Amanda shivered in her sleep. He needed to get her under the covers. It looked like she had absolutely no body fat to keep her warm. He bent down and lifted her again, gently. If he had to gauge her weight he’d say she was lucky if she was ninety-five pounds. Pulling down her comforter he laid her back on the bed and removed her shoes. Should he undress her? That was a bit too personal. Ok, just her jeans then, it wouldn’t be very comfortable for her to sleep in them, and her tunic-style top was long enough to cover the vital spots as it reached mid-thigh.
He lifted her shirt just enough to unbutton and unzip her jeans and he winced at the heat coming off of her. Wow! She was hot, and not just in the visually stimulating sense either. Very gently he eased the material over her hips and down her legs, taking his time so he wouldn’t jolt her back to consciousness. Once he’d pulled them off he expelled a long breath he’d been unaware he was holding. He then realized she was wearing a long pearl necklace. He delicately lifted her head and gently pulled the necklace from around her neck and over her head. Careful, he told himself as he attempted not to tangle it in her hair.
She needed to take something to bring down her temp, but he didn’t want to wake her and felt sure she’d wake soon on her own, so he decided to leave well enough alone for now. Amanda rolled over in her sleep, toward him and onto her left side, and curled up in a tight ball. Defensive even in her sleep, he noted. He placed his hand on hers and slowly she relaxed, loosening from her tight posture. His eyes ranged over her form again, but clinically, not in a sexual manner. When she’d rolled onto her side her shirt had twisted and ridden up over her hip to base of her rib cage, revealing a very tiny pair of black satin panties that he’d seen as he removed her jeans, but that wasn’t what really caught his attention.
“Christ!” he exclaimed quietly and cringed upon seeing the depth and breadth of her scars. From what he could see they were extensive. They ran down her side and over her hip, all the way to her right knee. Most were jagged scars she’d gained from the accident itself but a few were clean surgical scars. Good God! He’d had no idea! The accident must have been truly horrific. He was sure she’d spent months in physical therapy regaining full use of that side. He was also sure that she probably had quite a lot of metal pins and rods in her hip and femur.
He wasn’t put off by her scarring, that wasn’t what disturbed him. It was his ability to imagine the amount of physical pain she’d suffered through, and still did. Unfortunately, he could imagine it quite a lot more accurately than he’d like to. He knew she suffered from near constant deep muscle and bone aches. He knew because he could feel what she felt. There were some days he was amazed she even made it into work. Those days her pain made him grit his teeth and caused him to take a pain killer. The girl was a trooper, he had to give her that. It would have taken a massive amount of effort to recover from this. No wonder her mental rehab had not gone as well. All of her effort had probably been expended on physical healing and walking again.
Against his better judgment he bent over and allowed himself to tenderly kiss her hip and then her knee. Then he pulled the comforter back up and tucked Amanda in.
Steadily holding her hand to get a reading, he could feel her awareness begin to surface. She probably woke many times in a typical night, he thought. Her mind and body seemed determined to keep her awake. He was going to have a find a way to battle her tendency to rouse. Once more he reached out mentally and firmly pushed her consciousness down further, to a deeper level of sleep. He sighed. She was going to fight him every step of the way through this process.
He went into her bath to look for a washcloth. Finding one in a small closet he wet it with cold water and wrung it out. He crossed back over to Amanda and very gently wiped her hot face and neck, folding and laying the cloth across her forehead. He carefully felt under her jaw and down her neck to check her glands and lymph nodes for swelling. Yep. If she wasn’t any better in the morning he would call her physician. He could write a prescription himself, but didn’t know her medical history and wasn’t sure she’d share it with him if he asked. He’d have to wait until she woke to question and examine her anyway. Something told him Amanda would not want him to examine her. He grinned and acknowledged he was playing with fire.
