The Longing of Lone Wolves

by Lana Pecherczyk

  Evan took the iPad and squinted at it, peering closely. “Huh.”

  “So this is new information to you?” Grace asked.

  “Yes. First time I’ve been scanned.”

  “First time?” He piqued her interest more with each passing minute. “Right, well it’s called supernumerary. It’s more common than you think. Usually it’s an extra kidney or spleen… or the occasional tooth and the like. We’d have to run more diagnostics to identify their purpose.”

  A loud pop and spark burst from the iPad, lighting the area as though a camera flash went off. Evan dropped the sizzling device into his lap. “What the hell was that?”

  “Oh no. I’m so sorry. It must have shorted out.” Grace went to pick it up, but he stopped her with a hand to her wrist. Another spark ignited at his fingers. Grace yelped and he let go, eyes widening to meet hers, just as shocked as she was.

  “You must have a residual static charge or something. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Are you burned?”

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “Just a small… static shock.” Was that all it was? She sighed at the smoldering device. “Your scan; I can get another iPad and download it from the cloud.”

  He pushed the tablet away. “No need. Can I go?”

  “You don’t want to investigate the organs further?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Okay, then. I’ll check your sutures and if everything is good, you can go.” She placed a palm on his good shoulder and applied pressure. He didn’t budge. She had a sense he wouldn’t budge unless he wanted… for anyone. “Please sit back. I need you to pull down the top half of your gown to expose the wound.”

  He glanced at her hand as if it burned him.

  She put the charred iPad down on a side table and when she turned back, he still hadn’t moved. “Mr. Lazarus, you haven’t removed your gown.”

  He grunted. “Shoulder wound.”

  A man of many grunts. “Right. Of course. How silly of me. Sit forward and I’ll help.”

  Evan leaned forward. He was so large that she lifted to her toes to peer over his shoulder and pluck the rear snaps apart. He went to catch the falling fabric and their hands clashed. Another jolt zapped between them.

  Grace squeaked and let go.

  He also let go.

  The gown swished down, leaving the expanse of his chest exposed, and then some. From her vantage point, Grace saw indecently down the chiseled ridges of his front. Enough to confirm the tattoos covered half his body and didn’t go all the way down. They stopped where the light sprinkle of hair began under his stomach. She glimpsed the top of his shaft, where it joined his torso. Was he—? She squeezed her eyes shut, but that made it worse. The afterimage had burned into her retinas. She opened her eyes again to find him slowly covering himself, as if not to draw attention, but when he tilted his head to her side, there was a moment of shared awareness.

  She’d seen. He knew she’d seen. She knew he knew she’d seen.

  “Let’s check your wound,” Grace said, silently thanking her relentless training. She could do this. Ignore it. Oh no, she called his erection an it. This was officially the worst examination she’d ever had to do, and that included the geriatric who once sat on the handle of a back scratcher in the shower.

  She faced his shoulder, trying desperately not to breathe in. At first, it was his dirty appearance that put her off, but then under all that there was a delicious pine and musk scent that came out to envelope her, infusing warmth into her bones. He shouldn’t smell that good. No man should.

  Grace peeled the white tape from his neck to expose the wound.

  He sat stiff as a board, gaze focused on a central point in front of him, hands gripping the sheet at his side, muscles taut. Perhaps he felt as awkward as she did. Good. He deserved to lose that gruff attitude. Grace went back to the sutures, assessing the nurse’s skill. They looked fine. No swelling in the wound. Healing rather well, in fact. But she pretended to take longer than she needed. The bruises on his torso concerned her, and she needed a moment to think on how to approach the topic. They reached all over his body, front and back, like a macabre purple and yellow painting. She decided he’d appreciate the direct approach.

  “Do you want to tell me how you obtained the puncture?” she asked, and pressed the wound dressing down, smoothing the tape with her finger. “The notes say they found rust and metal filings in there.”

  “A broken fire escape ladder fell on me.”

  She sighed and pulled away. “And the bruising? Was that a ladder too?”

  He said nothing.

  Grace stepped back for a better look at his injuries. She clenched her hand into a fist and hovered it over a bruise under his ribs. Perfect match for knuckles.

  “I’ve seen this kind of bruising before, Evan.” With his physique, it wasn’t hard to leap to conclusions.

  “You done?” Without waiting for her response, he swung his legs over the other side of the bed, showing his naked back.

  More tattoos. A quote of some kind weaved with a pattern. More skin. More bruises. More suffering.

  “I’d like to talk some more about your other injuries,” Grace said. “The bruises.”

  “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “No.”

  He shook his head and stood, heedless of his nudity, to pick up a pair of jeans. She caught a flash of a taut, tanned ass and turned hastily away with the absurd thought to wonder why his butt was the same color as the rest of his skin. Usually there was a tan line. He either fake tanned, or sunbathed in the nude. Or maybe that was his natural skin tone. For a moment, Grace’s mind got stuck on imagining his naked body in its entirety, and then remembered where she was.

  She picked up the iPad, intending to go back to the patient notes, but it was well and truly fried. Just like her wits. Normally, she’d be fine with his level of body confidence. She saw naked people every day. Nothing to it. In fact, it had become such a common site that she thought she’d become numb to it.

