The Cowboy's City Girl - An Enemies To Lovers Romance

by Emerson Rose

  I stop and stare in disbelief.

  “Elena?” I croak. I haven’t tried to speak since Marcus choked me and now I know that it hurts when I do.

  “Yes, Imani. Thank God, you recognize me,” she says, standing up straight and lowering her hands. “I’ve come to help you. Will you please put the glass and the hairspray down?

  I had forgotten I was holding the can in my hand. When I turn my head to look at it, Elena swoops in, snatching the glass shard from one hand and knocking the spray from my other. Shocked, frozen ,and defenseless I wait.

  Is she on his side? What is she going to do with me now? I don’t get a chance to answer any of my own questions. She tosses the glass in the sink beside us and swipes the spray off the ground setting it on the counter just out of my reach.

  “Imani, you’re in shock and you’re hurt. How about we look at some of your cuts? Maybe bandage them up?”

  She cranes her neck around to look at me from every angle. “And your neck is quite bruised. We need to have a doctor look at you.” She offers me her hand, and I surprise myself when I take it.

  I don’t know what I’m thinking. I don’t think I’m thinking about anything logical at all. My only real thoughts were about Elena’s soft four-inch heeled brown boots. I’m going to keep focusing on the boots, that’s it, just the boots. Elena leads me from the room by my elbow. She guides me safely through the minefield of glass cautioning me all the while where not to step.

  “Elena, why? I mean, how come?” I whisper.

  “Imani, don’t talk. You sound horrible, and there may be some damage to your throat. Please, just shush.”

  She raises one finger to her lips like a mother to her child at church and leads me gently to the bedroom. I instinctively scan the room for any signs of Marcus.

  “He’s not here, honey, don’t worry. He’s at our parents’ house where I’ve been staying. He can’t hurt you.”

  I scoot up onto the edge of the bed and take quick inventory of my injuries. There is a large bloody gash on my right palm where I held the glass shard and my feet are covered in blood and full of tiny slivers of glass. Not to mention the bruise marks on my neck.

  I’m a hot mess, in so many more ways than one.

  Elena leaves the room and returns with a first aid kit, a broom and a dustpan. She sits cross-legged on the floor with a towel under my feet while she opens the kit and begins picking each tiny particle of glass from my skin. I stare down at her in utter disbelief.

  I have so many questions, why is she in Italy? How did she know I was here? And I could have sworn she said Marcus was at their parents’ house.

  That can’t be right, he would never go back there. I must not have heard her correctly. I take her advice and rest my voice because speaking is truly uncomfortable but, as soon as she’s done, I’m looking for pen and paper.

  The glass removal takes longer than I expected. There’s a lot more glass in my feet than I thought. Some of the deeper pieces really sting coming out, but I never flinch or pull away.

  She looks up at me occasionally to check on me but I look away. It’s unnerving to look into the near identical eyes of my attacker.

  They are remarkably similar looking fraternal twins, but where he is chiseled she is soft and where he is stern she is yielding.

  A knock on the front door of the cottage has me scooting away from Elena trailing a mess of blood on the beautiful white duvet.

  “It’s alright, Imani. I called a physician. I know him personally. He agreed to a house call. You need to be examined by a professional.”

  I shake my head back and forth, vehemently refusing to have a stranger examine me. I make my way over to the opposite side of the bed, slide down onto my screaming feet and begin to hobble toward the bathroom again.

  “No, you don’t, Imani. Get off of those feet. I’m not done yet,” she says. Her voice is rising to a stern crescendo. I stop half way to the bathroom and weigh my options. I can walk across glass and go back in there to hide or take my chances with a strange Italian doctor.

  I swing my gaze to her and plead with my eyes. We need another way to communicate. I hold an imaginary pen in my hand and write on my palm in hopes that she has pen and paper so we can “talk.”

  “You want to write something down?” she asks. I give her a quick nod. “Ok, just a sec. I’ll get some paper and tell the doctor to wait in the living room. Is that ok?” I nod up and down again and she’s gone.

