The Better to Hold You (26 page)

I held Red’s gaze as the startled young intern turned back to my hands. Hazel eyes, so much easier to read than Hunter’s dark brown. “Not really,” I said. “I burned my hands.”

“I know.”

“I’m supposed to be taking care of my mother’s animals.”

“You need taking care of yourself, Doc.”

The intern, who had been examining my hands, paused. “How old are these burns?”

“I don’t know. Half an hour. An hour.” I sniffed loudly, like a six-year-old. “When do I go into the OR?” Red put his hand on my shoulder.

“Lady, these burns are at least a week old. Who treated you initially?”

I stared into the intern’s round face. He had large, dark pores and one thick unibrow which stretched across both eyes, making him look permanently irritated and puzzled. “The EMTs treated me about half an hour ago. What are you talking about, a week old? There was exposed adipose, charred tissue …”

“Are you a doctor?” The doughy face with its villainous brow looked even more irritated and puzzled than before.

“No, a vet.”

“Well.” He held out my hands as if they were exhibit A. The flesh on my palms was bright pink, horrible to look at, but still, not anywhere near as damaged as it had been forty minutes earlier. “These wounds show substantial healing, wouldn’t you say? More than an hour’s worth, clearly.”

I stared at my palms, raw with new skin. “I don’t understand it. I swear to you, this happened only a short time ago.”

“Look, I’m not going to argue with you. I’ll just put on a dry sterile dressing and give you some supplies to take home. You’ll still need some help with the rebandaging.”

“I don’t have any help.” My voice came out thin and small, embarrassing me. I felt that the intern disapproved of me, and this bothered me, too.

“Abra, where’s Hunter?” I turned to the owner of that soft Texas drawl and felt calmer. Red, unable to take my hand, had decided to hold both my shoulders. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel his chest behind my head.

“He’s home.” The intern wrapped and snipped.

“And you are …”

It was lovely not to have to look at him. “Staying at my mother’s. At Beast Castle.”

Red didn’t react right away to the news that my mother was the vampire screen queen Piper LeFever. Instead, he just took a deep breath and said, “I see.” Then his grip on my shoulders tightened, and I realized I was crying.

“All right,” said the intern, “that’s done. So you’ll be taking her home? I need to give you some instructions.”

I stared at the intern’s ear. He was not looking at me anymore. “Wait a minute. That’s it? Don’t I need IV antibiotics?”

“Ma’am, you may have needed that a week ago, but not today.”

I looked at Red for support. “But there was charring, tissue damage, loss of sensation …”

“Listen, ma’am, you can wait to speak with the admitting doctor who saw you first, or you can look at your chart—second-degree burns.” The intern pulled his latex gloves off with a flourish. “Now, do you want the instructions, or not?”

Red placed one hand on my shoulder, and said, “We’ll take the instructions—boy.”

I didn’t pay attention as the surly intern told Red how to care for my injured paws. As we were about to leave, a tall woman in a tomato red jacket came up to me. Her blond hair had been sculpted into a shape faintly reminiscent of a turkey, and I wondered if this was intentional, as a nod to the holiday.

“Are you Ms. Barrow? I’m sorry, but we weren’t able to find a number for the contact you gave us.” She checked her file. “Red Mallin. Is there anyone else I can try to call for you?”

I turned to Red, confused. “But someone must have called him.”

“No,” the woman said, rechecking her information. “We tried, but there’s no number available from Information.”

“It’s okay,” Red said, giving the woman an easy smile. “I got here, and that’s the important thing. Now, I guess I’d better take this lady home.” As the lady in the red jacket frowned in puzzlement, I let Red put his arm around my shoulders and guide me out of the hospital without comment, aware of his head, not so far above mine, and of his lean strength. He half-lifted me into the passenger side of his pickup truck and then walked around to the driver’s seat.

“You’re not in shock, are you, Doc?”

“I should be. They were third-degree burns.”

It is not so easy to lean across the interior of a pickup truck, particularly one with a stick shift. Red managed it, his hand under my chin, forcing me to look at him.

“I know they were, Doc. But by the time that little shitheel looked at you, they were healed up some.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I would have smelled the deep tissue if it had been exposed. You won’t be havin’ the use of your hands for a while yet, and the rest of the healing’s gonna take a mite longer, but you don’t have third-degree burns, I can assure you of that.”

