The Asset

by Anna del Mar

  Neil whimpered.

  “I know,” I mumbled. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

  Ash nearly fainted on the landing, then regained his senses long enough to get his arm over my shoulder and make it to the bathroom at the top of the stairs, where he did faint. I managed to get him gently to the floor. He came to as I filled up the bathtub.

  “What the hell?”

  “Two choices.” I knelt on the tiles next to him. “Either I take you to the hospital or we get your fever down the old-fashion way.”

  He lifted his head from the floor and contemplated the old claw-foot bathtub with trepidation. “No hospital.”

  “Okay, then.”

  He groaned when I took off his boots. I bit down on my lips and suppressed the grimace that tried to overtake my face. Ouch. His left foot was riddled with scars and swollen like a rotten gourd. He unbuckled his belt and, between the two of us, we managed to lower his pants. The swelling in his foot connected with his lower leg, which was also flushed and inflamed. I helped him to take off his shirt. I tried to keep my eyes averted from the other scars on his body, but they were many and most of them were still raw and red. My God. He’d been seriously injured.

  He hunched over his arms, hugging himself, shaking uncontrollably, glowering at me through lidded eyes. He snapped when I tried to loosen the bandage around his calf.

  “Forget this.”

  He heaved himself from the floor to the toilet and from the toilet to the tub and, perching his calf on the ledge, slid into the bath, groaning as he immersed the bulk of his body in the tub, shivering nonstop. A tide of displaced water swelled and spilled over the edges, splashing on the floor and drenching my feet. Within moments, his teeth began to chatter.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to call the ambulance?”

  “Sure as shit.”

  “I could drive you to the hospital or call the sheriff for help.”

  He snarled. “No.”

  A tiger trapped in my bathtub might have been a safer bet. A swipe of his paw could take my head off.

  Perhaps this was about more than embarrassment. “Ash,” I said. “Why don’t you want me to take you to the hospital or call the sheriff? Are you in trouble?”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’m in trouble all right.”

  “With the law?” I said, fearing his enemies as much as mine.

  “No, not with the law,” he muttered before he closed his eyes. “With someone a lot more dangerous than the law.”

  Chapter Two

  Ash’s listless body dwarfed the bed’s iron frame. He was a big man and even though it was a double bed, he seemed to take up all of the space in it. I pressed my hand against his forehead and exhaled in relief. The fever had finally broken.

  I crossed the room and added a log to the hearth. The flames crackled, filling the bedroom with a sound that reminded me of quiet laughter. Maybe it was God—if he really existed—laughing at the irony of me trying to protect a stranger when everyone I’d ever cared for was dead.

  The past three days had been intense. The fever had refused to cave. Now, after days fighting the stubborn infection, I reeled with exhaustion, but Ash was getting better. Maybe I wasn’t so bad at the business of caring. Perhaps I could help people after all, instead of getting them killed.

  I cracked open the front window, just an inch or so to let in some of the crisp morning air. The scent of pine, rich loam and dew-moistened forest freshened my lungs—autumn’s fragrant perfume, the smell of freedom to me. I’d arrived at Copperhill and met Wynona Hunter in the fall, exactly two years ago. Back then, I couldn’t have imagined I’d be alive today, thriving in such a stunning place among such kind people. I celebrated my unlikely anniversary by watching the sun’s birth behind the mountains to ignite a brand-new day over the cobalt lake. I let out a sigh. To think that I was still free.

  I’d brought my shotgun upstairs to clean it—okay, fine, maybe I felt a little safer having it nearby—but Neil had other plans. The big German shepherd padded over to the basket where I’d stowed his belongings and, carrying the brush between his teeth, dropped it on my lap.

  “Oh, I see what this bright boy wants.”

  The dog replied with a series of modulated vocalizations, expressive whimpers that made him sound strikingly humanlike.

  I laughed. “You’re a big talker, aren’t you?”

