Was there anything she did get to do while she was in here?
I’d have to look at the rules to see what I was and wasn’t allowed to do while I was here. Like bring my fuckin’ speaker next time and play her some goddamn music.
I didn’t even have my phone with me, so I couldn’t pull it out and play it.
It was only when another half an hour had passed of our idle chit-chat that I realized that we’d gone over my allotted time by fifteen minutes.
“Shoot,” I said as I looked at the multitude of faces that were aimed our way. “It’s time for us to go, Theo. I’m getting the stink eye from no less than four people.”
She didn’t bother to look around like anybody else would have.
It was as if she were more than aware of what was happening around her, yet didn’t seem to care.
“That’s fine,” she said softly, her eyes looking sort of heartbroken to see Monster leaving. “Thank you for letting me pet him.”
I winked at her and shouldered my bag.
“He enjoyed it,” I said. “What’s not to like by being petted by a pretty lady for thirty minutes straight?”
Theo flushed.
“Do me a favor,” I said as I reached into my bag. “Eat this. A little girl promised me it was your favorite.”
Then I pulled the pink box out of my bag and placed it on her lap. She stared at it, a wave of terror washing over her face.
When she looked back up, her hands trembling as she latched onto the box, I tried to give her my best ‘I’m going to make this okay’ smile. I hoped it worked.
Grabbing onto Monster’s leash and giving it a soft tug, he headed out with me but sat at my soft command when a doctor stepped into my path.
“I’ve never seen a breakthrough like the one you just had with her,” he said softly. “That’s the first time since she arrived that she’s ever so much as spoken to someone that’s not her brother and his daughter.”
I felt my heart pound.
“Really?” I asked, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. “She didn’t seem nervous or anything.”
At least not until the end where she looked like I’d wielded a large knife in front of her face.
“I’d like you to come back,” he said. “Just for her. I can contact the agency and get another dog for the other patients…but if you’re willing, I’d love to give her your full hour of undivided attention. Or at least your dog’s.”
He looked down at my mutant poodle and smiled.
I thought about whether I wanted to come back, and immediately said, “I can be back tomorrow. As well as the next three days or so. But I work a full-time job, and with this weather hitting us in a couple of days, I’ll be gone for a week. But once I’m back, I can resume once a day for an hour if that’s what you want.”
I was so full of shit.
I also wondered how I was going to work out to be gone for an hour in the middle of the workday every single day.
Once or twice, I could totally handle.
Once every day for the foreseeable future? My dad was definitely gonna be on my ass for that.
But…for some reason, I couldn’t just leave this woman here. I had to find out what was going on, and I couldn’t stand the hurt on her face.
“Does she eat?” I blurted out, unable to stop myself.
“No,” he admitted. “Every couple of days we’re forced to give her a dose of nutrients via a tube down to her stomach. She doesn’t like that, so she’ll appease us by eating for a while, then the whole process starts all over again. And then when her family comes in—the brother and sister that don’t always visit her every family day—she really goes into a tailspin. The last time the sister came in, Theo didn’t eat for a month.” He shook his head. “Luckily those visits are very few and far between. But, saying that, I shouldn’t be telling you this. I’m sorry. I’m just really excited to see that she’s interacting with you. With him.” He gestured to the dog. “Wow. Just wow.”
I held out my hand. “I’ll be here tomorrow. I left her one of my cupcakes, though. Hopefully she eats that. She looked like she could use it.”
The doctor nodded. “She loves cupcakes. That’s the only time I really see her eat something with happiness on her face. When her brother’s daughter gives her that cupcake every time they visit.”
I felt something in my belly flip.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, doctor.”
The doctor nodded. “Sounds good. Thank you for coming.”
Chapter 4
My idea of help from above is a sniper on the roof.
-Theo’s secret thoughts
Theo
“Do me a favor,” the man, Liner, said as he reached into his bag. “Eat this. A little girl promised me it was your favorite.”
Then he pulled a familiar pink box out of his bag and placed it on my lap. I stared at it as my heart started to pound.
When I looked back up, hands trembling in fear, he only smiled an ‘it’s okay’ smile and walked away.
When he didn’t look back, I was disappointed.
I shouldn’t have been, though.
Not when my daughter’s life had practically been threatened right in front of my eyes.
Why did he know about my daughter? Nobody knew about my daughter.
At least, nobody was supposed to know.
I’d spent thirty minutes straight talking to the man, and not once had I gotten a bad vibe off of him.
Sure, he was tall, muscular, built and quite a bit intimidating…but I was a pro at recognizing evil…and that man wasn’t one of them.
And as I watched him walk away, I felt like a piece of my heart had walked away with him.
Which was stupid. I’d only known him for thirty minutes.
It must’ve been the dog that I missed.
But, hours later, as I was staring at my half-eaten cupcake in dismay, I realized it wasn’t the dog.
I wanted him to come back the moment he left.