Not too many people knew he was an MD. He hadn’t practiced medicine full-time for almost three years now. His parents were both doctors and expected at least one of their children to follow in their footsteps. When his older brother Josh hadn’t, Zack had dutifully done so, hoping to ease their heartache, but as an undergrad had double-majored in architecture and pre-med. The one had been his sincere interest, the other his effort at making his parents happy.
He liked practicing medicine, but as an empath he was totally wiped at the end of each day. He felt everything his patients did, and it wore him down. Renovations were his primary interest and he’d decided to follow his heart instead of his folks’ career path. To his surprise they weren’t as upset by his decision as he’d thought they would be. He kept himself current and certified as an ER physician, just in case he changed his mind, or in case the economy continued to tank, but didn’t really believe he’d ever return to it. He realized his choice was unusual. Not many people chose medicine as their fallback career.
He picked up Amanda’s hand and placed his fingers on her wrist to count her pulse, which was fast. Again, he sent a calming wave at her, wishing he could heal her physically as well as mentally. As her pulse slowed he laid her hand back on the bed and stroked her hair lightly once more with the back of his hand. He remembered he needed to grab her purse and jacket from her car. He’d better go do it now, while she was relatively quiet.
Leaving her room, he shut the door quietly behind him. He wanted to explore the home of this quiet woman who kept so much to herself. He also felt the need to get out of her bedroom. His thoughts right now were anything but chaste. He justified his prying by telling himself he could help her more easily if he knew more about her.
After getting her belongings he left them in the front hall and wandered into her living room. As he perused the bookshelves, he let out a low appreciative whistle. She had a hell of a collection. Some of the texts were original printings worth a small fortune. Her tastes ranged from philosophers to contemporary authors. There were a large number of architectural works and digests in the mix. Randomly, he pulled one out, flipping through the pages. He turned back to the front to check the publisher thinking he might order this one himself. Scrawled across the inside front page was a personal message from Amanda to David, it must have been gift from her.
To My Dearest Love,
I hope that this brings you as much inspiration as having you in my life has brought me.
Love Always,
Mandy
He swallowed hard. Would she ever be able to let go of David? Did he stand a snowball’s chance in hell with her? He pulled out several other books discovering ownership was fairly evenly divided between Amanda and David. Did she hold onto his because she enjoyed them, or in remembrance of him? He figured it was the latter. She was holding on damned tight.
The living room was pretty large. On the opposite side of the room was a nearly wall-length stone fireplace. He walked over to check out the family photos on the mantle. To his astonishment there was not one of David. Curious. He vaguely remembered a tall, athletically lanky blonde with a runner’s build to whom he’d been introduced several years ago. He’d paid more attention, even then, to Amanda than to her husband. Amanda had always been a beautiful woman, inside and out, and her beauty and kindheartedness had drawn him early on, though of course he’d done nothing about it. He wouldn’t even consider approaching a married woman, but that didn’t stop him from admiring her from afar. He’d even told David that he was a lucky man to have found such a wonderful woman.
Instead of photos of her husband, there was one of a teenaged Amanda confidently seated on a tall strawberry appaloosa, her hair blowing around her face, one hand raise
d to tame it while the other held the reins. Next to her, also on horseback, was a beautiful dark-haired woman he assumed to be her mother. It was easy to see where Amanda got her good looks, he thought.
He scanned further, finding one of Diane and Amanda in their late teens or maybe early twenties. Zack wiped his mouth, checking for drool. Man, Amanda had such a sexy little body. They were posed in their bikinis on the beach. They sat back-to-back, smiling easy carefree smiles at the camera. Each one had knee up and the other leg resting against the sand, spring break in college maybe? His eyes narrowed as he examined it. He hadn’t noticed, before, the resemblance they held to one another, other than eye color, which was uncommon enough. Their bone structure was similar too, though Diane was just an inch or two taller. It was their coloring that made them appear so different. Amanda’s darker sorrel-red hair against Diane’s dark honey blonde caused the initial impression that they were very different from each other.
