Save My Soul (3 page)

"Are you just going to stare at me, or
help me take this stuff off?" I asked as I yanked off two of the
little white patches, simultaneously. It hurt, but then again, I
figured it would. I started to grab two more, but he grabbed my
hands and shook his head without taking his wide eyes away from
mine. He hit a few buttons on the heart monitoring machine, and the
solid beep went silent.

"Stop…" he said, as if there wasn't
another word in his vocabulary.

I turned my head to the side and
smiled up at him.

"You died…twice. You should be in
pain. You shouldn't even be off the ventilator yet, but I went on
instinct that you didn't need it. You do, however, need oxygen and
blood and antibiotics." He was talking like he was trying to
convince himself more than he was me.

I nodded in agreement so he wouldn't
think he had gone crazy. There needed to be only one crazy person
in this room, and that was yours truly. "Yes, Mason, but as you can
see, I am already healed."

He looked away from my face for the
first time to look at my arms. There were no scars, or even any
scratches for that matter. His eyes grew wider, and he slowly
backed away from me.

"How? I sewed you up myself. You
should still have stitches." He rubbed his eyes again. "I'm still
asleep, I have to be."

I was getting absolutely nowhere with
him, and I suddenly didn't want to know how Dr. Chamberlain would
react to my miracle recovery. He was good, but he wasn't that good.
I just hoped he knew that, or my shoes were bigger than I was going
to be able to fill. I ripped two more of the sticky things off my
chest and watched Mason as he picked up the phone without taking
his eyes from me.

"Dr. Chamberlain to recovery, STAT…Dr.
Chamberlain to recovery, STAT."

I finished ripping the little stickers
off my chest and then began to work on the tape around my
I.V.

"Look, you have got to stop. At least
wait for Dr. Chamberlain to get here. I'll get in trouble if I let
you do all this." His eyes were pleading with me, and I felt bad
that he didn't understand, so I stopped trying to remove the I.V.
needle from my arm. "How do you know my name? I forgot my name
badge this morning, and I'm sure I haven't met you before." He
smiled, sheepishly. "I think I would have remembered."

I thought for a moment, and then
decided the truth would set everything straight. "Well, you may
need to sit back down, and if I'm going to tell you the truth, you
have to promise to try and understand. Otherwise, I will tell Adam
that you fell asleep while you were supposed to be watching me." I
gave him my most serious face, and I guess it worked, because he
sat in the chair to the left of me, the one he'd been sleeping
in.

"I promise to try and understand," he
choked out.

I heard a loud bang, and both our
gazes shot to the recovery room door where a man ran in with five
nurses close at his back. They looked like a S.W.A.T. team in
scrubs, ready to take down anything in their path. The man in front
was wearing navy blue scrubs; they fit him a little too well. He
was about five-ten with broad shoulders that had, "I hit the gym
regularly" written all over them. He wasn't too muscular, but he
was clearly in shape. Every inch of him was lean and defined. I had
to focus on my breathing. He had black hair, cut neat, with eyes so
dark brown I wouldn't have been able to swear if they were dark
brown or black. I could see the coldness in his eyes, and knew then
what Coen had put me up against. This was my doctor, our Adam that
I had to fix, or I died again in a week and he could possibly lose
his soul forever.

His eyes widened in amazement, and his
lips parted ever so slightly. I had a strange urge to touch those
lips with my own. I shook my head to clear the thought then smiled
at him. "Hello, Adam." His lips opened a little more as if he were
about to speak, or maybe he was in shock. Then he closed his mouth
and just stared at me.

"Kendra was just about to explain how
she is already healed, and also how she knows who we are," Mason
said nervously.

Dr. Chamberlain licked his lips
uneasily as he stared at me. "She was, was she?" His voice was just
like I remembered it. It may have had a little nervous quiver, but
it was still beautiful to me.

