Her Doctor's Orders (3 page)

And, as she lifted the T-shirt, the bruise that said that she didn’t deserve anyone better than Bob. Kendra turned away from the mirror, and got into the shower.

After the shower, she found some of Dr. Hunter’s clothes (or they must be his, she thought) on the bed in the guest room: a baggy U of New Mexico T-shirt and even baggier shorts. Feeling incredibly self-conscious to be wearing his clothes, she put them on, emerged again from the bedroom, and walked down the little hall to the kitchen.

Dr. Hunter stood at the stove, frying eggs. He wore a red T-shirt and medium-tight jeans, and looked like he had been up for hours. His dark blue eyes radiated kindness. “Good morning,” he said, in a tone that seemed to Kendra very serious but also somehow, she had to admit, pretty sexy.

Kendra mumbled “Good morning” back, feeling inadequate to the task of saying good morning to such a gorgeous man.

“How are you feeling?”

“Um, okay, I guess?”

“That’s good to hear. Would you like an egg?”

“Can I just have some dry toast, please, maybe? And… coffee?”

“Coffee’s in the pot on the counter. The mugs are in the cabinet above it, sugar’s there, and milk is in the fridge. Help yourself.”

Kendra poured some coffee and put some milk in it. She sat down at the little table. She did not feel good, but she definitely felt better. The feeling of pitching forward had seemed to go away in the shower, at least.

Dr. Hunter sat down across from Kendra. “Alright,” he said. “I want to explain why I bailed you out, first of all. It’s going to make you feel weird, and a little guilty, I think, but at this point a little guilt is good. My point here is to make sure I didn’t waste my time last night, or my toast today.” He smiled. That smile brought back the night of Lori’s accident, but it also brought back that feeling of security that Dr. Hunter had given her then. No matter how skeptical and disillusioned she had grown over the three years since, she had never lost her fundamental gratitude for the way he had hugged her.

Kendra looked back at him, in the midst of a bite of toast, and realized that he was waiting patiently for her to answer him. She blushed, realizing as she did so that the blush hadn’t happened just because she had failed to respond, but also because she was quickly becoming aware just how handsome Dr. Hunter was.

Flustered, and with her mouth still full of toast, Kendra said, “Thank you… I mean, that sounds good… I mean… yes, please, tell me, because…” It wasn’t fair! She had toast in her mouth!

Dr. Hunter’s smile broadened, as if he thought her problem with the toast were amusing—or cute? Kendra’s heart pounded a little at that possibility. “Okay, then,” he continued. “You were the reason I went back to school to train in psychiatry. That’s the debt I was paying.”

“What?” Panic rose in Kendra’s stomach. How could she be connected to anyone like that, let alone to this gorgeous man? At the same time, though, along with the feeling that she wanted to vanish into the earth to escape the responsibility Dr. Hunter seemed to be conferring on her—burdening her with, more like—came a very different feeling: a kind of nameless warmth that spread through her chest and her arms and made Kendra breathe in a little more deeply, feel a little more anchored to the little wooden chair in the spotless kitchen.

“Don’t worry,” Dr. Hunter said, raising his left hand gently and making a patting motion that Kendra found strangely sexy, as if he were patting her, to tell her she would be fine, but in a way that suggested that she would be fine as long as she were in his arms.

“But… Dr. Hunter…”

“Call me Levi, please,” he said.

Levi.

“Levi,” she said. “I mean, how can I not worry? Are you glad you did that—went back to school—at least?” Kendra asked the question, she immediately realized, not because she was worried that he might blame her—clearly he wouldn’t be telling her at all if he did—but because she wanted to hear the answer. No, she wanted to hear
Levi say
the answer. She felt a tiny hint of her blush returning.

Levi laughed. “Yes,” he said, “it was a good thing. That night we met at the hospital, and I saw how hard your mother’s accident had made the road ahead for you, I suddenly knew that I had to try to treat the problem that led to the accident at the source. Do you know what I mean?”

Kendra felt herself frown a little, and she said, “I think I do. I mean, are you saying that if my mom had therapy, it might not have happened?”

