Love Redone (7 page)

The gentle concern she saw in his actions lodged a huge lump in her throat.  Of course, having him mere inches from her meant she was aware of him on a sensory
-overload level, too. His cologne, sharp scented with a beguiling spiced undertone mingling with his own unique maleness, brought her breath up short. 

Seeming to take her response as another indication of pain or discomfort, Nick leaned
forward to catch her eyes with a look of concern before quietly imploring her again to be still.

“Shannon, lie still please. Wiggling around is only going to make you more uncomfortable.”
His hands had moved from her shoulders to the tops of her legs in a motion surely meant to convey calm and stillness, but which brought the opposite effect on her raw emotions.

His use of the word wiggle got an immediate reaction from her as she tried to wrap some dignity around this situation. Realizing that this was the second time he’d mentioned her wiggling
, Shannon quickly found her voice.

“I told you before that I do
not
wiggle!” she snapped out a bit more harshly than intended, but no matter that, she wryly thought.  He may be rattling her cage a bit by appearing out of thin air smack dab in the center of her existence in a major way, but she was not going to let him minimize her as if she were an errant child.  Wiggle indeed, she inwardly fumed.

His response was a raised eyebrow with just the hint of amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth
, most probably, she admitted, because she had indeed been wiggling as he put it. She wanted to roll her eyes at her own foolishness but drew back instead because there was nothing amusing about this. 

Shannon was struggling to keep her unease under control. She sincerely hoped that none of the inner turmoil churning inside was showing on her face as she turned what she hoped was a blank stare and a bland expression in his direction. Inside
, however, she was filling with an overwhelming feeling bordering on panic.  In fact, right then she thought that if anxiety were a water balloon, it would’ve launched itself out of her by now and slammed against the wall behind them, dripping liquid towards the floor. Her next thought was why a water balloon?  Why not a balloon filled with paint? At least that way the dripping down the wall would be some intense color like purple—anything to take her mind off her increasing nervousness.

Nicholas
Barrett, the man who had made her feel limitless and alive and pathetic and of no consequence, was suddenly and without any warning whatsoever involved in her life without invitation.  Well, that wasn’t entirely true, Shannon mused while still snapping defensive glances his way. 

She had crumbled in his arms when he carried her to his SUV for the drive to the clinic.  Between the pain and the shock of seeing him, she had momentarily lost her emotional equilibrium.  Thinking back to how she had silently allowed him to cradle her injured leg in his huge hands and the way she had melted against him when he scooped her up
, as though she weighed nothing, made her both want to cringe and do it all again.

Never again!
screamed a memory in her head, bringing her instantly back to reality.  Uh uh, nope.  Not gonna lose it here, girl, she chastised herself.  Nicholas Temple Barrett was a different person than the Nick Temple she had loved so desperately.  Snap out of it, she firmly chided.

* * *

Nick watched the play of thoughts and emotions dance across her face as though he had some exclusive access to her most secret thoughts.  She had always been so easy for him to read and still was, he realized with grim satisfaction.  It was as if he was completely tuned in to her on an organic level that time, distance, and a great deal of hurt had not killed. The pretty little pout she threw at him when he told her she was wiggling had almost sent him to his knees.  Good lord but she was absolutely adorable sitting there all puffed up and trying to act like she wasn’t as hysterically off-kilter inside as he was.

Fascinated, he made note of the wild seesawing emotions that danced across her expression and guessed rightly, he was sure, that she was struggling with her response to seeing him again and the undercurrent of the terrible way he had treated her the last time they’d spoken.  Those two extremes were certainly tying him up in knots
, too, but for far different reasons.

He knew that his churlish actions had been done in her best interest
, as if the crueler he was, the better to ensure a complete break so she could go on with her life unencumbered by lingering hopes.  Only he would know that in doing so, he was dooming himself to a future devoid of emotion, for Nick’s path of duty and destiny had been laid out long before their time together.  A period he stole from the past as a lock against the future.

That she was trying to fight off a
physical awareness of him was also mightily apparent to Nick.  The restless motions of her beautifully expressive hands as they clutched and then smoothed the sheet covering her spoke volumes about the struggle she was having.  Whereas he could read her emotions, he was plagued by unease, because though her response to his presence was palpable he couldn’t actually decipher whether she wanted to smack him or hug him. He hoped it was the latter but didn’t discount that, in her mind, he probably deserved the smack.

Sitting this close
he had also picked up on the steady but visible pulse in her neck, which was telling its own story. She kept tugging at her bottom lip with quick little bites, a reflexive motion signaling a mixture of distress and excitement, he pulled from his memory. 

He wanted nothing more than to lean forwa
rd and pass his tongue over the telltale pulse at that spot along her jaw and neck near her ear, which he knew tasted like sin and felt like warm silk against his tongue. 

When her hand quickly lifted to that spot as if she
had picked up on his desire, he jolted back and fixed her with a look that was probably best left locked away but one that he found he could not control no matter how he tried.

She was trembling, as though the way he had been staring was causing her to hit overdrive. He wondered if she could feel his lips on her neck the way he could. He watched as the hand she’d raised to seemingly ward off his sensual attack instead began to lightly caress the sensitive skin she found there.

They continued this silent eye battle for several long moments before the door to Shannon’s room suddenly opened and in walked the doctor who had been assigned to her care. 

“Hello
, Ms. Reynolds. My name is Dr. Adam Tyler. Let’s have a look here and see what’s going on,” said the white-coated doctor with the tag that had not only his name on it but a bunch of letters afterwards indicating he was a specialist in many fields.