  He woofed. I set aside the gun, plopped down on the floor and ran the brush over the dog’s obsidian coat. Neil just lay there, luxuriating under my care with a puppy’s joy. His paws seemed too large for his body, so I assumed he was still a juvenile.

  I recalled what I knew about the breed. German shepherds were hardworking, intelligent and loyal, traits that made them ideal working partners for humans. Many of them were highly vocal, like Neil. Judging by his behavior and the service vest I’d found among the dog’s carefully packed belongings, Neil had been trained to assist his owner, although in what capacity, I wasn’t sure.

  The cell I’d found in Ash’s pocket rattled on the night table again. It had been going off a lot lately, but I didn’t see any use in answering it at the moment. I mean, what was I supposed to do, take a message?

  The dog lifted his head, rose and padded over to the bed. Trusting Neil’s instincts, I followed. As if on cue, Ash opened his eyes and scanned the room with systematic efficiency. His vivid blue eyes settled on me.

  He tried several times before he found his voice. “What the hell happened?”

  “Relax,” I said, pouring a cup of broth from the thermos I’d kept warm next to the fire. “I’ve got it all under control. Neil has been really worried about you.”

  The dog nuzzled Ash’s hand.

  “Hey.” Ash petted Neil, but his eyes remained on me. “How long was I out?”

  “Oh, not too long,” I said. “A couple of days, that’s all.”

  “Two days?” He seemed horrified.

  “More like three,” I said. “What? You missed a hot date?”

  “Very funny.” He examined the dog. “You look good, boy. Did you...did you take care of Neil while I was out?”

  “Ask him yourself. He’s a pleasure to work with, unlike some other mammals in the room.” I helped Ash to sit up against the pillow and then pressed the cup against his lips. “Drink up. The doctor said you’d need lots of liquids.”

  “A doctor came?” He choked on the broth and broke out into a coughing fit. “Here?”

  “Why, sure.” I set the cup aside and pounded gently on his back. “Who the heck do you think did that?”

  His eyes fell on the IV hanging from the bed frame and followed the line all the way down to his arm. He coughed some more before he got the fit under control.

  “That little plastic tube and the antibiotics running through it did the heavy lifting,” I said, fluffing his pillows. “Now your job is simple, drink and rest.” I offered him the cup. “Can you hold on to that?”

  He wrapped his big, calloused fingers around the cup and frowned. “I can’t remember anything that happened after the bathtub.”

  “Consider that a blessing.” I arranged his covers. “The doctor had to drain the wound in your calf. You put up a racket, but that’s all done now.”

  He peeked under the covers and sniffed. “Smells better.”

  “Much better,” I agreed, remembering the awful sight. It had been such a shock to me. Ugh. So much pus. “How long had you been fighting that infection?”

  “A week maybe.”

  “You needed to be in the hospital,” I said, gathering his first dose of pills.

  “I was in the goddamn hospital.” A fearsome scowl etched his face. “Where the hell do you think my wounds got infected in the first place? Those morons fix one thing and break another.”

&nbs
p; “Jordan said you should take these.” I handed the pills to Ash.

  He cupped the meds in his palm. “Who’s Jordan?”

  “Jordan is the doctor.”

  “Why the hell would he agree to come out here to see me?”

  “Oh, believe me, he wasn’t exactly happy about that.” The understatement of the day. “But he loved your grandmother. Had it not been for her, he would have been working at some low quality, run-of-the mill clinic in the Midwest. Instead, thanks to Wynona, he got to live his lifelong dream of practicing in the Rockies.” I eyed the pills in his hands. “How about getting those out of the way?”

  He stared at the tablets in his hand and wrinkled his nose. “They make me drowsy. Or sick to my stomach. That stuff fucks with my brain. I’ve got no intention of ending up addicted to all that junk.”

  “Brilliant idea.” The mere prospect of having to deal with a junkie rattled my courage. “Jordan thinks that you were taking too much of the heavy psych stuff anyway. Were you giving them hell at the hospital?”