The final frame held a photo of Amanda, again maybe late teens, and an older couple, grandparents, he figured. It appeared they had been hiking, or maybe hunting? The three were seated on rounded boulders that sat at the edge of a wide, bubbling brook. Amanda was in the center wearing a blue ball cap and she had pulled her long thick hair through the back in a ponytail. She was laughing at whoever was taking the picture. He could almost read the would you take it already thought written on her face. As he pulled it down to take a closer look he was astonished to find that Amanda’s hand was casually gripping the barrel of a rifle that was cradled between her legs. Hmm, a real frontier woman, huh? He smiled. He didn’t think she’d ever stop surprising him, and until now he’d thought that was nearly impossible as he could read people so easily.
Huh? Okay, none of David, and none of a father. It appeared he had a lot to learn about her. While Diane and Eric were very good friends to both Amanda and Zack, they did not share personal information about their friends to others. Zack knew the basics about Amanda, where she’d graduated from, that she was highly talented, she was a dedicated employee, and a loyal friend. Beyond that, he only knew she’d been in a serious accident in which she’d lost her husband and been badly injured. Amanda, of course, didn’t share anything with him since she spent most of her time ducking him both at work and at social events.
From his own experience with her, he’d seen she was very intuitive. He’d jokingly told Eric once that, sometimes, he’d swear she could read his mind. Eric had literally choked on his beer, and Zack had caught a sense of hilarity and secrecy from him that Eric had refused to clarify.
He was jerked from his thoughts as a blood curdling scream erupted from upstairs. He sprinted back across the room and through the foyer, taking the steps two at a time. Damn it! He’d left her alone too long. She’d brought herself out of his deliberate submersion of her consciousness. Christ! He knew she was going to fight him, but seriously, no one had ever been able to rouse themselves as quickly as Amanda did, nor barricade themselves so thoroughly. He briefly wondered if he was losing his touch.
Amanda was thrashing around on the bed in the midst of a full-blown nightmare. He could feel the agony of her searing pain as she relived the accident. He laid both hands on her sizzling forehead. Her temp had continued to climb and he thought it must be near 103 now. He started to panic and mentally urged her to relax, giving it all he had.
Too late, she was fully awake now.
Chapter 4:
The Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn
Amanda’s eyes flew open and she whipped herself upright, wrapping her arms protectively around her middle as she trembled violently in the aftermath of her nightmare. Still caught up in her shaken emotions, she distantly became aware she was not alone. Her heart hammering, she gasped and hurriedly drew away, emitting a frightened shriek.
“Amanda, calm down. It’s just me, Zack. You’re okay.”
Zack’s rumbly voice was both welcomed and unwelcomed. As she slowly came to realize he was not a burglar she relaxed a bit, but not much. What the hell was Zack doing in her home? Then, dragging her memory through her viciously throbbing head, she remembered. He’d driven her home from Jerry’s.
“Zack! I’m sorry. I mean, Mr. Grayson. How long have you been here? Why didn’t you wake me up when we got back?”
He reached over and placed his hands on her shoulders pushing her back down to a prone position on the bed. “Amanda, relax and lay down. I’ll explain everything, and by the way, it’s quite all right to call me Zack.”
He said the last a wee bit dryly, she noted. She could feel her body respond to both his mental and physical suggestion, and abruptly felt more secure, though rightfully she should have been furious.
She also became acutely aware that physically, she felt absolutely horrible. Her head still pounded, her throat burned, and her body ached. She was sweaty and felt the perspiration dripping from her face. Lovely! She must have picked up a bug somewhere, probably from one of her clients, probably from those damned Tabotts, she thought uncharitably.
“Oh God, I feel like crap,” she croaked. She peered at him through fever-glazed eyes.
“Yes, that’s why I stayed, and why I didn’t wake you up,” offered Zack. “As soon as I got you in the house I realized you were running a temperature. I didn’t want to leave you on your own if you were ill.” He raised himself from the bed and stood, grimly looking down at her. His explanation didn’t produce an argument from Amanda so, he thought, she must be feeling pretty awful.