“Exactly,” Levi said. “I don’t know how much you remember about our conversation that night—you were pretty distraught, of course—but I think when you told me that you were planning on majoring in psychology, it rang a kind of bell for me. You didn’t tell me why you were planning on psychology, but I thought I could see that it must have something to do with your mom. I think that made me think there was a way for me to help more than I was helping as an ER doc.”

Kendra felt herself beginning to tear up, and she forced herself to smile. She said, with a note of bitterness that she couldn’t suppress, “Well, at least if I couldn’t get to be a psychologist, I managed to give the world one anyway.”

Levi’s eyes held a kind of deep sympathy that Kendra wasn’t sure she had ever seen on anyone’s face before. It made her feel good and bad at the same time.
Yes, fine, be nice to me. Thanks. You don’t know that I’m not worth it
. He said, “Tell me what happened at school, and why you came back here.”

Kendra felt her tears drying up as she launched into the story in a businesslike way. She had told it enough times now that it came rolling off her tongue without hesitation. “School just wasn’t right for me,” she said. “I had my mother to think about, but that was just an excuse. Really, it was just that I couldn’t cut it.”

Levi’s eyes narrowed. “I’m pretty sure,” he said, “that that’s the first dishonest thing you’ve said to me. Why don’t you tell me what really happened?”

Kendra looked back at him in shock. No one she had told the story to—her mother, her friends in Logan, her employers—had ever seen through it before. In fact, Kendra had almost come to believe the story herself. “I… what do you want? I mean, don’t I get to tell you the version that gets me through the night?”

“Not if it’s not true,” Levi said steadily. “Remember that I bailed you out. Besides the fact that I’m a trained psychologist, I think bailing you out entitles me to approach the problem of talking some sense into you in the way I choose.”

Kendra made a face, screwing her mouth up in defiance and wrinkling her nose as hard as she could.

“What did I tell you about faces?” Levi said with a hint of sternness that had a strange effect on Kendra. When she heard the authority in his tone, a little tingle seem to travel all the way through her body. It didn’t seem to be centered between her thighs, but to her embarrassment she realized that that area was not unaffected.

She replied, “You said no faces.”

“That’s right, Kendra,” Levi said gently. “Now, would you please tell me the truth about what happened at school?”

“Alright,” Kendra said, trying to keep the defiance in her tone. She would tell him, but not because Kendra wanted to tell him—because he had this idiotic idea that he was going to talk sense into her. “It sounds like you already guessed, but if you need me to say it, I will. My mom’s accident ruined my first semester, and they asked me to take a semester off. I guess I don’t blame them, but it was probably just about the worst thing they could have done if they wanted to keep me in school. Anyway, the basic explanation is just that I couldn’t concentrate. It seemed like I was learning, but every time I went to take a test, I just couldn’t remember anything. So obviously my grades were abysmal. And they told me to take a semester to get my head together.” She stared at Levi as if daring him to question this version too, but the look of sympathy had returned to his face, and along with it a hint of sadness.

“Thank you,” he said. “One of the things I’d like to help you do is get ready to go back to school and finish your degree.”

Kendra laughed bitterly. “Be serious,” she said. “I wasn’t really college material three years ago—and I’m definitely not college material now. I don’t know if you got a look at what I did to my truck last night, but I doubt that kind of thing looks great on a college application.”

“No,” Levi agreed, “it doesn’t. We have some work to do. And maybe you won’t make it back into your dream school. But education is something that will make your life better in so many ways that you can’t even see them right now. Let me say this: I will be here for you. Call me any time. I want you to call me first and foremost about things to do with going back to school, but I also want you to call me about how you’re doing more generally—how you’re feeling and how work is going. I would very much like to keep repaying this debt. So before I drop you off, we’re going to exchange cell phone numbers, alright?”

“Alright,” Kendra said, wavering between annoyance and gratitude, and not knowing what to say except that she would try. She suddenly didn’t want to be there anymore. She got up and started to clear the plates.

“I’ll do that,” Levi said.

“No, it’s the least I can do,” Kendra said, meaning that she wanted to do exactly that—the least she could do, so pissed off was she becoming at Levi’s presumption. “And I’m pretty good at it. A professional, no less.”

He laughed, and turned to watch her. Kendra took the plates to the sink and began to wash them, but Levi came up behind and said, “I’ll wash—you dry.”

