Bride Required

by Alison Fraser

  He made to offer her some money, too, but Dee didn’t accept it. ‘You don’t have to do anything more. I’ll get by.’

  She tried to sound tough. Perhaps she managed it, because he nodded, ‘Fair enough,’ and would have gone if some impulse hadn’t made her call him back.

  ‘Baxter?’ She used his name for once.

  He turned in mild surprise. ‘Yes?’

  He waited for her to speak. If she didn’t, he would be on his way.

  ‘It’s late. What if you can’t get a room anywhere?’ Dee found herself saying.

  He seemed unconcerned. ‘I’ll probably drive through the night to Scotland.’

  ‘Right.’ She made a face and ran on, ‘Look, this is silly. If I have a suite, that means there’s two rooms. One of us could take the couch, surely?’

  He frowned, and didn’t exactly leap at the suggestion. In fact, he was so long in answering, Dee wondered if he thought she had some designs on his virtue.

  ‘What’s brought this on?’ he asked at length. ‘I thought you didn’t trust me.’

  ‘I don’t trust anyone,’ Dee threw back. ‘But I imagine if you were planning to murder me or whatever you could have done that back at the squat, couldn’t you?’

  ‘With terrifying ease,’ he agreed, with a warning in his voice, then added, ‘Okay, I’ll toss you for the sofa.’

  A slanting smile invited her to forget their differences.

  Dee knew if she didn’t he would just shrug and go. This man was no threat to her.

  ‘No way,’ she responded quickly, ‘the bed’s mine. After three months on a floor, I deserve it.’

  ‘All right.’ He didn’t argue the point but pressed the button to call the lift. ‘I’ll be up in about ten minutes.’

  She said, ‘Fine,’ but she was already having second thoughts.

  He misread her troubled expression. ‘Is it your leg?’

  ‘Yes.’ It wasn’t a total lie. The pain in her leg was a constant, dull throb, suggesting she’d pulled, strained or torn something.

  ‘Right, I’ll come up with you and take a look,’ he said as the lift arrived.

  Dee might have argued if she’d been given the chance. Instead a hand guided her into the lift and stayed on her arm when they got out and walked the length of a corridor.

  Their suite was on the top floor. He used the key and held open the door for her. The scent of flowers hit her as she limped into the room.

  Dee saw the roses first, then the bottle of champagne and glasses. Her eyes travelled over the decor and she observed aloud, ‘It’s the bridal suite.’

  He nodded. ‘It was a cancellation. I assume some couple never made it as far as the altar.’

  ‘They probably came to their senses just in time,’ Dee suggested in humourless tones.

  He still smiled. ‘Such cynicism in one so young.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She took it as a compliment.

  Baxter laughed despite himself. She was quick, this girl-woman. Stoic, too. Pain crossed her face but she said nothing.

  He switched automatically into doctor mode. ‘Go into the bedroom and slip off your jeans. I’ll take your bag through.’

  ‘What?’ She looked at him with wary eyes.

  ‘The bed will be higher than this sofa, and your jeans are too tight to roll up,’ he pointed out matter-of-factly.

  ‘Right.’ Dee nodded, feeling foolish. Make any fuss and she would seem even sillier.

  She limped towards the bedroom. It was too richly furnished for her taste.

  She perched on the bed, took off the leather jacket first, then her trainers and socks. She was just easing off the jeans when he came in to examine her.

  He was unembarrassed, but then he probably spent his life seeing women in various states of undress. He knelt beside her and helped pull the jeans down her injured leg.

  Baxter scrutinised her briefly. Her leg was long and slim, apart from the knee, which was painfully swollen. He manipulated it carefully, but she still bit on her lip to stop crying out.

  ‘Badly bruised but not broken. Possibly some tendon damage, however,’ he diagnosed. ‘If the hotel can supply a bandage, I’ll strap it up for now. An X-ray will tell us more in the morning.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ Dee accepted the verdict without argument.

  He rose to his feet, eyes now on her face. ‘I’ll try to locate some painkillers, too… Are you allergic to anything?’

