Damián shifted Marisol in his arms. "Check her ribs first. She's been favoring her left side and showed signs of some serious pain when I examined her the way you told me to over the phone." Don't think about touching her right now, Chico.
"Come, cara, let me get you into the exam room. Dr. McKenzie is setting things up for us in x-ray right now." Marc took her elbow and led her past the reception window to the door he had propped open. Savi looked back at Damián.
"Don't worry. We're right behind you."
Savi halted. "No. I don't want Mari to see."
Damián didn't intend to wait out here, but he couldn't just barge into the exam room if Savi didn't want him there. Mierda, she was right. Marisol didn't need to see her mama's battered body. Bad enough she could see the bruises on her face.
Savi 's gaze shifted to Marisol. "Mari, honey, the doctor is just going to check and make Maman all better. You stay here with Damián. I think I saw some toys in the corner over there you can play with while you're waiting. I shouldn't be too long."
Marisol looked from her mother to Marc. "Don't hurt my maman." The fierce tone in her high-pitched voice made Damián smile. Protective of her mommy. He liked that, although he was saddened that his little girl felt the need to protect her mother. Parents were supposed to protect their kids, not the other way around.
Marc smiled his understanding. "Don't worry, Mari. The doctor and I will take very good care of her. She'll be back with you in no time."
Marisol scrutinized Marc a moment longer, taking his measure, then nodded, seemingly satisfied with his buddy's ability to care for her mother and return her safely. Heaven help Marc if he didn't follow through on that promise, though. This muñequita would be a force to be reckoned with.
Already the little doll had breached a major wall in Damián's defenses.
"Come, querida, let's go check out the toys."
"I'm not a baby. You can put me down now."
Yes, ma'am. He grinned as he put her down, feeling instant relief in his stump. He hadn't even realized the strain his prosthesis had been under until now.
Marisol placed her hand in his and led him to the table laden with Legos and books. He hadn't played with the plastic blocks since he'd been in Eden Gardens for Teresa's birthday a few months ago. Happier times with her and his nephew, José, which they hadn't enjoyed during his last visit, dealing with the aftermath of what had happened to Teresa.
He figured a little girl would be more interested in dolls and books, but this one surprised him when she sat at the table and began playing with the colorful blocks. He soon discovered she was quite adept at building intricate structures. Like a construction foreman, she instructed him on what he could do to help and soon they had built four castle walls, complete with a drawbridge that could be lowered and raised. Next she began working on a tower.
Marisol's fingers stopped and she looked up at him. "Do you like princesses?"
Damián wasn't sure how to respond. "Well, I haven't met too many princesses, but the ones I know, like my niece and you, I like a lot."
She smiled briefly, but then grew serious. "Not me, silly. I mean Maman. An evil knight from a kingdom far away put a spell on her and she doesn't know she's a princesa anymore. She needs to have a prince kiss her so she can remember."
Mierda. The calculating expression in the little girl's eyes told him he was being sized up to take on the role of her maman's rescuing prince. He imagined having Marisol's approval would make it easier to get close to Savi.
Fuck that thinking. No way was her mother going to find her perfect prince inside this man's broken body and soul. Besides, his days of scaling towers to rescue princesses, especially ice princesses, were long gone. Hadn't he tried to rescue Savannah once, only to be shown in no uncertain terms she'd wanted nothing more to do with him? Apparently, she'd never looked for him. Didn't even find him to tell him he was going to be a father.
Damián's focus lifted over Marisol's head to the door leading back to the examination rooms. How the hell long did it take Marc and his doctor friend to figure out if Savi's ribs were cracked?
Damián could use a little rescuing here, too.
* * *
"How about here?"
The physician pressed his cold, hard fingers into her abdomen. Savi shivered as memories of Lyle's touch bombarded her mind, and the many ways he'd managed to place bruises on her body that her father wouldn't notice. She'd avoided male doctors in the past because she couldn't bear the thought of being touched by a man. No choice this time. She hated having no choice.
