He walked over to the dresser by the door and rummaged through its contents until he found a pair of jogging pants and a tee shirt to wear, then he went out to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. He sat at the table and stared out the window.
It had been six hours now since they’d fled the home. Why hadn’t anyone contacted him on the CB or phone? It made him wonder what had happened back home. He knew better than to call out, doing so would be too risky and might give their location away. The strict rule of the cabin was, once you entered it, you didn’t leave until someone contacted you or came to you. Apparently, there had been problems with that in the past but Sean didn’t know much about it.
He got up and walked into the front room. In these mountains, the radio reception was poor and television reception was zero. He turned on the radio and scanned through the static for a news channel he could hear. Once he found one, he listened for a few minutes and turned it off. Nothing was said concerning him, his family or Eliwese.
Sean went back into the bedroom and sat down in the armchair and laid his head back. His thoughts were swimming and he closed his eyes. He had not meant to fall asleep, but he did.
“PLEASE DON’T KILL HER!” Her screaming brought Sean out of his sleep and back to reality so fast he fell out of the chair; he jumped up and scrambled to her. She was trying to sit up and he pushed her back down noticing right away she was hot to the touch.
He glanced at his watch with horror knotting up in his stomach as he realized he’d been asleep for four and a half hours. It was eleven-thirty at night and the out of control fever was his fault.
She grabbed his wrists and pleaded with him. “I’ll do anything, please, please don’t kill her!” She squeezed his wrists hard with a terrified expression in her eyes. Sean was confused and alarmed at the amount of heat coming out of her hands.
“Don’t kill whom?”
She lay back breathing rapidly. “You have to help me escape. I can’t take much more of this. I know you can do it; you have connections across the border. I’ll pay whatever.”
Sean picked up the thermometer and scanned her forehead. It read one-hundred five point one. She was too hot and must be having hallucinations or is delirious from the fever. If he didn’t get her cooled soon, she could have a seizure or suffer brain damage.
She continued muttering incoherently as he threw back the sheet and blanket causing a quick shiver to run through her like lightning. He touched her scorching hot legs and picked up a magazine from the bedside table and started fanning her but realized at the same time it wasn’t going to cool her fast enough.
Sean ran out to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen and bottled water and took a large bowl out of the cupboard and filled it with lukewarm water. He snagged a couple of dishtowels and went back into the bedroom. He set the water on the bedside table and dunked the towels into it, partially wrung out the water and placed the wet towels on her body. Goosebumps sprung up all over her skin. He took the magazine and fanned her body in the hopes of evaporating her heat, a method he read about in his mother’s guide book.
Sean opened the water and shook two ibuprofens out into his hand. He placed his arm under her neck and helped her sit just a little. She was still delirious but he talked her through the swallowing of the pills.
He returned his focus back to placing wet towels on her body.
Suddenly she seized his arm and looked right into his eyes, “If I’m gone, he won’t be able to get his money.” She reached up and took hold of his shirt at the neck and pulled him closer to her face. “I won’t let him use me again! I will kill myself to escape the life he has made me take.” She paused, released the grip on his shirt and the intensity in her eyes softened. “Why won’t you say anything to me?”
Sean didn’t know what to say. He was taken aback by everything she’d said. He thought for a brief second and then stated, “I will help you any way I can, or die trying.”
Her eye contact with him was intense and he felt like all of his deepest thoughts were being extracted from his head; she tightened her hold on his shirt again and pulled his face to hers. She stopped short and then she kissed him; her lips were soft and blazing with heat, but as hot as her lips were, her tongue was flaming.
I shouldn’t be doing this, he thought. She’s injured and not in her right mind. She probably won’t remember this. His last thought was encouraging. He returned the kiss, cupping her head in his hands. She relaxed her body until he held her head. She had stopped contributing to the kiss and after half a second, he pulled his face away and looked at her.
“I love you, Sean. Please find a way to get me out of here; call your friend,” she laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes.
Sean was confused yet again. Was she talking to him or did she know someone else named Sean? He continued to fan her body and lay wet towels on her. Her fever hadn’t lowered, but it wasn’t growing either.
His thoughts wandered back to the kiss. He’d never experienced anything like that before. It sent tingles through his body just thinking about it, but at the same time, he scolded himself for allowing it to happen at all.
“Sean, you’ve got to get out of here! They’re coming and are going to kill you! Hurry!” She tried to get up again and he held her down by her shoulders. She struggled against his strength and she started sobbing uncontrollably, “Why, why?”
“It’s OK, Eliwese.”
“Sean I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!”
He felt compelled to comfort her. He lay down on his side, and she rolled into his embrace, with her head resting just under his chin.
“I should have known better than to involve him. My father kills all the men in my life, except Riley.” She said this last statement in a calm voice and it made Sean wonder if she were herself again.
“Eliwese, tell me how you feel.”
“I’ll be better once I’m free of him,” she answered in her delirium.