“Red, burns just don’t heal up that way. Especially deep tissue damage. It doesn’t just go away.”

Red stroked the underside of my jaw with his thumb. “It does when your husband gives you a dose of what your husband did.”

A jazzy little jingle from an old public ser vice announcement flashed through my mind: VD Gets Around! No wonder Red hadn’t wanted to make love with me that night. And then I realized what he was really saying. “You’ve known all along, haven’t you? About the virus?” Red nodded. “But he said I couldn’t catch it. There has to be a genetic predisposition.”

His hand came up to the back of my head, and he leaned his forehead to rest against mine. “I guess you’re predisposed.”

“You know, in all the movies I’ve ever seen, you can only catch this from a werewolf in wolf form.”

Red started the car. “That part’s pretty accurate.”

“But Hunter never—I’ve never seen him turn into a wolf, and he sure didn’t bite me.”

Red looked uncomfortable. “Well,” he said, turning on his headlights, “it doesn’t have to be blood-to-blood transmission. And if, you know, you were tired or a little tipsy one night …” His voice trailed off.

That night, after I’d drunk wine and smoked pot with Red. When Hunter’s back had seemed to ripple underneath my touch. I curled up in the seat as far as the belt would allow, my head turned toward the window. “Just take me home.”

It was very dark and the headlights cast a weak beam over the winding roads, but Red seemed to know his way. For a moment, I remembered that I hadn’t asked Red how he’d known to come to the hospital if no one had contacted him. And then I wondered why an animal removal operator would have an unlisted number. But before I could form any questions, I nodded off, and when I woke up I thought, for a moment, that I was a child again, and my father was carrying me to my bed.

He’s really very strong, I thought, as Red settled me down and pulled back the covers.

“I have insomnia, you know. I’m not going to just fall asleep.”

Red turned the light off. “You always have trouble?”

I yawned. “For the past few years.”

The bed dipped with Red’s weight. “Anything help? Hypnosis, exercise, massage, sex?”

“Nothing.”

“Maybe you’re one of those people meant to stay up most of the night and sleep all day.”

I leaned back and found my head on Red’s arm. How warm he was. “But I want to go to sleep now. I just know I won’t be able to.”

“Just lie here and let me rub your back.”

“That doesn’t work.”

Red moved his hand up until it was on my stomach. “Roll over,” he said.

I turned, and he pulled my dress up at the same time as he covered me with the sheet. With his hand against my naked skin, he began tracing some sort of letters on my back. “This is silly, Red.”

“Shh. Don’t try to look. Just breathe. Relax.”

I closed my eyes and he traced some foreign alphabet down my spine, to the very edge of my underwear, and then back up again. “I tried to call you. After that night with the storm.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Red.” I took a breath, then forced myself to say it. “I found out I’m pregnant with Hunter’s child.”

Red didn’t say anything, but his hand stilled for a moment before resuming its slow rhythmic stroking of my back. His touch was soothing in its certainty, and I found myself half-wishing his hand would move lower. Pregnancy hormones, I thought. Not my fault. After a while we left the room and were standing in the forest, and Red was a wolf that kept running ahead.

“Hold on,” I said, “I can’t keep up with you.” But he’d scented a rabbit or something and kept lunging forward, and by the time I caught up with him he’d been sprayed by a skunk and sat with his tail tucked between his legs.

“You really are an idiot, Red.”

“You’ll never make love to me now,” he said, and I put an arm around him, thinking, Oh, what the hell, at least he isn’t screwing around.

The three little words “I fell asleep” may sound simple to some, but to me they are a rare and elusive delight. Whether it was emotional or physical exhaustion, or the unexpected security of Red’s embrace, I slept in his arms better than I had slept in all my years in my husband’s bed.

I awoke to find myself curled into a fetal position, my bandaged hands crossed in front of me, my dress balled up around my waist. Red was nestled against my back. I’d read once that the happiest couples slept this way. “Tell If Your Relationship Is Happy From Your Sleep Styles,” or some such article. Hunter and I slept on opposite sides of the bed, or else I spooned around him, because he claimed his once-broken nose did not permit him to lie on his left side, facing me.

