Amanda's Touch [D.A.R.E.ing Women] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by LeeAnn Masters

  Zack quickly slipped into her mind as David held the voltage for a few seconds and then released her from it. It was just enough for him to break through and he scrambled through her mental synapses firing the ones responsible for stimulation. He flash-forced adrenaline and endorphins through her body, jump starting her nervous system. Then he abruptly pulled out and waited, swaying slightly as he sat beside her, trying to regather his own senses as he was thrown back into his own mind and body. It didn’t take long for her to respond.

  Amanda came to in a rush, feeling as though she’d been tubing on a water slide through a dark tunnel and had splashed into the bright sunlight. Unfortunately, she was anything but happy to be out of her dark and quiet little cubbyhole. Every muscle in her body ached as though she had a virulent strain of the flu. Gasping from the shock and hurt of her sudden reentry she looked around her to find the culprit, knowing Zack was a major part of it and that he was already on her shit-list. She was only slightly surprised to find her husband as the other participant in dragging her back against her will.

  “Babe?”

  “Sweets?”

  Both men were hovering over her in intense concern. Story of my life, she thought dazedly. Though why the hell everyone had to worry about her all the time was beyond her.

  Opening her mouth to ream them both out, she choked as her memory of the recent events flooded back instead. Anger melted away and horror and fear made a reappearance. She began to shudder and shake severely in reaction. Not thinking twice, she threw herself into her husband’s arms and clung to him. Not noticing Zack’s expression of pain and rejection, or the wholly apologetic look David threw his way. She didn’t even seem to notice that Zack still had his hand on her shoulder and was trying to pull her away from David.

  After a minute or so David gently disentangled himself from her arms and tried to coax her back to Zack’s. Amanda turned her back to both of them feeling like they’d betrayed her. Zack hadn’t left her alone to let her deal with everything in her own way, forcing her to come back, and David had turned her away. She wanted to slap Zack’s hand away but knew that if she did he wouldn’t be able to see David. She decided she hated being their go-between.

  “Sweets,” David called urgently. “I can’t stay long and I need you to listen to me.” She turned her tear-filled eyes to him reluctantly. “I know what you saw. I was with you and saw it, too. I’m going to try to help you through this and help you get them to cross over. But you’re going to have to be strong, sweet girl. They need your help and it might take a while.”

  Addressing only her husband, Amanda urgently whispered, “I’ve never seen so many before. I’ve never had to do this. I have no idea how!” Her voice began to climb in real panic “Oh God, David, please, tell me it won’t always be like this! I don’t think I can do this by myself. It’s too much to ask of me if the rest of my life is going to be this…this!” she threw up her hands not able to think of words to describe the agony she’d experienced. “I can’t do it, David. I simply can’t!” she wailed the last words.

  David reached for her in sympathy but everything had been too draining for him and he began to fade even as Amanda reached for him. His last words echoed in the room. “Please don’t blame Zack, sweets. I made him do it.”

  Chapter 13:

  Betrayed

  Amanda collapsed onto the bed with tears streaming from her eyes and, silently crying, she buried her head in the pillow. Her body was wracked with the agony of what she’d experienced as well as the pain of being forced to acknowledge it. All she wanted was to find a deep dark hole and climb into it. She had to admit that, at this particular point, the grave didn’t sound like such a bad place to be. Morbid, aren’t we? Amanda asked herself. Just a lot a bit, she acknowledged mockingly.

  She jumped when she felt Zack’s hand gently stroke her back. She’d, again, momentarily forgotten he was there. She admitted she was too wrapped up in herself, but couldn’t move beyond that to even begin thinking about dealing with him. She was angry with him, and with his mother, though she grudgingly admitted she’d brought it upon herself by agreeing to do the reading. She just wanted a place to lay blame until she could deal with her own accountability issues.

  She pushed Zack away, his touch was overwhelming her and that was why she’d automatically chosen David’s comfort over his, initially. She couldn’t have handled anymore input into her already crippled psyche.

  She heard Zack heave a long-suffering sigh due to the cold shoulder she’d given him but didn’t have the resources left to offer him any comfort.

  “Amanda, how am I supposed to help you if you won’t allow me to?” he asked her quietly, a deep hurt in his voice. “That’s what I’m here for, babe. That’s what we’re both here for. You’ve spent all day helping me and my family but won’t allow me to comfort you?”

  His voice sounded so bewildered and lost that Amanda felt compelled to drag the straggling remnants of her emotions together to try to console him. It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself. It certainly wasn’t going to make anything better.

  Despite the influx of readings she knew she’d receive from him she turned to him and took him in her arms, holding him tightly to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she murmured, running her hand soothingly through his hair and over his shoulder, stroking again and again. She was surprised when he pushed her away this time.

  “No! I asked why you won’t allow me to comfort you?” he persisted. “You are willing to give and give, but not receive, at least not from me!” this last statement was a little bitter and as he said it he shook her by her shoulders just enough to reinforce his words.

  She looked at him in confusion for a few moments, puzzling over his words before they finally sank in. He’d thought she’d chosen David over him! And, she had, but not for the reasons he was thinking.

