc said that wouldn’t be good for her. If she is pressed, it will only cause her stress, and that won’t help her remember.” The female sounded a touch annoyed.
“Yeah, I heard,” he drawled, not sounding convinced.
“Google it. Doc didn’t make that shit up.”
“Just see what you can find out, Jayda. I don’t need a fucking lecture.”
The pull drew me back in, and I couldn’t stay awake long enough to hear any more.
No one was speaking when I woke up this time, but without looking, I knew I wasn’t alone. I could feel the other presence in the room. The stabbing pain in my side was the first time I’d felt anything since arriving here. Wincing, I tried to breathe slowly so that it hurt less.
“Guess the morphine has finally made its way out of your system.”
It was him. The timbre in his voice stirred something inside me that blanketed the rest. It might not numb the pain, but it made it less important.
My eyes opened immediately. I was greeted by the smooth white ceiling. The room wasn’t dark, but the bright light overhead wasn’t on. There was a smaller light near the door that spread throughout the room.
Turning my head to the left, I looked over to see him sitting in the leather chair. He appeared relaxed. His legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. How tall was he? He’d looked several inches taller than the doctor—or was I remembering correctly? That was all so fuzzy.
A book in his lap caught my attention, and I tried to read the cover. He held it up.
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. The cover felt…familiar. Had I read that?
“I don’t have much in the way of female reading material, so I’ve been reading you this,” he said with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
He’d been reading to me. My chest felt a warmth rush through it as I stared at him, saying nothing.
“It was too damn quiet in here, and you needed to wake up, move around, eat.”
I didn’t want him to leave. Staying silent would likely make him feel unwanted, and that wasn’t the case. I tried to sit up some, and the stabbing pain stopped me.
“OH!” I gasped, gripping the covers tightly with my good hand.
“Easy there, overachiever. I didn’t mean you needed to move right now,” he told me as he stood up, dropping the book onto the chair before closing the space between us. “Here, drink some water,” he suggested and reached to pick up a glass of ice water. The sight of it reminded me how thirsty I was.
Three
Luther
They’re more blue than green, I mused, trying to label the exact shade of her eyes as she stared up at me.