  One of his shoulders rose in a noncommittal half shrug.

  “I knew it.” I smirked. “I bet you were a royal pain in the ass.”

  He flashed me an affronted look. “Hey!”

  “Just saying.” I cocked my head. “Do you get them very often?”

  “Get what?” he said.

  “The nightmares. They seemed pretty bad.”

  He shrugged again.

  “Or perhaps you were hallucinating?”

  He glared. “I don’t hallucinate.”

  “Then maybe you were having flashbacks,” I said. “I wonder, what’s the difference?”

  “Nightmares are bad dreams,” he explained, clearly annoyed by my ignorance. “Hallucinations are perceptions that aren’t real. Flashbacks are vivid memories that feel like they’re happening in real time.”

  “So you don’t hallucinate,” I said, “but you do have nightmares and flashbacks.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No need to get cranky.”

  “Damn it.” He cursed under his breath. “Why do I feel like you arm-wrestled me with your pinkie?”

  “Relax.” I sat at the edge of his bed and, making a huge effort to overcome my fears, squeezed his arm. “I’m not the enemy. You’re doing great, so much better than when you first got here. Jordan thinks you should keep taking these pills and maybe something to sleep—but only at night. It was the infection, combined with the excess medication that had you feeling all wrong. He thinks the leg needs some additional medical attention. Rest, food and fresh air will help too. Now, will you please take the pills?”

  “He actually sounds like a doctor I might like instead of those quacks who just want to pump me full of drugs.” He gulped down the pills and washed them down with a swig of broth. “Sorry if I got out of control.”

  “It was only an old vase,” I said. “And the doctor’s nose. No worries.”

  He gawked. “I broke the doctor’s nose?”

  “It wasn’t intentional.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he grumbled. “I told you not to call anybody.”

  “You told me not to call the ambulance or the sheriff, and I didn’t. You also told me not to take you to the hospital, which narrowed my options considerably, especially when you started to get worse.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I got worse?”

  “South of worse.”

  “Christ, I usually stay north of worse, at least most of the time.”

  This time, when he met my eyes, he smirked, a lopsided smile that brightened the room and gave me a glimpse of the man hidden beneath the grouch. Maybe there was a little bit more than pain, anger and violence in Ash Hunter.

  “How long have you been back?” I asked.

  “Over three months,” he said, gulping down the rest of the broth.

  “Did you get hurt in Afghanistan?”

  “Where else?”

  “What happened?”

  He snarled. “I was walking in the park and tripped. What the hell do you think happened?”

  His anger hit me like a wallop to the face. My instinct was to run. I lurched inside, but I managed to keep my cool outside. Steady. Breathe. Cope. He didn’t want to talk about what happened to him. I could relate to that. I didn’t like to talk about my past either. But still, all that anger got my bile churning. Back straight as a steel rod, I got up and refilled his cup.

  He must have noticed my distress.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, even though I wasn’t.

  “I still don’t understand how you got this doctor to come all the way out here. Nona’s gone and he doesn’t owe me anything.”

  “But he owes me big.” I blew on the broth to cool it off. “I’ve done Jordan lots of favors before.”

  “Favors?” His jaw tightened. “What kind of favors?”

  “I subbed at his office when his assistant went out on maternity leave last summer.” I handed him the refilled cup. “And I always volunteer for the free events and the health fairs. Not to mention that I’m his last-ditch contingency plan. If everything else fails, he knows I’ll take in his patients.”

  “So it’s like a professional relationship?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Still, I don’t know too many doctors who do house calls these days.”

  “Jordan does for some of his patients.” He had to, since some of them were hard to transport. “I’ll admit that he was a little reluctant to treat you at first. But I told him that we’d pay his full fee. I also assured him that you wouldn’t hold any grudges, or sue him, or tell anybody about this.”