  I hear her letting someone in the front door. They speak a few words back and forth in Italian before her heels are clicking back down the hall and into the bedroom.

  She hands me the pen and paper and tries to help me back to bed, but I’m not budging until I write what I have to say.

  Why is Marcus at your parents’ house? I don’t want to see a doctor until I’ve cleaned up.

  I hand her the paper and she reads it frowning.

  “Let me sweep the glass up so you can use the bathroom, okay? I nod again and she goes to work sweeping all of the glass from the floor and dumping it into a trashcan. She leaves me alone to dispose of the glass for a moment and returns to rinse out the tub.

  “Can you take a bath by yourself or do you need some help?” I shake my head back and forth. I need some time alone to think.

  She looks at me hard, narrowing her eyes, sizing up the situation, weighing her options.

  “You’re sure? I don’t mind helping you.”

  “No,” I whisper. My voice is completely gone now.

  Reluctantly she leaves me alone but not without first giving me a ‘don’t do anything stupid’ warning look.

  With no mirror to check my injuries in, I run bath water and undress. When I step back into the tub, I hiss and wince when my tender raw feet hit the water.

  My throat feels thick and swollen, maybe I should let that doctor look at me. I’m developing some serious trust issues today and Elena didn’t answer my question about Marcus.

  I bathe and drain the tub not looking forward to standing up on my sore feet. After a few minutes, I’m so chilly the discomfort in my feet loses to the cold air in the room and I tiptoe to the toilet seat to sit down and dry myself off. Elena knocks on the door and without waiting opens it a crack.

  “You need some clean clothes?” I nod and she returns with a matching silk pajama set. I take them and change wishing the silk were flannel in this drafty old house.

  She motions for me to stay seated and brings the first aid kit to finish wrapping up my feet. She’s pretty good at this, they feel better when they’re covered with gauze.

  “None of the cuts were too deep, but I think it’s important for you to see a physician. Will you see Dr. Bava now, Imani? Please, I know you’re traumatized and you’ve been through hell but surely as a nurse you realize how important it is to be checked out now so they can rule out any permanent damage?”

  I close my eyes and sigh. When I open them, I make my pen and paper gesture again. She picks up the paper from the dresser behind her and hands it to me. I tap the pen on the question about Marcus and she looks away, so I tap harder, more insistent to have my questions answered.

  “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know if you will, please, let Dr. Bava look at your neck.” Seriously? Manipulation must run in the family. Both of them have a talent for making a suggestion sound like a compromise.

  Okay, I write and she helps me back into bed, time to meet Dr. Bava.

  Forty-Three

  A handsome, middle-aged Italian man with salt and pepper hair enters the room with Elena. He’s not what I was expecting. When she said house call, I envisioned a seventy-year-old doctor who had seen better days.

  They exchange a few words in Italian. The only words I understand are Imani and Marcus. Is she telling him what happened? Yes, I’m sure that’s what it is, he will have to know what he’s examining me for.

  “Imani, I’m Dr. Bava. May I come closer to you?” he asks in perfect English, thank God.

 
; I like that he is cautious. I nod and he advances holding a small bag like physicians used to carry for house calls.

  “Does your throat hurt? Is it difficult to speak?” he asks, I nod. “You’re an ICU nurse so you must know that the first thirty-six hours following a strangling injury are the most dangerous. You’re going to need a CT scan to check for something more serious than external bruising and swelling.”

  I pick up the pen and paper from my lap and write.

  I understand. No CT.

  He looks back at me with his brows drawn together in a frown. “Why?” he asks.

  “What’s she saying?” Elena asks.

  “She doesn’t want the CT.”

  “Imani, why not? You know this could be very serious, you should see yourself. I’m worried about you.”

  I don’t want to go to a hospital in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language. I would be vulnerable to whoever may still be after Marcus. As far as I know, he never found the woman that broke into his house.