I nodded at him, glanced at the
nurses, then moved my gaze back to meet those dark eyes of his
again. "If you don't mind, Adam, I would really like to get the
rest of this stuff off me and take a shower. Then we can talk more
about this in private. I would prefer only you, but I told Mason I
would try to explain, and I will keep my word. So, only you and
Mason if you don't mind."

Adam stood there and finally blinked
at me. He turned to the nurse on his left. "Debbie, will you please
help Ms. Larkin to a shower and help her get cleaned up." Mason
began to unravel the tape around the I.V., and the petite older
woman to Adam's left came to my right side and began removing the
sticky patches from my back.

When everything was removed from my
body except for my hospital gown, Mason rolled a wheel chair to my
bed. I just looked at it and raised an eyebrow at him. I threw the
sheet off my legs and set my feet on the floor. Everyone looked on
edge, as if they would all jump to catch me if I fell.

Mason took my left arm and looked at
me. "I know you think you can do it, but until I hear how this is
all possible, let me escort you for my benefit."

I nodded as I smiled up at him. He
wasn't that much taller than me. He had me beat by a few inches
maybe, and I was five-six. Mason was handsome in a high school
baseball guy sort of way. You knew he played sports by the way his
upper body was built, and by the way he walked and stood. He still
looked like a kid to me, but I was twenty-nine, so a kid to me was
twenty-eight and under.

I looked at Adam. He was still in
shock, and I didn't think he looked like a kid at all. If I ever
swooned, I would have been swooning right then. I wanted it to be
him escorting me to the shower so I could catch a whiff of the
cologne or aftershave he was wearing to see if it smelled as good
as my imagination had let on earlier, but he had only blinked once
that I had noticed. I had better let Mason, or I may be the one
holding up the good doctor, instead of the other way
around.

"I'm going to need clothes," I
whispered to Mason as we walked toward the double doors of the
recovery room. I was a little embarrassed asking him for such
things, but it wasn't as if I had planned to go pin wheeling down a
rocky cliff face, landing myself in the trauma center.

He laughed a little then looked behind
him at the other gawkers. "Any of you ladies have a change of
clothes you are willing to part with for a little
while?"

A very pretty nurse with short brown
hair stepped up. The look on her face wasn't of amazement or shock
like the others. She looked upset about something, and I could tell
she was trying to hide it behind that fake smile of hers. "I'm
about the only one close to your size. Follow me to the women's
locker room, and I'll give you what I have."

I noticed the voice instantly. It was
Sherri, the girl Adam had shouted at and kicked out of his
operating room. I nodded in agreement then Mason and I followed her
through the door.

"Bring her to my office when she's
finished with her shower, Mason," Adam said from behind us. I had
to turn and look at him. The urge was too strong not to. Yep, he
was still perfect with that confused look on his face and that cold
look in his eyes. I took a quick mental picture so I could compare
it to the one I would take after I took that coldness out of his
eyes. I had one week, one week to make him believe in God. God help
me.

Sherri handed me a pair of black
scrubs from her locker. "I don't have an extra pair of panties, and
I'm sure my extra bra wouldn't fit you." She looked at my chest and
I looked at hers. She couldn't have been any bigger than a "B cup"
and I was a solid "D." I could go without any panties, but I very
much disliked going without a bra.

I smiled. "Was my bra totally ruined
in the accident?"

She nodded without looking at me.
"Adam, I mean, Dr. Chamberlain, cut it off you before the operation
began." She seemed to look at me for the first time, and
realization crossed through her eyes. "You don't have a scratch on
you." She absentmindedly ran her fingers down my arm. I didn't pull
back. It wasn't like she was coming on to me or anything, but for
the first time, I saw amazement in her light brown eyes. "You
aren't going to tell us how this happened, are you?"

I nodded, a little embarrassed that
Adam had seen me naked. "I will tell Adam and Mason, but I don't
expect them to believe me. Hell, I wouldn't believe it if it hadn't
personally happened to me. I'm not a freak or some immortal
creature that can magically heal my wounds by wishing it so. Stuff
like this just doesn't happen." I lowered my gaze from her eyes and
looked at my bare, unpolished toenails. "It was just a miracle, I
guess."

