Southern Heat by Natasha Madison

Chapter 5

Quinn

"Who are you?" she asks in a voice that sounds like she has laryngitis. I look at her green eyes, and no matter how many times I pictured her eyes in my head, nothing compares to the sight when she opens them.

"I’m going to get the doctor," Shirley, the nurse, says. She turns and stops beside me. “You might want to be nice to her." I roll my eyes. “Nicer than you are to everyone else." I put my hands on my hips, but my eyes never leave hers.

For the past four days, I’ve sat in that fucking chair, making sure her chest moved. I would doze off and hear her calling my name and wake scared to death that she died while I was sleeping.

"Who are you?" she asks me again as she taps her finger nervously on the bed beside her.

"Who are you?" I ask her the question that I’ve waited over four days to ask her. The endless questions are killing me every single day I don’t have an answer.

I’m about to ask her again when Shirley comes back into the room. "Okay," she says a bit too loudly, and the girl in the bed jumps with fear. Shirley’s eyes go to her and then to me. “It’s okay. It’s just me." She holds up her hands. “I’ve paged the doctor."

The girl in the bed just looks at her, trying to get her breathing under control. "I’m going to take your vitals." Shirley walks over to her, putting the blood pressure machine on her small, frail arm. She puts her stethoscope in her ears. The girl in the bed looks down to see what she’s doing. When she sees, she looks back up at me for just a second before her eyes roam around the room again to every single corner.

"It’s a little high,” Shirley says as she unclips the Velcro strap from her arm. “But that is normal."

The woman just nods at her, and I stand here trying to take her in. Fuck, maybe I have been looking at this in the wrong way. Maybe she’s so jumpy because she’s guilty.

The door opens again, and this time, it’s the doctor. But the woman just sees a man, and she turns to get out of the bed. My feet work faster than my head, and I catch her right before she hits the floor.

The arm with the cast grips my arm, her nails digging into my skin. “I got you,” I whisper, my face so close to hers I can feel her breathing all over me. My heart speeds up a touch with her hands on me, and I want to smile at her and tell her that everything is going to be okay. I want to tell her that I’m not going to let anyone hurt her. I want to hold her in my arms and make her feel safe.

"Oh my God!" Shirley shrieks, making the girl jump even more.

"I have to get out of here." She looks around as I pick her up and put her back into the bed.

She winces out in pain as she looks down at my arms as I place her back in the bed. "She’s in pain," I tell the doctor, who just looks on in shock at what happened.

"I’m fine," she hisses, moving away from me and my touch as if I was poison.

"Well then," Dr. Benson says, coming closer to her. Her eyes open, and she tries to get out of the bed again.

I put my hand up to stop him from moving forward. “Back up a second. She’s scared shitless,” I say. My voice comes out louder than I want it to be, and she tries to move away from me again. "I’m not going to hurt you,” I say between clenched teeth.

Shirley slaps her hands together, getting everyone to look at her. "Okay, one." She looks at me. "Move away from her and go stand over there." She points at the chair I’ve been sitting in for the past four days.

I slept maybe a total of an hour. My whole body was tense as we waited for this stranger to open her eyes and give us some answers. The nurses tried to get me to leave, tried to get me to just step outside and feel the air, but I stuck to my guns about not moving. There was no way I was going to leave her alone. Imagine if she woke up without anyone here. From the look that she gave me before, she would have hightailed it out of here. "Fine," I say, lifting my hands up so she can see them as I step back from her.

"I’d ask him to leave,” Shirley says to the woman, “but he won’t listen to that one." Shirley tries to get a smile out of the woman, but nothing comes out. She just looks at her like a bird looking to get away from its captor. "Now this man here …" She looks at the woman. “His name is Dr. Benson, and he’s been taking care of you since you got here." Her eyes go from Shirley to Dr. Benson, who stands there in his white lab coat with his hands in his pockets. His chest pocket is full of pens, and his stethoscope hangs around his neck.

"I’m Dr. Benson," he says. “Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital,” she says, her eyes closing and then slowly opening.

"Your body needs to recuperate," he says. “But that you are even talking is …"

"Can you cut to the chase and tell her what is wrong with her?” I snap. “Can’t you see she’s tired?"

"Then I suggest she rest," Dr. Benson says. “I’m going to guess that you will be awake again soon."

"I,” she says, licking her lips. “He’s …" She fights with everything she has. “Coming.”

I walk to the bed as her eyes open wide when she sees me, but then shuts again. “He’s not coming,” I say softly. “He can’t hurt you.” Her eyes don’t open again, and I look at the machine, seeing that her heart is beating normally.