  You’d have to be blind and stupid not to be affected by his body, even in its current state of disrepute.

  He slipped on a T-shirt.

  Those bruises.

  She cleared her throat.

  “Um, so the stitches can come out in about a week. If you make an appointment to see your general practitioner, they can be removed there. And about the bruising. You were lucky enough to escape internal bleeding this time, but I can’t say you’ll be so lucky the next. Please look after your body. It’s the only one you’ve got.”

  “Can’t you do it?” This brought his intense gaze back to her.

  Grace’s eyes widened. Look after his body?

  “The stitches,” he elaborated.

  Did she detect a sparkle of amusement in his eyes?

  “No,” she said. “I’m sorry but this is the emergency department.”

  He walked around the bed until he faced her, invading her space. Now in a white T-shirt and jeans, he was no less imposing. She bet the other guy lost the fight. A step backward and her butt hit the gurney. He crowded her, caging her in by placing a palm on the bed either side of her.

  “But I want to see you again”—his gaze dropped to the identification badge at her breast—“Doctor Grace Go.”

  “Mr. Lazarus—”

  “Evan.”

  “—Evan. This is highly improper.” Grace glanced at his arms in the way of her escape and, for a minute, the closeness was too much. His smell. His heat. Overpowering. Confining. Intoxicating.

  Was that water dripping over the roaring sound in her ears?

  Was that the smell of concrete and fumes?

  “I like improper.” He spoke into her ear.

  He was too close, and she was unfamiliar with him. She hugged the broken iPad to her chest and shut her eyes to stop the past ruling her judgment, but the walls crumbled around her and she was back in the tight space underneath
the building debris. The smell of asphalt. Her screams. The thick air running out of oxygen. She’d choked and coughed. Water dripped somewhere nearby. The telltale sign of heat flushing through her nervous system warned of an anxiety attack about to hit in full force.

  Grace forced her eyes open. Her next words were slow and deliberate. “Move out of my way. Now.”

  He cocked his head, studying—always studying—and then something strange happened. A spark and a sizzle came from where he rested on the mattress. His eyes widened, and he hid his hands behind his back.

  “I have to go,” he said roughly. “See you in a week.”

  And then he was gone, curtain swaying gently in his wake.

  Grace exhaled in a burst. What had just happened? She patted her clammy forehead with the back of her hand. In a desperate attempt to get her thoughts into order, she set about the space to tidy up.

  What kind of gall did he have to treat his doctor that way? Was he just an asshole alpha male who liked to fight? Or perhaps he truly was psychotic after all. Or maybe those bruises were part of a bigger picture. Would he actually come back and ask for her? Oh God. Her stomach twisted into knots. Maybe she should have directed him to the clinic to avoid a scene in Emergency.

  Grace tugged the sheet from the bed for the orderly, and a burned plastic smell hit her nose. She shifted the sheet out of the way to expose the mattress. What the hell? Scorched handprints marked the mattress. She dipped to inspect the charring and her mind raced back to the sudden noise that made him hide his hands. He made those marks. With his hands. How? Maybe it was he who burned the iPad, not the other way around. Confounded, she pulled the sheets off further and the paper ball that he’d thrown at her head fell to the ground.

  She unraveled it and flattened its length on the gurney.

  Cold seeped into Grace and she had to sit down. The portrait was her. The bomber.

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  About the Author

  OMG! How do you say my name?

  Lana (straight forward enough - Lah-nah) Pecherczyk (this is where it gets tricky - Pe-her-chick).

  I’ve been called Lana Price-Check, Lana Pera-Chickywack, Lana Pressed-Chicken, Lana Pech…that girl! You name it, they said it. So if it’s so hard to spell, why on earth would I use this name instead of an easy pen name?

  To put it simply, it belonged to my mother. And she was my dream champion.

  For most of my life, I’ve been good at one thing – art. The world around me saw my work, and said I should do more of it, so I did.

  But when at the age of eight, I said I wanted to write stories, and even though we were poor, my mother came home with a blank notebook and a pencil saying I should follow my dreams, no matter where they take me for they will make me happy. I wasn’t very good at it, but it didn’t matter because I had her support and I liked it.

  She died when I was thirteen, and left her four daughters orphaned. Suddenly, I had lost my dream champion, I was split from my youngest two sisters and had no one to talk to about the challenge of life.

  So, I wrote in secret. I poured my heart out daily to a diary and sometimes imagined that she would listen. At the end of the day, even if she couldn’t hear, writing kept that dream alive.

  Eventually, after having my own children (two firecrackers in the guise of little boys) and ignoring my inner voice for too long, I decided to lead by example. How could I teach my children to follow their dreams if I wasn’t? I became my own dream champion and the rest is history, here I am.

  When I’m not writing the next great action-packed romantic novel, or wrangling the rug rats, or rescuing GI Joe from the jaws of my Kelpie, I fight evil by moonlight, win love by daylight and never run from a real fight.

  I live in Australia, but I’m up for a chat anytime online. Come and find me.

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