Having Damián's Italian friend in scrubs staring at her from the other side of the examination table didn't help. His thumb stroked her upper arm as if trying to calm her, but his touch only made her skin crawl even more. Sweat broke out on her upper lip.
Breathe, Savi.
She was marginally successful at keeping herself from screaming in fear and revulsion. These men weren't trying to hurt her. Not yet, anyway. Still, her body wanted to crawl into the nearest dark corner.
Go to your safe place, Savi.
Surf.
Sun.
Safety.
Damián waited there, holding out his hand to her.
No!
"That's it, cara. Don't tune out the pain. Dr. McKenzie needs to assess what hurts first, then we'll get you something to deal with it."
Marc brushed the dampened hair back from her temple. Tears? No, she never cried. Must be perspiration.
Despite his cautioning her against it, she tried to block the pain from her consciousness, afraid Dr. McKenzie would send her to a hospital if she were too severely injured. Then he pressed against her ribcage and Savi screamed, lifting her knees involuntarily to protect herself. Oh dear lord. She hadn't gotten back to her safe place and had fought so hard not to give in to the pain. Her body was wound tighter than an overstretched rubber band. I can't take much more.
"Slow, even breaths, cara." She couldn't draw a breath. Panic filled her. "Inhale. Now, Savi."
She looked up at Marc and found herself doing as he instructed. Maybe his being in scrubs reminded her of giving birth to Mari. She remembered her Lamaze training and her body sank against the examination table as she forced herself to release the tension. She could focus on him and…
Dr. McKenzie patted her arm. "Good girl."
She shrank away from the doctor's hand. Those haunting words caused renewed panic to bubble up. Savi tried not to let his unfortunate choice of words do a number on her psyche. He couldn't know they would trigger something in her, and he hadn't meant anything by it. Both Anita and her therapist had worked with Savi for so long on how to stop letting someone's innocently spoken words send her spiraling down into the abyss.
"Eyes on me, cara." Again, Savi turned her head toward Damián's friend. He leaned a little too close to her face for comfort.
"I can't do this," she whispered.
"You don't have to do anything but relax. Dr. McKenzie's just trying to see where you're hurting." His words were firm, but gentle. Still, Savi couldn't let go and relax.
"Marc, help me sit her up. I need to listen to her lungs."
"Cara, I'm just going to put my hand behind your shoulders, and we're going to lift on three. Are you ready?"
No! Don't touch me! Fear clawed at her chest and she raised her hands to ward them off. Wait. They just want to help. Savi forced herself to nod. Breathe. She just wanted to get this exam over with as quickly as possible so she could get back to Mari. She didn't like having her baby girl out of her sight with a stranger for so long. Okay, maybe stranger was a bit of a stretch when it came to Damián. Still, Savi needed to hold her daughter. Mari provided her soul with everything she'd ever wanted or needed.
"I want you to breathe in and out once as deeply as you can before we lift you."
Savi did the best she could, but certainly not very deeply before a stitch in her side caused her pain. Why couldn't she zone out the pain as she'd done for so
long? Feeling numb was better than feeling pain.
Marc seemed satisfied. "Very good. Now, on two, I want you to inhale, and then exhale on three as we lift you. Okay?"
She nodded.
"One. Two." Inhale. "Three." Exhale. In one fluid motion, they lifted her until she was sitting upright. The pressure on her ribs and side was excruciating.
Oh, sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Savi panted, trying to regain her equilibrium and to control the pain response, then masked her discomfort as best she could. She needed to get out of here, not be put in a hospital where her father could track her whereabouts.
Marc cupped her chin with his hand and made her look at him. "Still with us?"
She nodded, unable to speak through the pain. Marc held his arm across her chest to support her and she fought the instinct to pull away. Get it over with.
The doctor placed the stethoscope in his ears and stood beside her, holding the cold, flat disk against her back through the hospital-type gown she wore. "Breathe as deeply as you comfortably can." She breathed in. "Exhale through your mouth." She released the breath, forcing herself beyond her limits, hoping to show him she was fine.