Red held me with loose possessiveness, one hand across my lower abdomen.

“Red?”

“Mmm.” He sleepily pressed his erection against my bottom, and for a moment, without thinking, I pressed back. Then he groaned and woke up, although I could feel him pretending not to.

“Red? I need to go to the bathroom.”

“What? Oh. Right.” He sat up, tousled and almost boyish with his hair tufted in different directions. He wore boxer shorts, dark red ones. I realized he’d gained weight since I’d first met him, that late summer day in the subway. He was carrying a good fifteen more pounds, all of it muscle now padding his shoulders and ribs.

I walked self-consciously to my mother’s bathroom and then confronted the predicament of being without opposable thumbs in a floor-length gown. I don’t know how long I might have continued standing there had Red not knocked on the door.

“Need help?”

“No!”

“Sure about that?”

“Oh, Christ, Red, I have no idea how to do this.”

Red opened the door, and I was slightly amused to note that his face was scarlet. “I could, ah, lift the skirt.”

Now my face was scarlet. “I can’t even wipe myself. Oh, God, Red, I can’t do this with you here, I need a nurse, I should still be in the hospital.”

“I’m a former EMT.”

“You are?”

“Couldn’t take all the dead children. Seems each July a good ten children would wind up in the bottom of pools and lakes. But anyway, I’m still a professional. Your privates are safe with me.”

We both burst out laughing the kind of relieved, embarrassed laughter that lasts too long and sounds too loud. But when you have to go to the bathroom badly enough, in the end, that’s all you can think about. “Just help me out of the dress.”

He did, looking away from my naked breasts. The dress hadn’t left room for a bra. I had a moment to remember that I was wearing ratty cotton pan ties, and then Red caught my eye. “Anything else?”

My cheeks burned. “Don’t look.”

Red knelt and helped me out of my pan ties, carefully looking down all the time. At my pan ties.

“Leave now!”

Red raised one eyebrow. “What, ah, can I do with these?” He held out my underwear, which looked very small in his large palm.

“Leave them!”

He closed the door, and, after a moment, my bladder relaxed enough to function. I shook myself, flushed the toilet with my right foot, and managed to use my clumsily bandaged paws to get a plush purple towel wrapped around my body. I positioned myself in as ladylike a fashion as I could manage on the toilet seat before calling out.

“Red? Could you—do you think you could run a little bath for me?”

“Sure.” He came in, still bare except for the boxers, but wearing a nurse’s expression, very kindly and matter-of-fact. He crouched down to reach the bath taps and I admired the width of his shoulders and the lean shape of his back. When he turned to me I found myself looking at the ridges of muscle that ran down his abdomen. I looked up and found that Red was smiling; he’d left his shirt off on purpose.

“Want me to put your hair up?”

I was surprised he’d thought of it. “Yes, please. It takes forever to dry.”

Red got my brush out of my suitcase and worked it through my hair in long, sure strokes, holding my hair in his left hand so he didn’t pull at my scalp when he hit a knot.

“You’re good at this.”

“I’ve worked with horses,” he said, and I laughed. “Is there a hairband somewhere—ah, here on the brush handle.” He caught my hair in a high ponytail, then wrapped it into a loose bun. In a sort of trance, I found myself wishing he could just go on brushing it.

“Thank you,” I said, thinking, Hunter may have loved my hair, but he never offered to do this. It would never have occurred to him.

“If I had my choice, I’d brush your hair every night of my life,” Red said quietly. Then, before I could respond, he added, “Let me help you into the bath, Doc.”

I snorted. “I don’t think so.”

“C’mon, you can trust me, I’ll keep my eyes to myself.” He held out his hand and grasped me around the wrist, and a little shock of awareness shot through me. As I climbed in I saw that yes, he was looking away, and yes, he was definitely affected. His boxer shorts were standing up in front as if they’d been starched.

I sat down in the bath with a slosh of water and Red moved so that his back was facing me.

“You in okay?” His voice sounded throaty.

“I’m in.”

“Need soaping?”

“Now, just how far do your medical ser vices extend?”

Red turned around and I sank lower in the tub. “At the moment, Doc, they’re pretty extensive.”