  She laughed shakily, though none of this was remotely funny. Reaching up to caress his face she told him, “I wasn’t pushing you away because I don’t want you to comfort me. I was pushing you away because I was already feeling overwhelmed by everything I’d seen. At that moment in time if I’d allowed you to hold me I’d have been reading you too, and just your hand on my shoulder was hard enough to deal with. I didn’t have the strength to shut you out.” She shook her head as she realized how poorly that had come out. “I mean…to shut out my ability to read you. It wasn’t meant to be taken personally by you, and I’m sorry you did. It was a self-defense mechanism, for me. You were able to comfort me more by not holding me right then. Does that make any sense?” And though she didn’t add the words she thought, And, honey, I’m still pissed off at you!

  Abruptly she began to feel nauseous and a migraine hit her out of nowhere. Clapping a hand to her mouth so she wouldn’t vomit on the bed she struggled to her feet, her whole body trembling with the effort. She still felt like she had the flu, though she knew she wasn’t actually ill, and her heart was pounding out a loud disjointed rhythm. Why did she feel so damned sick?

  Zack’s concerned, “Amanda?” was nearly her undoing as she tried to answer him but began to gag. He finally got the message and scooped her up, sweeping her into the hall bathroom and raising the lid just in the nick of time. He held her hair, again, as she was violently sick. This was becoming a very disgusting routine, and she hoped that it wasn’t a portent of things to come in lieu of their “sexcapades” the night before.

  After she was through, Zack took a new toothbrush from a drawer, dabbed it with toothpaste, and handed it to her wordlessly, for which she was sincerely grateful. Her hand shook as she cleaned her teeth and just the effort of that alone seemed to intensify the shaking that was rattling her body. She could literally feel her heart slow and then speed up again painfully fast. She felt lightheaded and figured it was due to the vomiting. She’d brought up everything she’d eaten, and then some.

  Poor Zack, the guy just couldn’t seem to get two days in a row without her bringing up ever
ything inside her. She should have warned him that her stomach was the weakest part of her anatomy. If she felt too stressed, she threw up. If she was going to pick up a bug, it was usually the stomach flu. If she took a medication that didn’t agree with her, it came back up. She groaned as she felt another wave of nausea roll over her, seemingly in direct connection to when she felt her heart speed up. What was up with that, she wondered?

  She really needed to lie down, she decided. Turning the doorknob she stepped through the doorway to enter the hall and everything in her vision began to swim, intensifying her migraine and her stomach trouble. Spinning around to backtrack again she ran into Zack, who was exiting behind her, nearly plowing him down in her haste to get back in. He reached out to steady her but she pushed him away and shakily sank down, with a moan, onto the black- and white-tiled floor in front of the toilet, just in case.

  Holding her head in her hands and covering her eyes she ordered him to “Turn the damned light off, and shut the frigging door” if he was staying. Apparently he was because he did as he was told, though she heard him curse as he did it.

  “Mandy, tell me what’s wrong. I can’t fix it if you don’t talk to me.” He was more worried now that she was conscious than he had been before, if that were at all possible. Her skin tone had turned an alarming milky-yellow color, and she had a cold, clammy sweat. She probably had a migraine, judging by her actions, and she was obviously sick to her stomach. He would also swear he could see her heart beat under her blouse.

  Taking her good wrist, he placed his fingers over it and counted her pulse as he timed her with his watch. “Jesus Christ, Amanda! Your heart rate is sky high!” Even as he spoke it dropped back down again. Keeping his fingers on her pulse he waited and counted out for at least another two minutes as her heart rate slowed and sped up sickeningly multiple times. He cursed out loud at David, drawing only a minimal reaction from Amanda, who only cast a single fulminous glance his way before leaning over the toilet again. David had thrown her heart into an arrhythmia, just as Zack had feared.

  A knock sounded at the door, with his father on the other side asking if Amanda was all right as she retched for the second time. Zack wasn’t sure how to answer him on that one. Was she all right in comparison to what? Sighing, he caressed her hair before tucking it into the back of her blouse. He quietly told Amanda he’d be right back. She waved him on his way with the flick of one hand, or maybe she was giving him the finger, possibly both.

  “How’d you bring her around, Zack? Or did she come to on her own? She doesn’t look or sound good. What’s the problem now?” His father bombarded him with questions, very obviously troubled. Zack told him to listen up, because he wasn’t going to repeat this story twice. Then he told him everything as succinctly as possible. He wanted to get back to Amanda as soon as he could.

  When he was through his father stared at Zack as though he feared for his son’s mental stability. Then John summarized disbelievingly, “Amanda’s dead husband dropped in to visit with you? Told you he saw Joshua, and that he brought some uninvited guests? Basically, electro-shocked Amanda back to consciousness, with your help? And now Amanda’s suffering from an arrhythmia and a migraine? Did I get it all?”

  Zack nodded resignedly at his father’s speculative look. Glancing over his shoulder at Amanda, he saw she was now slumped against the side of bathtub with eyes closed and her head resting on one arm on the rim.

  “Would you grab her purse from the family room and bring it up? I tossed her migraine medication in there yesterday morning. I’m hoping she didn’t take it out.”