"Again."
Oh, great.
He moved the instrument to the other side of her back and repeated the breathing instructions. Then he brought the stethoscope around and pressed it against her chest. "Just breathe normally."
Easy for you to say.
The doctor stepped in front of her field of vision again. "There's definitely something going on with that rib, Ms. Baker. I'm going to need to get an x-ray to know for sure, but it might be fractured."
"I'm not going to the hospital."
"No worries. I have everything we need here at the clinic. Not the latest technology, but I can take a chest x-ray." He smiled.
"What if it's broken?"
"Well, there's not a whole lot medicine can do. It'll just take time to heal, but I'll want you to be extremely careful so you don't injure it further. I also can prescribe some narcotics to help with the pain."
"No. I can't take anything like that."
"Allergies?"
Savi glanced away. "Yeah."
"To which medications?"
"All of them."
He chuckled. "I see. Well, you might get some relief from over-the-counter meds, but you're going to be in quite a bit of pain for the next couple of weeks, if it's broken. If I feel it's necessary, I'll write you a script in case you change your mind."
I won't. "I have a high tolerance for pain."
Marc laughed. "I'll say, if you drove halfway across the country with a probable fractured rib."
She only hoped she'd driven far enough away to protect Mari.
"Marc, help me get her down off the table, and we'll go take that picture."
Thirty minutes later, Savi made her way back to the waiting room. How a possible hairline fracture could cause her so much pain was beyond understanding. Dr. McKenzie said nothing definitive had shown up on the x-ray, but he still suspected a fracture. He explained hairline fractures didn't always show up right away. She was supposed to come back in a few days for another image.
If she was still here.
She opened the door and her breath caught in her throat, but not because of pain to her rib this time. Mari was sitting in Damián's lap.
"Savannah, you crawled into my lap…you know you wanted me to touch you there."
Savi clutched the doorway and fought the memories that threatened to consume her.
Damián looked up and concern registered on his face. He started to stand, but he couldn't get to Savi because he held Mari. Thank God. Savi didn't want him to touch her right now.
"Whoa, cara. Let me help you." Unfortunately, his friend reached out to steady her, touching her arm.
Savi held onto the doorjamb a little longer, wanting to be sure she was steady before letting go. She pushed Marc's hand away. "No! I'm fine. I just…felt a little dizzy. It's over." To prove her point, she stood taller and forced herself to place one foot in front of the other as she walked over to where Damián cradled her innocent daughter in his lap.
Savi relaxed a bit, seeing Mari's droopy eyelids, her dark, loose curls lying against Damián's massive chest, and her tiny hand resting on his forearm. Mari trusted him. The tightness in her chest loosened. Damián's hand rested protectively on her daughter's hair, where he'd been stroking it gently. Comfortingly. He wasn't touching her…there.
Mari trusted him enough to fall asleep in his arms, and she'd definitely taught her daughter what to do if anyone ever touched her in a bad way. Her daughter had a rape whistle on a necklace she wore under her shirt. Savi trusted her instincts, honed from dealing with many victims over the last two years, and knew Damián wasn't a threat to their daughter. He could never be the monster her own father had been.
Damián held an open copy of Goodnight, Moon in his lap that he'd obviously been reading to Mari before she'd fallen asleep. The book had been one of her little girl's favorites when she was younger, but ever since she'd learned to read, she preferred to read to Savi at bedtime now. Her daughter cherished her growing independence from her maman—and yet she sat curled up in her daddy's lap. She must have been feeling insecure to let herself be babied again.
Savi missed those simpler times with her daughter, going from window to window in their bungalow to find the moon and say goodnight, before Savi tucked her daughter into bed. She blinked rapidly, trying to ward off the sting of tears.
Had she been wrong to deny Damián knowledge of his daughter all these years? No. She couldn't know who to trust. Besides, she hadn't been able to find Damián when she'd made that one attempt, after Mari had been born. Moved. No forwarding address.