She was silent for only a moment
before she spoke again. "The showers are through there. We all keep
it stocked with the items you will need to get clean. Help
yourself. I'll be out in the hall with Mason. You look capable of
washing your own body." I could tell she was irritated with me for
not sharing the reason for my rapid recovery, but I didn't want
everyone to know. It was truly a miracle what Coen had done, and I
didn't want to be caught up in the lights of camera crews for the
next week. I had a mission to complete.

As I walked away from her to the
showers, I heard the door open and close behind me. The shower room
was large and didn't have stalls. That was fine, I was alone. There
were ten shower heads, four on the left, four on the right, and two
on the narrower wall in front of me. I laid my scrubs on a dry
bench outside of the shower room and went to the nearest shower
head that was stocked with shampoo, conditioner and body wash. I
took the hospital gown off and let it fall to the floor before I
stepped up and turned the spray on. The water pressure was perfect.
I stood for a moment with my eyes closed, soaking in all the heat
from the water.

How was I supposed to make someone
believe in God? Coen said that Adam had believed before. What had
happened to change his mind? I didn't know, and I wasn't going to
find out until I talked to him face-to-face. I quickly washed my
hair and body then used one of the white towels I found folded on
the bench to dry off.

I dressed quickly and wrapped my long,
dark brown hair in the towel I had used to dry my body. I walked
barefoot to the door and opened it to about twenty people standing
in the hall. Mason moved swiftly to me, put his arm around my
shoulder and pushed through the crowd of onlookers. There were
shouts from a few of the nurses, but I was too stunned to
understand what they were saying.

Mason got me in an elevator and hit
the fourth floor button. He sighed and rubbed his eyes again as he
leaned back against the elevator wall.

"I thought you had a date?" I
said.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked
at me like I was crazy. "What are you?"

I smiled. "I'm just a girl who's
getting a second chance."

The elevator dinged, letting us know
we had arrived at our destination. The doors opened and Mason
walked out without waiting on me. I followed him. We didn't have to
go far. A brown and white nameplate by the third door on the right
read, "Dr. Adam Chamberlain, M.D." Mason walked in, and I followed.
He shut the door behind me and locked it. I turned around, giving
him a confused look.

He shrugged. "It's for your safety.
You're building up quite a fan base here at the hospital and they
all want to know how you healed so quickly."

I nodded at him then looked back at
the desk. Adam was sitting behind it with his face in his hands and
his elbows propped on the solid wood. There wasn't any one
particular thing that made him handsome. He had a nice body, nice
eyes, nice hair, and a nice symmetrical shape to his face, but
nothing stood out and screamed beautiful. Everything that was nice
about his body worked together to make him beautiful.

He removed his hands from his face and
motioned for me to sit in one of the two chairs in front of his
desk. I did, and Mason took the other. I was suddenly aware that I
wasn't wearing a bra, so I crossed my arms over my
chest.

Adam sighed. "Where would you like to
begin, Ms. Larkin?"

"Call me Kendra, please."

He nodded once. "Fine…Where would you
like to begin, Kendra?"

I took in a deep breath and let it out
slowly. "I could hear you talking the whole time you were operating
on me."

Adam and Mason both sat up a little
straighter in their chairs. "You are telling me that you heard
everything that happened in the operating room? Could you feel
anything?"

I shook my head and lowered my gaze.
"No, I couldn't feel or see anything." I waited a moment then
continued. "I heard you arguing with Sherri. I heard when I
died…twice, and how persistent you were to save my life. I heard
Mason, and other nurses, trying to stop me from bleeding to death.
I remember hearing my body flap against the table when I was
seizing. I heard you and Mason talking about my medical history,
and then he sewed me up and took me to recovery." I glanced at
Mason. I wouldn't get him in trouble by telling Adam that he fell
asleep in recovery. That would just be mean.