He thought he would try to find out some information about her, “How are you going to be free of him?”
“I’ll cross first, and then I’ll take him down!”
Her calculated vengeance shocked Sean, but then again, he was surprised she answered at all. He pushed for more answers. “How will you pull that off?”
Her face lit up with excitement. She lifted her head and her eyes scanned the room as if someone might hear what she had to say. “My sister will pretend to be me. He won’t even know I’m gone, because he never sleeps with me anyway. By the time anyone realizes I’ve vanished I’ll be long gone.” She sounded proud of herself.
“What about your sister? Will she be alright?”
“Yes, she’ll be fine. She is the second born; she holds no importance with my father. He can’t kill her, he can’t be proud of her and she can’t give him an heir.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Three times,” she pressed her head into the crook of his arm.
“What do you mean three times?” He was shocked with her answer.
“This is why I have to get out of here. If he can’t get what he wants, he kills them. I won’t let him make me feel responsible for anyone else’s death.”
She snuggled closer to his chest and didn’t say anything else. He put his arm around her back and lay thinking about what she said. Of course, there was always the possibility she was just dreaming and that none of it were true. But what if it was true? Could a father be so cruel to his own daughter? Maybe she was talking about her husband, Prince Vasilios Lampros from the newspaper? He didn’t know what to believe. He held her close to him and gently massaged the back of her head while she slept.
After a few minutes Sean felt movement under his arm. He looked down at her and found she was crying softly again. “Shhh, shhh, it’s going to be alright.”
She said something he could not hear. He backed away from her so he could hear her.
“Eliwese?”
“I have n
othing else to live for, he’s dead,” she said softly with tears following the path of least resistance.
“Who’s dead?”
“Sean,” she said in a choked whisper. “He shot him.”
“How do you know?”
“He died in my arms,” she cried harder.
Sean didn’t know what to say. Part of him thought it really didn’t matter what he said, because she wouldn’t remember it anyway. The other part of him held such sympathy for her that he wanted to try to help her feel better.
“You can avenge his death,” he said with a bold effort to lift her spirits.
She looked at him with the saddest face he had ever seen. “I’ll join him in death.”
Sean pulled her close again and said softly, “No, just rest. We’ll get you better, you’ll see.” He was thinking he would love the chance to kill her father himself.
The clock face showed just after midnight. She had fallen asleep and he gently rolled her on her back. He scanned her forehead with the thermometer, one-hundred three degrees. The IV bag needed changing and he had a nagging hunger pain in his gut. When he went into the prep room to retrieve another bag, he grabbed a box of granola bars and came back to the room.
His shirt was soaked where she had cuddled up next to him because of the moisture her ace bandage absorbed from his ministrations. He took off his shirt and felt the moistness of his own skin realizing that under the bandage her skin would be pruning up. He needed to remove it so she could dry off.
In her unconscious state he couldn’t simply sit her up to unwrap it, so he figured he would cut the bandage off. He knew once it was cut open her bare chest would be exposed and the thought made him uneasy. He decided to get a button up shirt from the dresser to put on her once the bandage was removed.
Sean left the room for a pair of scissors with his mind racing and his gut clenched. He wished she would just wake up and remove the bandage herself, or better yet, he wished his mother was here to do it for him.
The thought made him imagine his family. His throat seized at the idea of anything happening to them. He shook his head to refocus. He had a job to do right now; to care for Eliwese.
He entered the room and planned his job out in his head. Simple, he thought, cut off the bandage and help her arms into the shirt. I’ll have to roll her around a bit to get the shirt under her, but that should be easy enough. OK, you can do this. He bolstered himself up and inhaled a deep breath forcing it out of his lungs with a heave.
Sean began cutting up the middle of her chest. With each cut, the bandage jumped away from the scissors. His heart raced; he wished it would stop so he hurried and cut all the way to the top. He tried not to look at her nakedness but it was near impossible; his peripheral vision betrayed him and he cursed himself for being such an insensitive ass.
He reached his hand up the right sleeve and took her limp hand to thread it through the sleeve. Then he rolled her a little to her left side to push the shirt under her back. He then rolled her to her right side and tried to pull the shirt out from under her. It proved to be difficult as the shirt bunched under her.
He rolled her on her back. He couldn’t help but notice how her breasts gently bounced. He reached across her, and with both hands, pulled her shoulders toward him to sit her up slightly. Her head lolled back like a newborn baby and Sean reacted quickly by reaching all the way around her back and supporting her head with his hand. This quick maneuver put their chests together, skin-to-skin and for the briefest of seconds Sean could feel the soft silky smooth skin of her breasts as they pressed against him.
His heart raced even faster and his cheeks heated up as he lowered her back to the bed. Out of sheer frustration, he pulled the shirt out from under her and off of her one arm and draped it over her like a sheet.
Why hadn’t he thought of that before?