Her emotional side warred with her rational one. She still didn't know if she could trust him completely with Mari, even though the way he had comforted his niece after her rape and the way he now held Mari certainly silenced most of Savi's emotional alarms.
Right now, though, his warm, chocolate-brown eyes were filled with worry for Savi. Her stomach lurched. She wasn’t prepared to acknowledge whatever that response meant and turned away.
Savi opened her purse to pull out some cash, hoping she wouldn't deplete the small amount Anita and Father Martine had given her.
"Put that away." Marc said, still standing at the doorway. "Everything's taken care of."
"You don't have to do that. I can pay."
"I said, everything's taken care of." His tone brooked no argument. Of course, she was in no position to argue with him right now, but she'd make a donation to the clinic when she got her life back in order.
Marc crossed the room and handed her a slip of paper. "Here's the script for pain." Then his attention shifted to Damián. "She says she's not going to take any pain meds, but she probably has a cracked rib. I'll let you persuade her otherwise." He grinned at her then, thinking he'd outmaneuvered her. Well, she'd just see about that.
Marc's focus returned to Damián again. "You also want to make sure she coughs as deeply as possible every hour or so to prevent pneumonia, unless she's asleep, of course. The pain meds can help her cough more deeply, too. Don't tape her up, even if it helps with the pain." To Savi, he added, "You don't want a collapsed lung. Trust me on that."
Her chest muscles tightened and she already felt as if her lungs were collapsing. Escape.
"I need to get Mari into bed."
Marc walked over to a chair near the door and retrieved the blanket Mari had been wrapped in and brought it over to Damián. "You want me to carry her out to the car, Damián?"
"No. I have her."
Marc gave him a questioning look that puzzled Savi. "Then let me take her from you lap so you can get up." Damián glanced at Savi, then took the blanket from Marc and wrapped it around Mari's now-sleeping form. Marc lifted her daughter into his arms and Savi watched as Damián grimaced when he rose to his feet. Maybe the doctor should check him out, too. However, h
e quickly reached out to take Marisol into his arms again.
Savi started across the waiting room toward them, suddenly concerned he might not be able to carry her all the way to the car. He glared at her, daring her to try and take Mari away. She decided they'd better get to the car as quickly as possible and headed in that direction instead. "I'll get the door."
Marc waved her away. "I'll get it. It's heavy and you'll just aggravate that rib." Desperately wanting to get some fresh air, Savi waited impatiently for Marc to open the door. He looked at her jacket. "Where's your coat?"
Damián responded before she could. "That's all she brought with her. Doesn't get this cold in Southern California."
Looking at Damián, Marc said, "Bring them both to the store tomorrow. I'll be giving ski lessons to Angelina, Rosa, and the kids, but I'll tell Brian to outfit them fully for their stay." He turned back to her. "Get everything you need."
"Just take us to a thrift store. I don't want to owe any more than I can…"
Did he just growl at her? "Don't argue with me, Savi. You won't match the quality I stock anywhere else, and you have enough health problems without adding pneumonia to the list. Besides, Mari can't run around Denver in a blanket during your stay."
Savi's attention moved to her daughter. She'd provided everything Mari needed since she'd left Anita's home after college graduation and embarked on her career. Sure, they'd frequented thrift stores, but there was nothing wrong with used clothes. They didn't need to waste money on new ones.
Once again, the actions of Savi's father had taken away her autonomy, making her feel weak and helpless. She didn't like that feeling one bit. Now these two domineering men were telling her what she could and couldn't do for her own daughter.
Marc opened the door and held it for her. A blast of much-welcomed, cold air whooshed in, spurring her to action. Needing to get away from the men in the room, she nearly bolted through the door to the parking lot.
How was she going to get used to accepting help from others, especially men, without feeling like a…filthy whore?
The words Lyle and Father had drummed into her psyche invaded again. She'd learned early on her body was not her own. It was only good for one thing—a business deal in exchange for sex.
Nobody's Perfect Page 5