  His father, pale and little unsteady himself, turned toward the stairs mumbling about how insane their lives were becoming.

  “Mandy, do you think you’ll be okay if I move you to the bed, or would you rather stay here?” Zack gestured to the bathroom floor.

  “Please, just leave me here. I don’t want to move and, I think, if I stand up I just might die,” she declared melodramatically, pulling a reluctant chuckle from Zack.

  “Okay, no problem. Stay there. My dad will be right back with your migraine meds.” He wet a wash cloth and wiped her clammy face and neck down.

  “Honey, we need to get your heart rate stabilized. It’s all over the place, that’s why you’re feeling sick. That, in addition to your migraine. I don’t know if you remember but David shocked you to bring you around, and I flushed your nervous system with adrenaline. I think, between the two of us, we overdid it just a little. I’m sorry for that. We were both so worried about you it seemed to call for extreme measures.” He was babbling and knew it. Mandy wasn’t paying any attention to him at all. She couldn’t focus on his words.

  Then he heard her grumble about effing know-it-all men who cause as many problems as they cure. “Why didn’t you guys just leave me to deal with it my own way? Oh, never mind!” She pressed the tips of her fingers to her right eye so hard Zack thought she might drive them through it.

  His dad returned, quietly dropping Amanda’s purse on the counter, and left them alone again. Zack was relieved to find that her pills were still in her purse and shook one out for her. Filling a cup with water he handed her both. She quickly washed it down, grimacing and rubbing her throat, then handed him the cup.

  “Is it always the right side?” he asked.

  “What?” she was in no mood for riddles.

  “The migraine. Is it always on the right side? I noticed it was the same side as Friday,” he clarified.

  “Yes, it’s always on the right. I was in the passenger seat and that’s the side of my head that connected with the window of the door. My whole right side was pretty much crushed when the car rolled and, when the weather changes, all of the bones and joints on that side ache. I feel like an old lady sometimes.”

  She winced as another stabbing pain shot through her head. Closing her eyes again she rested her forehead on the rim of the tub while still pressing her other hand to her right eye. The cool porcelain seemed to help the pain. “It feels like someone is driving a nail through my eye and into my brain.”

  “I’m going to help deaden the pain for you until the meds kick in,” he told her. Ignoring her feeble protests, he placed both hands on her head and sedated all the impulses that directly fed her migraine. “I know it doesn’t entirely cure it,” he told her. “For some reason, it’s harder for me to totally kill off pain that involves the skull, brain, and spine, perhaps there are too many nerves or it’s just too close to all the neural activity? I don’t really know. It’s easier to deaden an appendage.” He spoke casually as he pondered the possible reasons, totally ignoring her look of annoyance at his intrusion.

  He had decided he didn’t care if she got angry with him for influencing her. He was going to help her whether she wanted him to or not. Back to square one, are we Zack? Control, control, control. I’m not doing this to control her, he argued with himself. I’m doing it to help her through everything. She just doesn’t want to admit she needs it. He justified his actions by telling himself that her husband told him to help her.

  “That’s four times today. I’m counting,” she warned him. But at the same time she was relieved by the sudden easing of the severe pain in her head that became a dull throb instead. Her heart on the other hand was still beating out an irregular tempo. At the same moment she felt the acceleration of her heart beat she felt Zack’s warm calming influence wash through her as he attempted to slow it to a normal pace.

  She decided that she was becoming entirely too dependent on him to come to her aid. She also admitted that she didn’t care as much as she claimed to. As long as he could get a handle on her current health problems she’d be happy. She looked up to see Zack smiling in pleasure as her pain lessened, her heart returned to a regular beat, and as she stopped fighting him.

  “How’s the leg? Want me to take care of that, too?” he asked carefully. While she was being so cooperative he figured he may as well take advantage.

  She hadn’t realized
that it was burning because the other things had overridden that smaller pain. But now that he’d called attention to it, it was bugging her. She’d been on her knees while being sick and had irritated it. She shrugged and stretched her leg out, scooting her skirt up to her knee.

  “Please,” she agreed. Was it really so terrible to take advantage of Zack’s gifts? She didn’t know and felt a moral dilemma building within her.

  “Good! It’s about damned time you willingly let me in, Mandy.” He smiled at her encouragingly and laid one hand on her leg. “Feeling better?” She nodded and a look of relief flashed across her countenance.

  He peeled back the bandage over her stitches to have a quick look at it and just about passed out. “Amanda, do you know why this is hurting you?”

  She gave him a perplexed look. “Because I’ve been kneeling on it. It’s actually been sore since before I left Diane’s. I figured it was because I’d been on it all day, and of course this morning you were poking and prodding while trying to drain the infection, remember?” Surely he hadn’t forgotten that! Now she was worried about him as the strangest look she’d ever seen crossed his features. It was a cross between astonishment, curiosity, and bewilderment.

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?” Moving his hand she saw immediately why he was so befuddled.

  “It’s totally healed,” he whispered in disbelief.

  “Did you do that?” she asked in confusion and wonder.

  “No. I can’t heal, remember? I can only address pain levels.” He reminded her, still staring at it and running his fingers over the healed flesh.