“Okay,” she said, affected by his masculine closeness despite herself. He had cologne on, something with which she couldn’t imagine Bob ever bothering, even if Kendra should be so foolish as to give him some. The way he moved his body, too, as if he owned the space he occupied, differed from the manner of all the men she had known—except maybe for Tom. Kendra even shook her head slightly, trying to clear from it the impression that Levi’s body actually somehow called out to hers.

Levi washed his plate and handed it to her, and Kendra grabbed a dish towel and dried the plate off. She looked at him as he turned to fetch her plate from the table, while she dried his. The moment felt strangely intimate, as if they lived together, and Kendra could turn any time and see Levi’s body move that way, with that wonderful air of confidence and self-knowledge.

Levi said, “You can put it in the cabinet over to the left.” Kendra opened the cabinet and moved to put the plate inside.

Then Levi said, “What’s that?” and Kendra felt his left hand lifting the red college T-shirt slightly. She started backwards and grabbed the fabric out of his hand, glaring at him.

“What’s what?” she asked, knowing exactly what he meant and hoping to make him forget it.

“That bruise.” “Oh,” she said, thinking fast. “I, um, walked into the counter at home, when I was a little drunk.”

Levi, with the same stare as when he had asked her about college, said, “Kendra, I need you to tell me the truth. What happened?”

Kendra felt her face grow hot. “Why would I lie to you?” she asked angrily.

“Because victims of domestic abuse do that, unfortunately,” Levi said. When Kendra remained silent, he continued, “I think your boyfriend did that to you.”

“You know what?” Kendra said. “Just take me home now, please.”

“That’s out of the question,” Levi said. “Especially if you live with him. Do you live with him?”

“Look,” Kendra said, furious but knowing that her fury was only a brittle façade—which made her even more defiant. “My boyfriend doesn’t have anything to do with this. I walked into the counter.”

“Kendra,” Levi said softly. “I know how hard this is. I can help you. You need to talk to me.”

“Oh, God,” Kendra said, the resistance going out of her in the face of Levi’s kindness. “Yes, alright. I’m going to leave him, I promise. It’s just that I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

She looked into Levi’s eyes, and saw something she had not expected: white-hot rage in his deep blue eyes, but those eyes set in a face that manifested utter self-control. “We can think about that in a little while,” Levi said. “Right now, I need to conduct a full exam to make sure you’re okay. That’s a pretty bad bruise. I’m going to set aside for the moment just how deeply I would like to see your boyfriend rot in jail. Why don’t you head on into the guestroom and strip down to your underwear?”

Kendra looked at him in disbelief. Let him examine her? In her underwear? Who did he think he was? Yes, maybe he was a doctor, but an examination in his guest room lay outside the boundaries of what she would consider taking care of her.

“Forget about that,” Kendra said, her anger flaring back up. “I’m just fine. I’ll go to the doctor if I need to, but I don’t need a checkup right now.”

“These kinds of injuries can cause internal damage, Kendra,” Levi said. “I have to insist.”

“You’re crazy,” Kendra said. “If you won’t take me home, I’m going to call my friend Chloe right now, and you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

She thought about what obeying Levi would mean—taking off her clothes so that he could feel her bruises, examine her body. The embarrassment of it, just as she thought about it and pictured it, made her breathe faster as she tried to get him to let go of the idea.

“Kendra,” Levi said sternly, “if you won’t let me examine you, I’m going to have to get the police involved.”

“Come on,” Kendra said in tearful exasperation as she felt her body responding again to Levi’s firmness, “you can’t be serious. Please, don’t make me. I’m really fine. Please, Levi.”

“I’m deadly serious, Kendra,” Levi said. “I’m very worried about you. I want you to go to the guest bedroom and strip down to your underwear for me.”

“No way,” Kendra said.

“Kendra, I’m a doctor. I need to see if you’re okay.”

“I’m not wearing a bra, goddamnit,” Kendra said. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to take off my shirt.”

“Kendra, I will do my best to uncover only what I need to see, but inspecting the places where there may be bruising you haven’t noticed is very important. Leave the T-shirt on, but I’m going to pull it up. Okay?”