"What the fuck was that?" I look over at Dr. Benson and Shirley.

"That," Shirley says, “was a woman who woke up confused and traumatized." She shakes her head. “You need to step out of here and let her get comfortable."

"Not a chance in hell,” I say. “I was the one who held her in my arms while she fought to live. As long as she is here, this is where I’m staying.”

I swallow and look down, the heat rising to my neck as I say the next words. “Did you guys check to see if …?" My body is one big bundle of nerves, and I’m not moving.

"She was not," Shirley says. “We checked."

"This woman," Dr. Benson says. “She was beaten so severely her brain started to bleed," he says softly. “She had three fractured ribs, and it wasn’t the first time they were fractured. So the abuse was ongoing. Not to mention, her spleen had to be removed. Her wrist was snapped, and that doesn’t happen from a fall. Someone purposely snapped it." He shakes his head. “That she can even talk is a miracle. You know that, right?" He looks straight at me. "I don’t know how this all happened, and I can only imagine her story, but what I do know is that you coming in here freaking out is not helping anyone, least of all her."

I swallow down the lump in my chest. “I would never ever hurt her."

"Then I suggest you show her that you aren’t going to blow up every ten seconds,” Shirley says. "Hopefully, she wakes up again soon." She turns and walks out of the room with Dr. Benson following her.

I sit in the chair and look at her. I take my phone out this time and dial my father.

"Hey," he answers right away.

"Hi," I say softly, getting up and walking away from her. Going to the door, I step outside into the hallway. I stand in front of the window that looks inside her room. "She woke up."

"And?" he asks, and I close my eyes.

"Nothing. She was so fucking scared she tried to get off the bed," I say, looking at the woman sleeping. The woman who was awake for ten minutes maybe fifteen, yet I couldn’t get her fucking name.

"Jesus," my father hisses, and I close my eyes and hang my head low. "Did she say anything?"

I huff out. “The only thing she asked is who I was."

"Did she tell you who she was?" my father asks anxiously.

"No," I answer, defeated. “Dad," I say, almost pleading. “Please tell me you have something."

"Son,” he says, his voice going low, “I wish I could."

"What the fuck is going on?" I hiss, my patience gone. “How the fuck do you have all those people there, yet no one can find out who this woman is?"

"I am not your enemy,” he says. “We are on the same team." I pinch the bridge of my nose.

"How is it that with all of our people, we can’t find out who this woman is?" I ask.

"That is the question that we are asking ourselves,” he huffs out. “I’ve been in this office for the last four days,” he says, “following a paper trail that keeps leading us to a dead end. You pick up one rock, and another ten get thrown at me." I shake my head. “We have guys going to interview everyone that has lived next to them, and everyone is saying only two people lived there."

"Someone has to know who this woman is,” I say. “She’s been with him for long enough that someone would have seen her."

"How do you know she was with him a long time?" my father asks, and my stomach burns when I think about what Dr. Benson said.

"She had fractured ribs,” I say, and he knows I’m not done. “It wasn’t the first time."

He hisses. “Motherfucker."

"Good news,” I say. “It doesn’t look like she was …" I look around the room. The nurses’ station is empty, and the whiteboard in back has been written on. I listen to the sound of the machines coming from the other rooms. “Bring me a computer."

"For?" he asks me.

"I’ll see if I can find something. I’m here doing nothing, so I might as well keep busy,” I say.

"I didn’t even think you knew what a computer did,” he says.

"Just because I don’t sit at the desk doesn’t mean I don’t watch,” I say, smiling. “I’m my father’s son in more ways than one."

"I tell you what you don’t get from your father,” he says, and I can just picture him with a smile on his face.

"Yeah, and what’s that?" I put my head back, waiting for him to say something.

"Your patience,” he says. “Or the lack of patience." I hear him tap on the desk. “You get that from your mother." I laugh. “But seriously, Quinn"—his voice goes low—“you need to know everyone has the same goal in mind, and that is to find out who this woman is." He doesn’t say anything more to me. “I’ll drop off a computer on my way home."

"Thanks, Dad,” I say and hang up the phone. I walk back into the room as the sun from outside starts to set.

Walking over to the chair, I sit down next to her bed. I watch her chest rise and fall.

Her face is so pale, her cheekbones sticking out just a touch. I take her hand in mine and notice that it’s warmer than it was before. I sit here waiting for her to open her eyes. I have so many more questions than I had before. Questions only she has the answers to. But the biggest one has to be her identity. “Who are you?" I ask her quietly.