  Dee shook her head and resisted the urge to drag on her jeans. His impersonal tones told her he viewed her simply as a patient. She was the one conscious of the sex difference.

  ‘Meanwhile, lie down and take the pressure off the knee,’ he instructed, already pulling back the covers so Dee could slip inside the bed.

  He helped lift up her leg, and when she lay down draped a fine linen sheet over her.

  ‘Thanks.’ It was so cool Dee’s teeth started to chatter again.

  He put a hand to her brow, as if feeling for fever. ‘Hang on. I’ll be back soon.’

  Dee nodded. She wasn’t going anywhere. She felt drained, as if this day had lasted a week.

  She listened to the doors shut behind him, then lay on her side. She caught her reflection in a wardrobe mirror. She looked gaunt and unkempt. It had been months since she’d slept in a proper bed, longer since she’d slept without fear.

  Tomorrow she would be faced with a choice. Back to the streets, and loneliness, and a life that was no real life at all. Or home once more to the bosom of her family and the hope that Edward would leave her alone. Two choices, but neither seemed tolerable tonight.

  She shut her eyes. She was too tired for decisions now. So tired, even the throbbing in her knee wasn’t going to keep her awake. She was beyond tired, in fact, in a state of witless exhaustion.

  Baxter found her asleep, curled up in a foetal position, the light still on. He put the painkillers and bandage on the bedside cabinet. They would keep until tomorrow.

  He sat carefully on the bed and touched her forehead with the back of his hand. Her skin was warm, damp even, but there was no real temperature, he judged.

  He watched her for a moment. She was different in sleep. Long lashes created shadows on pale cheeks and hid the glass-hard eyes. Her lips were moving slightly, as if she was dreaming. With the sneer gone, her mouth was soft and full. Even the ruthless haircut couldn’t hide it. This girl-woman would one day be beautiful…

  Assuming she lived that long.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DEE woke in the night and found Baxter Ross standing over her. He was naked to the waist, his body illuminated by a bedside lamp. She stared at him in confusion; she’d been dreaming of a man, but not this one.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he assured her as her eyes became fearful. ‘I’m not going to harm you. I heard you crying. I thought you might be in pain.’

  Dee took a moment to focus on what he was saying. Crying? Yes; she felt the tears on her cheek. It wasn’t the first time.

  She moved her leg and found she was in pain, so she grimaced. Let him think that was what had caused her tears.

  ‘I’ll get you something.’ He moved out of range.

  Dee heard a tap running in the bathroom and pulled herself into a sitting position. He returned with a glass of water.

  ‘Here.’ He handed her the glass, then shook out a couple of pills from a bottle on the bedside cabinet. ‘They’re just paracetamol, but they should take the edge off the pain.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She gulped the water and pills down. Maybe it was the pain that had brought on the nightmare this time. ‘I’m sorry if I woke you.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’ He took the glass from her hand and added, ‘May I examine your leg?’

  His formal tone contrasted with the intimacy of their situation. If Dee didn’t trust him, she understood she could just say no.

  She nodded warily.

  He shifted just enough of the sheet to expose her lower leg. His hands moved with cool efficiency on her inf
lamed skin.

  ‘You have fluid on the knee,’ he eventually declared. ‘I’ll bandage it in the morning for support, but it’ll have to be drained.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘It won’t be too bad.’

  Dee was sceptical. ‘How do you know? Have you had it done?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he admitted, ‘but I’ve done it a few times.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Different perspective, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded.

  Dee actually knew what she was talking about. She’d had it drained before, and it wasn’t an experience she was in a hurry to repeat.

  She switched to asking, ‘Was Henry all right?’

  ‘Seemed it. I left him wolfing down kitchen scraps,’ he relayed with a slight smile.

  Dee still felt a measure of guilt, having gone to sleep without checking. She supposed she must have trusted Baxter Ross to take care of things.

  She trusted him now, too, as, exhausted, she lay back down on her pillows.

  Baxter ran a practised eye over her. In this light she looked anaemic and badly nourished. Not to the extent of his African patients, but on the road there.

  He lifted her wrist from the bed and took her pulse.