  “Sue him?” He frowned. “No, of course, not. Why would I sue him?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I chewed on my pinkie nail.

  “I’m curious,” he said. “How did you meet this doctor?”

  “He treated Ozzie, Izzy, Ivy and Ike, and he did a great job at it.”

  He scratched his beard. “You seem kind of young to have four kids.”

  “Kids?” I tittered nervously. “No, not kids. Ozzie and Izzy are goats, rescued goats, to be precise.”

  “Goats?” His eyes rounded into moons. “What about Ivy and Ike? Are they kids? Please tell me that they’re people.”

  “Sorry.” I shrugged. “Ivy is a donkey and Ike—he’s a miniature Shetland pony. Which reminds me...” I checked the time. “Oh, yes, we’ll be hearing from Ozzie in three, two, one...”

  Ozzie bleated with all the might of his powerful little lungs.

  “And here’s Izzy,” I blabbered on, just as she joined Ozzie, followed by a donkey’s loud braying. “That would be Ike. You’re listening to the breakfast symphony. Ozzie and Izzy were abandoned by their owners when they got hoof disease. Ivy was rescued from a farm, severely abused and emaciated. Ike used to work at a circus but his owner ditched him at the national park in lieu of financing his retirement. I’ve got to go feed them right away, otherwise the racket becomes unbearable—”

  “Lia?” Ash said. “If these friends of yours are rescued animals, are you saying—I mean, am I right thinking that maybe your friend the doctor isn’t really a doctor?”

  “For real?” I perched my hands on my hips. “You wouldn’t let me call the ambulance or drive you to the hospital. You would’ve been really pissed off if I called the sheriff. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Oh, shit.” Ash shook his head and dipped his face in his hands. “The doctor is a veterinarian, isn’t he?”

  “It was the best I could do on short notice.”

  The bed started to shake, creaking beneath his weight as if complaining. Outside, Ozzie bleated his heart out and Izzy and Ivy escalated the rack
et. I had to strain to hear over the ruckus, but the sound spilling from Ash took me by surprise. Soft and musical, deeply masculine, but also contagious. He was laughing, hard.

  “Those sons of bitches were talking about taking my leg.” He wiped tears of hilarity from his eyes. “And you got a vet to treat the infection. A vet? He probably used meds for horses instead of people.”

  “Well...” I might as well tell him the whole truth. “He didn’t want to treat you at first, but I begged him. His brother is a famous wound care specialist in Boulder. They tackled the infection together.”

  “Wow.” Ash’s blue eyes beamed with a mixture of incredulity and glee. “You’re unbelievable, you know that? It couldn’t have been easy. Convincing a vet to treat a vet and then persuading some famous doctor from Boulder to help the vet to treat the vet. A vet for the vet!” He laughed some more.

  “Whew.” I let out the breath I’d been holding. “I’m so glad you’re not mad at me. I knew for sure you’d be in good hands.”

  “You’ve got guts, girl.” His eyes fell on the pendant hanging from my neck. “You’re something different all right.”

  My hand wrapped around the little obsidian stone. It felt oddly warm to my fingers, kind of like his eyes. I don’t know why, but I flushed under his stare.

  “Thanks for watching my six,” he said. “We Hunters honor our friends. I’ve got your back, Lia.”

  Those eyes. My brain slowed down to a crawl. Strange. I fumbled for words, umming and ahhing like a fool.

  “I’ll go feed those troublemakers.” I forced my brain to catch up. “While I’m gone, you’re going to stay in bed and finish your broth. Is that clear?”

  “Clear as mud, ma’am.” He gave me a smart salute.

  I turned on my heels and fled the room as if it was on fire. I ran down the stairs and into the backyard. When Ash smiled, he didn’t seem half as daunting as before. And his laughter... I smiled. Contagious.

  The goats, the donkey, the pony and an assorted variety of homeless or maimed chickens waited for me by the kitchen door.