I wanted nothing more than to just get a glimpse of his face from across the room.
Taking another bite of the cupcake, I hoped that he’d be back.
I just didn’t realize my hopes would be met only a short eighteen hours later.
***
I was sitting outside, near the garden that I tended for The Bridge when I heard the familiar click-click of nails on concrete.
My heart started to pound a million miles an hour, and I looked over my shoulder.
My heart stalled in my chest when my eyes met those of a dark chocolate brown. Eyes the color of hot cocoa—my favorite drink in the world once upon a time.
I sat up a little straighter and smiled as the dog came to me, sat on his butt, and buried his nose into my hair.
“Monster, have some fuckin’ manners for Christ’s sake,” Liner muttered as he gently wrapped his hand around Monster’s collar.
“Fancy,” I said as he pulled Monster back. “I like the collar.”
Liner hadn’t actually wrapped his hand around Monster’s collar, but the handle that protruded from the collar. Monster’s name was embroidered in a neon green print on the dog collar with an American flag stitched right next to it.
It really was an awesome collar.
One that I bet the military used…or something very similar.
It looked very chic on the large poodle and gave him an air of authority that he likely wouldn’t otherwise get thanks to his breed.
Generally, when a person looked at a poodle, they saw a stuffy dog that was bred for the finer folks in life. However, Liner, with his harsh and brash demeanor, pulled off having the poodle really well. It also helped that Monster didn’t have a standard poodle haircut. He was curly and shaggy all over. The only part of him that wasn’t black was a small tuft of white on his right eye encircling it halfway.
“I had it made,” Liner explained as he took a seat. “No wheelchair today?”
I looked at the bench that I’d been sitting on before the sun had cooled the stone well enough for me to sit on the ground, then shrugged.
“Didn’t need it,” I admitted.
Not thanks to the cupcake and the meals I’d consumed.
I wasn’t sure why I’d consumed them.
Normally I didn’t.
Eating was one of the only things that I could control in the hell hole I called life, and so I just didn’t do it. Not unless a beautiful brown-headed girl with curls down to her waist brought me a cupcake.
Or a large, Goliath of a man with multiple tattoos, a beard that could rival a Viking’s the color of a summer sunset—all golden red and beautiful—in a tattered pair of blue jeans.
God, he was beautiful.
I’d watched Vikings on Netflix recently, and Liner looked like he could fit right into the show without even trying. All he’d need to do was take off his shirt and display his abs.
Abs that I knew were there based solely on the way his t-shirt fit against his skin.
“Here,” Liner said, producing another treat out of his messenger bag. “I got this at the bakery. It’s still warm.”
I took the box carefully, nervous and fearful to look inside all at once.
What was it that I was doing here?
Should I be doing anything?
Today was Tyson’s day to visit, and I planned on asking him about Liner. Making sure that it was okay to talk to him.
But for this visit, I would act how I wanted to act, and do what I wanted.
It was only for an hour.
What could it hurt?
Plus, the box that I was holding—which was warm—could hold a poison for all I cared. It wasn’t like my life was worth living anyway.
I was a prisoner. I was here because I was being held captive.
What did it matter if what he was giving me was something that could harm me?
“I swear it won’t bite,” Liner said, surprising me enough that I jumped. “The lady at the front counter said that those were her best-selling products. I’d gotten there just as she’d pulled them out of the oven.”
I popped open the lid of the bakery box and stared inside.
Inside was a rather large muffin. One the size of about three of my fists. It was also quite beautiful for a muffin. The top of it was dusted with powdered sugar, and there were chunks of strawberry poking out the top.
“I asked her how she got those chunks of strawberry to stay at the top,” he said. “And she told me that she pulls out the muffins when they’re about halfway cooked and drops them on top so they don’t sink to the bottom.”
It made sense, but I’d never gotten to cook a day in my life, so I wouldn’t really know that strawberries didn’t stay on top of the muffin if you just dropped them in while they were still batter.
I broke off a piece of the muffin and hesitantly took a bite, pausing slightly once the morsel hit my tongue.
“Good,” I said softly.
That was a lie.
It was beyond good.
Exquisite, honestly.
I broke off another piece and handed it to him.
He took it and threw it into his mouth as if he hadn’t just gotten a piece of food given to him by someone who was practically a murderer.
Though, maybe he didn’t know why I was in here.
Maybe he was never told.
But I highly doubted that. Liner was pretty hot. The nurses wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from telling him why a patient was in here.
And a few of them were catty bitches who hated me—I was apparently a problem patient—so they wouldn’t waste a second telling Liner what kind of person I was. Or was supposed to be.
Whatever.
“Actually,” Liner said as he licked his fingers. “It was really good. If they have any left after I leave here, I’m getting another one.”
I smiled and felt a pang of sadness hit me. I wanted another one already.
I also wanted to be able to leave.
I’d been out of this place twice and twice only over the last five years.