  Dee was unable to object. His interest was purely professional.

  She was the one conscious of him, of the surprisingly calloused forefinger pressing on her vein, the muscular arm flexed so he could read his watch. His chest was broad and covered in bronzed hair tapering down to his waist. He was so masculine, the sense of him was overpowering.

  It came almost as a shock. After Edward, she’d imagined herself dead to certain emotions. Yet here she was, physically attracted to a man who wouldn’t notice her if she were stark naked. That had to be perverse.

  ‘Your pulse is rapid,’ he finally commented.

  Dee coloured, though it seemed unlikely he would know why. He was quite immune to her.

  ‘That’s normal for me,’ she claimed rather foolishly.

  His frown deepened. ‘Perhaps you need a general check-up.’

  ‘No, thanks!’ Dee didn’t want to discover any more peculiar feelings.

  ‘Not by me.’ He gave a brief smile at her rapid refusal. ‘That really would be straining my code of ethics.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dee wondered what he meant by that.

  ‘I probably shouldn’t have come in here as it is,’ he added dryly. ‘So, unless there’s anything else, I’ll disappear.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ Dee assured him.

  He nodded, then stretched a bare arm out to the light. ‘Off or on?’

  ‘Off.’ Dee had no fear of the dark, just her dreams. She waited until he was at the door before saying, ‘Thanks, Doc.’

  It wasn’t much. Gratitude didn’t come easily to her. But it was sincere enough.

  His voice came back to her in the darkness. ‘No problem.’ It was a quiet understatement before he slipped out of the room.

  Dee knew better, of course. In his eyes, she was a problem. Incapacitated. No longer useful to him. Chances were he would be gone in the morning.

  Dee drifted back to sleep as the painkillers kicked in. This time there were no dreams, good or bad, and, wrapped in the luxury of the huge queen-size bed, she could have slept the clock around.

  She was woken instead by the sound of knocking and her name being called. She tried ignoring both.

  Baxter Ross came in anyway, asking from the doorway, ‘Dee, are you awake?’

  ‘No,’ Dee grunted, and pulled a pillow over her head as he crossed to draw the curtains and let a flood of light into the room.

  He came back to stand by her bed. ‘How are you?’

  Dee emerged reluctantly from behind her pillow. Dishevelled, crusty-eyed and not particularly clean—that was how she was.

  Whereas he was immaculate in cotton chinos and a khaki-coloured shirt. There was no sign that he had been up till late.

  ‘Fine,’ she lied as she tried to sit up and jarred her knee in the process.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ He drew the sheet away to take a look at her leg.

  Dee hastily pushed down her T-shirt from around her middle so it at least covered her pants. Not that he was interested or embarrassed.

  ‘Mmm…I’ll strap it up for now, but I think we should get it X-rayed.’ He picked up a rolled bandage from the bedside cabinet and unravelled it.

  Dee wondered about this ‘we’ business. She’d half expected him to be gone by now. Still, she didn’t argue.

  ‘Can I take a shower first?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure.’ He offered her a hand.

  Dee tried to make it on her own, but more than her knee seemed to have stiffened up. She would have stumbled had he not gripped her arm.

  ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, at her helplessness.

  ‘No need to be.’ He supported her to the bathroom and set her down on the closed toilet seat. ‘I think it’ll have to be a bath.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ Dee meant for him to go.

  Instead he put in the plug and ran the water for her. ‘How do you like it?’

  ‘Hot, please.’ She watched the steaming water cascade into the bath, and murmured aloud, ‘Luxury.’

  He smiled quizzically, ‘Having your bath run?’

  ‘No, having a bath.’ She smiled back.

  ‘Of course.’ He turned off the taps and leaned back against the door, giving her breathing space.

  ‘You can get in the bath by yourself?’ He clearly wasn’t anxious to help her.

  She nodded.

  ‘Right, I’ll leave you to it.’ He straightened and went out of the bathroom door.