Looking over at Nick
, Dr. Tyler said, “If you don’t mind waiting outside until the examination is over, that would be great.”

Nick instantly replied
, “No way. I’m staying right here.”

Dr. Tyler raised an eyebrow, looking to his patient for direction. Shannon’s reflex was to reach out and grab Nick’s hand
, much to his surprise, while looking towards Dr. Tyler and saying, “No, no, it’s okay. I want him to stay.”

Nick noticed that Dr. Tyler glanced down at their clasped hands and
then just shrugged returning all of his attention to his patient.

Nick didn’t like this
young turk very much at all, probably because he had a laid-back California attitude that gave him a science-geek-meets-surfer-dude way about him that was like fingernails on a chalkboard for the powerful, no-nonsense tycoon. 

The light pen D
r. Tyler was waving around like a scepter rankled him, too.  Of course, what was really pissing Nick off was the simple fact that this obviously talented medical guy was getting more response from Shannon in a few short moments than he had gotten from her this past hour, and he found himself wondering where all the curmudgeon senior doctors were today.  The last thing his off-balance disposition needed was some hip, handsome, witty doctor being the hero of the moment. 

Of course
, it didn’t take but a minute or two for Nick to return to his senses. He had to give the man credit.  The Doctor did an efficient and thorough examination in very short order. Shannon was getting the care that she needed, and that was all that really mattered to Nick.

H
e told them that the gash
would need some bandages;
the knee and the hands would be fine; the ankle, well that was going to require an X-ray and probably a temporary brace.

When Nick mentioned the bump on her head
, Dr. Tyler informed them that the bump was fairly superficial—it looked worse than it actually was and would probably be completely gone by morning, although there would be a nice bruise at her hairline. He was concerned, though, by Shannon’s obvious discomfort and the presence of the headache.

“Are you prone to headaches
, Shannon?” the doctor asked.

Before Shannon could react
, Nick chimed in with a decisive, “Yes, she is,” drawing a side-glance from Shannon.

Nick remembered all too well the migraines that she occasionally suffered from and how the only way to deal with them was by limiting physical activity, staying quiet and calm, and sometimes resting in the darkness. Bright lights in particular seem
ed to make the pain worse.

Nick could tell Shannon was surprised that he remembered that about her when she stuttered,
“I do…yes, I do have migraines from time to time, just not recently. I did notice a persistent headache earlier this morning. Finding myself on my butt on the ground didn’t make it any better. It is pounding pretty hard right now though, Doctor.” She closed her eyes and raised a hand to shield her face from the bright lights in the examination room.

“Okay, well
, let’s do this,” said Dr. Tyler. “I’ll have the nurse come in and take care of that gash, put some antibiotic ointment on your hands and knee, and we’ll put a little icepack on your foot to get things started. Then let me arrange for an X-ray of your ankle. Since I can see you are in clear discomfort we’ll give you something to take the edge off that headache. The bump is superficial and you don’t have a concussion, so there won’t be any danger. It will, however, make you little loopy.” At that he waved his fingers in the air making a loopy motion in an obvious attempt to break the tension and get a smile from her. It worked. She smiled. Nick churned.

With that, Dr. Surfer Dude patted Shannon on the shoulder, assured her that she was going to be fine
, and then left in search of the nurse, giving directions the whole way as he walked out the door.

Needing something to do and not being able to just stand idly by while someone else took care of his woman…
Wait a minute. Did he just think that? Yes, yes, he did. Nick sprang into action and went to the array of light switches by the door of the exam room. Testing all of them, he ended up clicking off two that still left the whole space illuminated but got rid of the high intense glare right over Shannon’s head.

“Maybe a little less light would help
,” he said quietly as he moved closer to where she lay on the white-sheeted bed looking as pale as death and in an awful lot of pain.

Before even so much as another minute went by
, a very well-organized nurse bustled into their room, pushing a cart of first-aid supplies and immediately set about tending to her injuries. The gash required Shannon to unbutton her adorable cowgirl blouse, and slip one arm out as she protectively clutched the rest of the shirt to her front in defensive modesty.

Common sense told him to give
her a bit of privacy. That and the realization that he did not want to get caught out staring at what he could suddenly see of her voluptuous breasts barely held in by a white lace bra. Nick placed himself at the head of the examining bed while the nurse very efficiently attended to what ended up being a superficial gash on her shoulder that luckily did not require sutures.

Less than a minute later
, a pair of orderlies appeared in the doorway with a special orthopedic wheelchair. They had her out of bed and into that wheelchair completely pain free, down to the X-ray department for a series of scans and then back in her private exam room in the blink of an eye.

Somewhere in that process they must have given her something for the pain because she did appear somewhat more relaxed upon her return. Not necessarily loopy
, but certainly less cross than she had been. In fact, she may even have smiled at him when she came back into the room, but it all happened so quick Nick couldn’t be sure.

In short order
, Dr. Surfer Dude reappeared to let her know what the X-ray showed. The good news was the ankle wasn’t broken; the bad news was it was quite deeply bruised. His instructions were pretty straightforward—stay off of it completely for 24 hours, as in don’t even put it down.  She was instructed not to do anything for herself, and if she did that he could almost guarantee that within a couple of days she would be able to walk without assistance. Oh yeah, that and she was going to need crutches and someone to wait on her hand and foot for the first 48 hours.