Once when Tara needed me to be her for a couple of hours, playing the ‘doting mother’ and once more when I went to Matias’, Tara’s son’s, funeral.
Both times were godawful.
Both times I’d contemplated running away and never looking back.
Both times I’d dutifully returned to my cage, all because I couldn’t take the chance that by leaving, my daughter would be left unprotected.
At least this way, if I stayed in my cage, I knew that no harm would come to Linnie. I knew that my family would leave her alone.
Because, as long as I was at their beck and call, she was safe.
That’d been what they said, anyway.
I was never really one to take them at their word, though. So I’d made sure of it in other ways.
One, Tyson protected her.
Two, I would protect her until my dying breath.
Three, I had a ticking time bomb. If they fucked up, the entire world would know about their true colors in about two seconds flat.
“You’re quiet today,” Liner said. “You were much chattier yesterday.
I made a humming sound in the back of my throat as I took another bite of the muffin, this one straight off the muffin itself.
It smelled divine and tasted even better.
I couldn’t help but groan.
“I need a glass of milk now,” Liner said. “Do you think they have any here?”
I snorted. “Getting anything here when you want it is a joke. You’d have more luck walking back over to the bakery than you would getting anything from the staff.” I paused and looked at him. “Though, saying that, you might get what you want based solely on your good looks.”
He grinned. “My good looks?”
I shot him a look that clearly said I thought he was stupid, causing him to laugh.
“If you say so, darlin’,” he teased, then sobered. “Do you like it here?”
I thought about that.
Did I like it here?
I liked it better than living at my father’s house where he, as well as my siblings, were free to torture me. Which was how I’d spent my entire life up until this point. But, saying that, I didn’t like it here, either.
“I don’t belong here,” I found myself saying.
He frowned, about to ask me in more detail what I meant, but then a commotion had us both turning to see a combative patient screaming at the top of his lungs that he wanted his mommy.
“That’s interesting,” the man beside me said.
I sighed and started to stand up, causing Liner to help me up to my feet.
His strong hands caused little tiny bolts of lightning to shoot down my arms where his hands connected with mine.
The rest of my strawberry muffin fell to the ground, forgotten, as we stared into each other’s eyes.
But before he could say another word, an angry voice interrupted the moment. “Time to go, Ms. Threadgill.”
The worst nurse of them all, Nurse Patty, glared at me.
I sighed and stepped back, feeling how weak my legs were. “Yes, ma’am.”
Liner frowned and looked like he was about to argue, but I held my hand up to stop him. “It’s okay. It’s protocol for all patients to go to their rooms if one turns into that.” I motioned with my hand to the man that was still struggling. It was taking four nurses and two orderlies to hold him down. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
He looked up at the sky that looked a little darker gray than it had a second ago, and frowned. “I don’t know…maybe.”
With that, he left, and I watched him go.
Then I shuffled to my room, making sure to pick up the strawberry muffin that had landed icing side up on the ground as I went.
Fifty-two second rule on the food…right?
***
“Some guy’s come to visit twice,” I said softly to my brother. “He knew that I had a daughter, and he knew that I liked those cupcakes.”
We looked down at the cupcake that Linnie brought me every time she came to visit.
They weren’t actually my favorite. In fact, if I was to put a name on what I liked most, it would probably be the strawberry muffin, or something similar, like a strawberry shortcake, that Liner had brought me this morning. However, since Linnie picked it out specially for me and brought it to me, I’d eat it no matter what it was.
She was very perceptive for a five-year-old and noticed when I didn’t eat. She’d started bringing me the cupcake last year when I’d told her that the food here wasn’t good enough for me to eat in an attempt to explain why I wasn’t eating when she was.
It’d been The Bridge’s version of Thanksgiving.
“Let me guess,” Tyson groaned. “He’s about six foot three, two hundred and thirty pounds, wears jeans and a plain black t-shirt, and has a red/gold beard that is in desperate need of a shave.”
I blinked and smoothed my hand down Linnie’s mop of curls, dropping a kiss down onto her forehead. “I wouldn’t say it’s in need of a shave, per se. I would say that it’s quite attractive, honestly.”
I had a lot of time to sit and do nothing while I was in here.
So it was either read or watch TV, and I did a lot of both.
I’d found myself gravitating toward a few of the shows, the motorcycle one that I’d stopped watching because the main character’s girl had died, and Vikings.
When I read, I usually steered myself in the direction of historical or the biker genre. All because I liked how overprotective the men were of their women.
I liked how, at the end of the day, the women always had their men to count on. They never went a day where they thought that something might happen to them because their men always made sure that the women knew they would be there for them if it ever came down to it.
I wanted that.
Not that I would ever have that, but I wanted that.
And that was what Liner came off as to me. A man that would protect his woman no matter what.
“Well, you say to-ma-toe, I say to-ma-toe.” He shrugged. “But yes, it sounds like that’s him.”
Snitches Get Stitches Page 4