  Dee realised she had no need to lock it. His lack of interest in her was so obvious, it was almost insulting. In fact, there was no ‘almost’ about it, she decided, glancing in a mirror and wincing herself at the sight of hollow eyes in a face too gaunt even for fashion. Would he have liked her before, when her hair had been long and her skin had been glowing with health?

  Dee shook her head at her thoughts. What did his opinion matter, anyway?

  It took effort to lever herself down into the bath, but it was worth it. For five minutes she just wallowed. Then, avoiding the swollen knee, she scrubbed at four days’ dirt, emptied out the bath and refilled it, and scrubbed again until she was pink and shiny.

  She finally emerged into the bedroom with a bath towel wrapped round her body like a sarong.

  Dee had assumed he would be in the other room. Instead he was waiting for her here, seated in an armchair. He turned from an uninspiring view of the London skyline and looked at her briefly, not long enough to make Dee feel uncomfortable.

  Some of the stiffness had gone from her leg, and she managed to hobble over to her rucksack. She found clean underwear and a coral T-shirt and slipped them on while he contemplated the view once more.

  She made sure the T-shirt covered her modesty before saying, ‘Could you strap my leg, please?’

  ‘Sure. Sit on the bed.’

  He sat beside her and wound the bandage round her knee, tight enough for support but without constricting the blood flow. Any pain Dee kept to herself.

  ‘Not the neatest of jobs.’ He appraised his own work as he finally inserted a safety pin to hold the layers together. ‘Bandaging isn’t my line of expertise.’

  ‘Feels good to me,’ she said, with a hint of gratitude.

  He glanced up at her before replying, ‘Well, you’re a good patient. Very uncomplaining… How long have you been living rough, by the way?’

  It sounded like a non-sequitur, but Dee followed his train of thought. He assumed—rightly—that life on the streets had toughened her up.

  ‘Three months this time,’ she admitted.

  ‘This time?’ he echoed.

  ‘I went home the first time my money ran out.’ Her lips twisted, indicating it had been a mistake.

  It had also been a mistake telling him. ‘You can go home?’ he queried.
<
br />   Yes, if I want to be molested, she could have said, but didn’t. What business was it of his?

  He read her silence as assent, and went on, ‘So, why don’t you? Home can surely be no worse than your current existence?’

  ‘That’s all you know!’ She flicked him a dismissive look before edging to the other side of the bed. She took her jeans with her and dragged them on over the bandaging, then stood to zip them and buckle her belt. She was too angry now to be self-conscious.

  Baxter Ross waited till she’d finished to say, ‘Tell me, then.’

  ‘Use your imagination!’ She turned her back on him and threw her dirty clothes in the rucksack. She tied the top, shouldered it and picked up her flute case. It all took an effort, though his bandaging seemed to have made her more mobile.

  She walked to the door. It was to have been a grand exit, only with her hands full she couldn’t manage to unlock the door.

  Baxter walked up behind her. She thought he meant to help, but instead he took the rucksack from her hand.

  ‘Don’t be silly. You won’t be able to manage more than a few hundred yards with that lot.’

  Talked to as if she were a child, Dee responded accordingly. ‘Why should you care?’

  His brows gathered into a frown, as if he was really considering the question.

  ‘I probably don’t,’ he admitted at length. ‘It just strikes me as crazy, you limping off into the sunset when you could have breakfast first. I’ve already paid for it so you might as well eat it.’

  Dee’s pride did silent battle with hunger. Pride lost.

  ‘Yeah, okay, if you want.’ She made it sound as if she was doing him the favour.

  Baxter Ross let it pass. She had a lot of attitude for a girl in her situation, but maybe she needed it to survive.

  ‘Afterwards I’ll drop you off at the hospital.’ He took her bags from her and, leaving them on a luggage rack, opened the door for her.

  Dee limped through to the sitting room. She hadn’t quite taken in the suite’s decor last night. Two huge bouquets of flowers rested on highly polished tables while heavily draped windows in cream and floral satin matched a deep plush sofa. Fit for a bride on her wedding night.

  Dee caught her reflection in a gilt-edged mirror. She looked like an alien in this romantic setting. Not that she cared—she didn’t believe in hearts and flowers and happy-ever-afters.