  I also don’t have the greatest track record with kidnapping. I know the risks of refusing the CT and I’m willing to accept them.

  As insane as it sounds, after all that’s happened I’m not worried about myself. I’m worried about Marcus.

  Yes, the lunatic who drugged and kidnapped me, flew me out of the country, and today nearly choked me to death.

  I am worried about him.

  I saw, or more like I felt the change in him before he attacked me. The confusion on his face when he fell into the coffee table, he clearly wasn’t in his right mind.

  His tumor must be growing, shifting, cutting off blood supply, and slowly killing him. As frightened as I was when he had his hands around my neck choking the life out of me, I always knew it wasn’t my Marcus I was afraid of. It was the other part of him, the dark, damaged side of him.

  Dr. Bava and Elena snap me from my thoughts when I hear them arguing quietly in Italian. I write Speak English or go away and tap my pen on the pad of paper to get their attention.

  He looks over my shoulder at my message and nods in agreement. “She wants us to speak in English,” he says to Elena.

  “Okay, Imani, you really need the CT. Please.” she pleads placing her hand over mine. I remove it and write.

  Is he OK?

  I hold up the paper and she inhales a sharp breath.

  “You want to know if he’s OK?” she says. I nod. “Um, well, no actually, he’s not. He locked himself in his old bedroom and he keeps repeating, “It’s over. I don’t know what happened.”

  My heart clenches in my chest, constricted by his turmoil.

  I thought I knew what a broken heart felt like when I left him but this, this is different. This is intense, physical and emotional pain, it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before, or want to feel again.

  My heart has been through a lot, but feeling the pain of someone you love so deeply, so completely, is staggering. Balancing all of this fear and trauma with the love and devotion I have for him is impossible. I’m shaken up in every way imaginable and I have to find a way to untangle this mess.

  What would Marcus do to get what he wanted? How would he handle this?

  Manipulation, that’s how.

  Then it hits me. I scribble on the paper, and Dr. Bava reads it aloud.

  “I’ll have a CT if he does. What do you mean, Imani?” He turns to Elena and repeats the question “What does she mean?” he asks with urgency marginally raising his voice.

  “He, he has a brain tumor, Enrique. He didn’t want anyone to know. He was furious that I found out after his accident.”

  Enrique, huh? These two are more than acquaintances. I wonder why he’s upset about Marcus? Does he know him personally, too? A family friend, perhaps?

  Dr. Bava, or Enrique, is looking at Elena with worried eyes.

  “Why hasn’t he had it removed?” he asks flatly, and Elena turns away from him to look into the fireplace.

  “Why, Elena?”

  She won’t look at him until he answers his own question in a pained, hushed voice, “It’s inoperable.”

  Inoperable. The term bounces around my head like a rubber ball. I didn’t know that. But Marcus did and he kept it from me. Why didn’t he tell me? Questions flood my mind as I sit and stare at these two people that I hardly know who are telling me Marcus is going to die because that fucking tumor can’t be removed.

  I’m up and moving before they realize it. I hop across the room and lock myself in the bathroom or the panic room as I’m starting to think of it.

  I rip off my pajamas and pull on a pair of jeans that are hanging on the back of the door. I cram my arms into the bulky sweater that’s next to the jeans and yank it over my head. There’s no time for panties or bra. I don’t know where the hell they are anyway.

  Shoes, where are my shoes? Dr. Bava and Elena are both knocking on the door. Enrique is calm and Elena is frantic.

  When I’m dressed, I unlock the door and swing it open wide with so much force it yanks me with it.

  “I need to see him. Now,” I whisper and walk between them pushing them aside. They part and allow me to pass.

  I don’t look at either of them as I scan the room for my shoes. I spot a pair of grey rubber boots with white polka dots all over them next to the bedroom door. I have no idea who they belong to, but they look to be about my size so they’re mine for now.

  Every step I take across the cold stone floor with my bandaged feet feeds my latest adrenaline rush. Pain propels me forward, not only the pain from my feet but the pain in my heart for Marcus.