“Stay there. I’m going to go find something to bring down your temp,” he ordered. She just groaned at him and wearily closed her eyes.
He picked up the washcloth that had landed on the floor at some point in Amanda’s tossing and rewet it with cold water at the sink. He opened the medicine cabinet behind her mirror, checking her prescriptions and her over-the-counter medications. He found several bottles of OTC pain relievers and chose one that would be appropriate to Amanda’s symptoms. He also located a digital thermometer so he could obtain an accurate reading of her temperature.
Looking further he found several prescriptions that troubled him. He really shouldn’t be nebbing through her personal stuff, but told himself, as a doctor, he had the right to be concerned. He found several bottles of different narcotics, a prescription for an antidepressant, and a prescriptive sleep aid. Holy shit! His initial reaction was shock.
As he looked more carefully at them he realized they were all over a year old and, for the most part, they were full and still had refills available. They were yet another reminder of the hell Amanda had been through, and he felt his heart ache for her. He noted the doctors’ names on the prescriptions for future reference, then he made a mental note to tell her pitch them out since most were expired. They would do more harm than good if she took them now, though he didn’t figure she would as she hadn’t taken them previously.
He shook out a couple of tablets of acetaminophen and filled a cup with water. Picking up the washcloth and thermometer he headed back to her bedside. He deposited the items on her nightstand and turned the bedside lamp on a low setting.
“Open up,” he directed. She opened her eyes and gave him a confused look. “I need to take your temperature, Amanda. I can tell it’s high, but I need an accurate reading.”
“I’m all right, Zack,” Amanda began to argue with him, albeit lethargically. “I’ll just take—”
Zack thrust the thermometer in her mouth, smoothly sliding it under her tongue and then lifting her chin with his fingers to firmly shut her mouth. She looked at him mutinously, with narrowed eyes. If she’d felt better she would have smacked him upside his head, she thought wearily.
“Amanda, just be quiet for a minute. Then you can argue with me, if you still feel the need,” he directed. After a few more seconds the thermometer beeped, telling him it was through. He glanced at it and nearly had a heart attack, 103.4, it read. Good Lord! Adult fevers rarely went over 101-102 degrees when they had a virus. She was al
ready in bad shape, though, and he was sure her immune system was shot all to hell. He was betting she probably had strep throat.
Though he’d removed the thermometer, Amanda said nothing further. She didn’t seem to have the energy to argue with him. Glaring at him was the most she seemed able to do.
“Here, let me help you,” he said, gently sliding one arm behind her back and lifting her torso so she could drink without choking. He handed her the pills and the cup of water. As soon as she was upright he backed off. He was reading loads of apprehension coming off of her. His presence was making her more agitated, rather than having the calming effect he was looking for.
“Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the white knight act, kind of, but why are you here?”
Amanda’s voice was raspy and she winced as she talked. Boy did her throat burn. Only then did it occur to her that not only was he in her home, he was in her bedroom. Oh jeez! Then as she shifted her bottom to get more comfortable, she realized she had no pants on either, and flushed scarlet. As if it were possible to be even more embarrassed than she already was.
“Zack? Um, did you undress me?” Her voice squeaked nervously through a raw throat, vaguely reminding her of her childhood guinea pig.
Zack kept his tone calm and even. “I only took off your shoes, jeans, and necklace, so you’d be more comfortable. I did nothing more than that, and your shirt is long enough to cover you.” She was so flushed. He wasn’t sure how much of it was embarrassment and how much was fever.
“I promise I did nothing inappropriate.” Unless you count my kissing your hip and knee, he chastised himself again. He just hadn’t been able to help himself. As you would with an injured child, he’d wanted to kiss her hurt better. He hastily reminded himself she didn’t need to know about that. It had only been one weak moment, though he’d like nothing more than to touch his lips to hers, and make her forget. Okay! Enough! He ordered his wayward thoughts to behave. The girl was ill, this was not the time.
Amanda's Touch [D.A.R.E.ing Women] (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 9