I’m such an idiot! He thought to himself as he glanced at her left arm realizing her IV was inserted in that arm. He wouldn’t have been able to put her arm into the sleeve with all the tubing and the IV bag. He hadn’t planned far enough ahead to realize the whole shirt plan wouldn’t have worked to begin with.
I’m a bigger moron than my brother! He probably would have foreseen the problem and pointed it out to me, he thought. Sean had to admit that sometimes he made things harder than they should be.
He turned his back to her with his heart racing and his face hot. Why was he so embarrassed? It’s not like he hadn’t seen a naked woman before. What made this different? Then the thought came to his head; Eliwese had gone through so much trouble to conceal her identity and now he was exposing her and she couldn’t do anything about it.
However, taking care of her was a good thing he was trying to do, so maybe it wasn’t so bad.
He got up and walked it off. He poured himself another cup of coffee and pulled a shirt out of the dresser. As he was about to shut the drawer, he looked in the mirror on the wall and saw Eliwese looking at him. He quickly turned around to face her, still holding the shirt.
“Sean, you’re amazing,” she said in a breathy soft voice and with a dreamy smile.
He couldn’t tell if she was delirious or not. “Why?”
“You are the only guy I’ve ever met to try so hard to keep my dignity intact.”
“What do you mean?” He was still wondering if she was in her right mind.
“I mean, even though I’m incapacitated, you did not try to take advantage of me. Many men in your position would not have been such gentlemen.”
He walked over to her, pulling the shirt on as he walked, and he sat down on the bed. “Do you know who I am?”
“Of course, you’re Sean.” Her eyes squinted with question.
“Tell me something about me.” He tested her.
“You broke up with your fiancée, finally.” She smiled at him.
He smiled back and reached out with his hand and held hers.
Propped up with extra pillows behind her, Eliwese tried to sip the warm broth Sean brought her. Her fever had dropped down to one-hundred and two degrees.
“I need to use the bathroom,” she said to Sean after finishing her broth.
“Oh, um, alright. How about if I carry you in there and you can ‘take care of business’ and I’ll carry you back?”
She nodded.
He scooped her up under her knees and under her shoulder blades. She reached her right arm around his back and winced with the pain her movement brought, which in turn caused him to tighten his grip behind her back. He didn’t want to touch her wound but ended up pressing his fingertips into the side of her breast.
The shirt across her chest shifted a little and she wrapped her left arm across to hold the shirt in place.
“Eliwese, you’ll have to unhook the IV bag and hold it.”
She reached with her other arm and took the bag off the hook.
Once in the bathroom, he set her down on her feet, checked her balance and hung the IV bag on the back of the bathroom door. He stepped outside for a few minutes until she called his name.
When he re-entered the bathroom, he saw she had put her right arm into the shirt but needed help with the other arm and the IV.
Sean reached deep within himself to a place that did not include arousal. He needed the strength to help her without emotions and sensations getting in the way.
He stepped forward and took the IV bag and threaded it effortlessly through the sleeve and then guided her arm. Sean hung up the bag and began buttoning her shirt. He started at the top in an effort to quickly cover her up. When he finished, he looked at her, “How about I help you back to the bed now?”
“You’re the best doctor I’ve ever had,” she said once situated back in bed.
He shrugged his shoulders and looked away from her.
“I mean it, Sean,” she said intensely. “I’m sorry I had to deceive you. I hope I’ll be able to tell you exactly why sometime in the future.”
“Well, I don’t know why you’re hold
ing back, I know who you are, and it’s not like we have anything to do right now.”
“I can’t, Sean.”
“Eliwese, why did you cross?” Sean asked the question earnestly in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, she would finally answer him.
She turned her head away from Sean.
He stood to leave because he felt certain this meant she wasn’t going to talk, like always. “Alright, can I get you anything?” He changed the subject.
“No. Sean, how long have we been here?”
“I don’t know, ten hours or something like that.” He was frustrated.
“Would you tell me what happened? I don’t remember.”
Sean sat down in the armchair beside the bed. “Well, I made the decision to evacuate and we left the house. We drove to a campground and I called my father to warn him to leave. While I spoke to him, I could hear commotion in the background that could only mean a raid was in progress. Some other man got on the phone and asked where we were. I hung up and turned off the phone and we high-tailed it out of there. We didn’t get far before someone started shooting at us. I forced his car off the road and brought you here.”
“What made you decide to evacuate?”
“Lyndee informed me her new crosser is the mother of Riley Stone, and that he told her she would be safe at our house because you were there. I didn’t want to waste a second in getting you out of there. Apparently, that’s all the longer it took for a raid to go down.”
“He moved his own mother out? Why would he do that?” she wondered out loud.
“Eliwese, why did you cross?” he asked again.
“What did you do with my padding?” She avoided his question.
“I had to cut it off of you,” he said in an exhale. His aggravation escalated.
“That padding cost me a lot of money. It was especially handmade by a movie props man.” She grieved for her padding as if it were a family member.
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