  I tug the boots on over my jeans with the tiny handles at the top of each boot. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and bite my tongue to keep from crying out.

  Everything I’ve ever learned about brain tumors is surfacing in my mind. I sort through a database full of information, sifting and pulling out anything pertinent to inoperable brain tumors. I think of the treatment centers all over the world, the wrong diagnosis, the quack doctors who don’t know what they are doing when they label something inoperable, terminal, or hopeless.

  I know so much of what happens in the medical field is total bullshit. I need to find out who he’s spoken to, who is on his case, and exactly why it’s been labeled inoperable.

  Marcus is wealthy beyond belief and there are new techniques being developed all the time. Surely someone can remove it.

  “Let’s go,” I whisper. God, I hope the loss of my voice isn’t permanent. If this is serious, I’ll end up in a hospital in a foreign country with no way to communicate. There’s no advantage to being a nurse when I don’t speak Italian. If worse comes to worst, I have Dr. Bava and Elena, and that’s going to have to be enough.

  I stand wild eyed at the bedroom door looking at two surprised faces and wave my arm toward the door. They stand there staring until I repeat my gesture with two arms.

  They jump, startled by my current level of crazy and follow me down the hall. I’m sure they are hoping our destination is the nearest hospital and they’ll get their wish, after we make a pit stop. I have to see Marcus.

  A tiny tornado of fear and anxiety spins in my tummy but a force a million times stronger reaches out from my heart. The magnetic force between us overpowers my fear and I can’t wait another minute. I need to see my Marcus.

  I just hope I don’t have to encounter the other Marcus, the dark Marcus, the one that scares the fucking hell out of me.

  Forty-Four

  It’s not a long drive to Marcus and Elena’s childhood home. We ride in Dr. Bava's handsome Mercedes. The luxury of the car is lost on me, though, as I sit in the front seat chewing on my bottom lip anticipating the next belly dropping dip along this roller coaster ride.

  The memory of the day in the garden when Marcus promised to take on the burden of worrying for both of us comes to mind.

  Things couldn’t have spun more out of control. Now, instead of not worrying at all, I’m worrying for three people: his two persona
lities and myself.

  The beautiful Italian countryside whizzes by outside my window. I’m seeing it with my eyes but the beauty doesn’t register with my brain.

  There is a full-on buzzing happening inside of me when we pull in the driveway of a drab run-down cottage. This is where it all began. The insane torture and neglect of a little boy and girl left in the hands of their mentally ill mother by a father in severe denial of her condition and his children's abuse.

  A wave of nausea hits me when I take a painful step from the car. My feet sting and my neck is starting to hurt more. I ignore the pain. Injuries always feel worse before they improve, that’s what I tell my trauma patients. They believe it, why shouldn’t I?

  Elena reaches for my hand sensing the difficulty of the moment. Marcus tried to kill me today. She probably thinks I’m as crazy as he is for coming here after that. It wasn’t him, though; I wonder if she knows that.

  Maybe that used to be normal behavior for her brother. He was known as ‘The Beast’ before his accident. But he’s a different man now.

  I grab onto her hand, grateful for the comfort of her warm fingers wrapped around mine. It’s as cold here as it is at home in December, maybe colder. The sharp wind whips up blowing Elena’s hair horizontally as we crunch along the gravel path to the front door.

  I look up the path and see the front door. It’s purple, exactly like the front door of his castle in Seattle. Good God, this is a fucked-up family. Why would he want to be reminded of this place?

  I cross the threshold into the living room and I’m instantly warmed by a blast of heat. Central heat, oh how I’ve missed you. I look around the quaint living room and listen as a clock ticks loudly on the wall down the hall. Other than that, the house is still and silent until I jump and almost topple over when an unexpected fur ball nudges the back of my calf.

  “Murray, leave Imani alone; you scared her. She’s our guest now, be nice,” Elena says to a big black cat weaving between my legs.