Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Aqua Storm

“Ice,” he said.

“Huh?” How odd, not long before she had been urging ice on someone else.

“You’ll need ice packs on it, to bring the swelling down. I’ve got some gel packs you can have.”

He pulled the blanket away, releasing a hoarded store of body heat she immediately missed. “This side?”

She nodded as his fingers probed softly along her rib cage, and crossed her arms over her breasts to keep the precious heat in. The third rib up she felt a stab of pain and cried out before she could pretend to be a big person and ignore it. The next rib was no easier.

Matt’s frown grew deep. “Looks like they did a real job on your ribs. They used their fists?”

Temple nodded. Matt’s eyes went to her arms, again cradling each other. “That arm shouldn’t be that painful if it’s just a wrench. Think. Why are you holding your arms that way? Where does it hurt?”

She hadn’t been able to differentiate the miasma of ache and pain besieging her body into specific zones, but Matt’s words made her realize why she assumed her defensive posture.

“They didn’t just punch me in the ribs,” she remembered suddenly.

Matt’s face whitened beneath the tan. He turned his head away, saying something curt she didn’t hear, then put a hand to his eyes as if seeking inner control. When he turned back to her he was calm, but grim.

“Temple, you’ve got to go to a hospital, an emergency room.” He read the reluctance in her eyes and went on.

“You could have serious internal injuries. What were these guys—gang punks? Did they try to rape you?”

She shook her head. Adult white males. Mean. Max’s enemies. Ok, God, Max, what were you into?

“No,” he asked, “they didn’t try to rape you, or no, you don’t want to go to the hospital?”

His splayed fingers rested lightly on her ribs, a healing touch that almost made up for the trauma of assault. “No. No attempted rape. And no... hospital, please.”

She anticipated the objections forming on his face and said quickly, said lightly, “Couldn’t we just stay here and play doctor? You seem awfully good at it.”

His expression remained troubled, then he laughed wearily, but pulled his hand away. “Not good enough to substitute for the real thing. Don’t be like one of my callers, Temple. Don’t fight against your own good. I’ll take you to the emergency room. Please let me.”

He was right, dam his big brown honest eyes. She’d known she was hurt even during the adrenalin-anesthetized flurry of the attack.

“I hate this,” she repeated.

“I know.” Matt looked deep into her eyes. “It’s scary and humiliating to be a victim. But the worst is over, I promise.”

His tone was so reassuring, his eternally attractive expression so sincere. He was wrong, of course. The worst was still to come, when she had time to wonder what Max had been involved in—and with whom—and when someone would come for her again. But she couldn’t tell Matt that. Couldn’t tell anyone. The matter was too complicated, and now it looked like it might be too dangerous.

Temple also hated being a passenger in her own car. From the moment the two men had trapped her in the parking ramp, she had lost control of her life. Even the fact that it was Matt driving the Storm—he couldn’t afford a car on his hotline salary, he told her apologetically—didn’t lessen the insult of how much had been taken from her in a few, cataclysmic minutes.

Besides, the Storm’s stops and accelerations, its occasional turns, burdened a body no longer anesthetized by the shock of injury. Temple concentrated on not adding a chorus of moans to her unwanted progress to the hospital.

In the glow of an orange-purple sunset, Las Vegas was beginning to light up the sky with artificial candlepower. Strip traffic was thinning to a constantly moving stream of pallid headlights after the rush-hour logjam. Matt drove straight to the University Medical Center emergency room on Charleston, and helped her in. The moment the automatic door whooshed open to receive them, Temple felt a cold stone in the pit of her stomach that said that this was a mistake.

Glaring overhead fluorescents. Functional walls and plain, tiled floor. The inevitable plastic chairs lining the wall, some filled with waiting people whose harshly shadowed faces never looked up. A ballpoint pen chained to a clipboard. A lined form demanding that Temple remember long strings of numbers and write down personal information—like her age—in front of Matt, who might be younger, and who was supposed to care anymore but people did?

They sat together, waiting in a pair of inevitably orange molded chairs. Temple kept her sunglasses on to fend off the threatening headache.

An ambulance siren whined in the distance, then grew louder and louder, like a baby working itself up for a good long bawl. Just when Temple thought she would scream to keep it company, it choked off. What followed was worse. A man’s cries—deep, guttural, repeated over and over. Only searing pain would make a man cry out like that. Temple’s aches suddenly seemed minor.

A knot of people plowed through the waiting room, a small storm of activity in the stagnant pool of becalmed patients, and rushed back to the examining area.

One person in the group stopped, paused, then walked slowly over to chairs by the wall. Temple was watching the floor, too tired to hold her head up, when she saw the feet and legs stop in front of her.

She looked up. And up. And up.

“What are you doing here?” Lieutenant C. R. Molina asked with open surprise.

“Minor accident,” Temple replied quickly.

Matt turned to stare at her, and drew Molina’s notice. Temple watched Molina’s policewoman’s eyes rapidly tour Matt from head to toe, from clothes to posture to speculated vocation and possible vices.

“This is Matt Devine,” Temple said, “the neighbor who brought me in.”

“Nice to have good neighbors,” Molina remarked cryptically, her expression as flat as ever.

She was looking at Matt Devine, boy dreamboat, Temple thought with irritation, and all Molina could do was look suspicious. She finished the introduction, because Molina obviously wasn’t leaving without it.

“Lieutenant Molina of LVMPD.”

Matt turned to Temple again, confusion in his eyes, and his lips parted to inform Temple that she could tell the police of her assault right here and right now very conveniently.... Sweet Shalimar!

“That man who was moaning,” Temple said quickly to Molina, “must be in dreadful pain. Is he why you’re here?”

“Yes, unfortunately. Nice meeting you, Mr. Devine.” Molina's remarkable ice blue eyes rested on Temple with a hint of speculation. “Take care of yourself.”

She wheeled and was gone. Temple let her shoulders slump. One protested. She had known that showing an interest in Molina’s business would be the fastest way to get rid of her.

“That’s Lieutenant Molina? And why didn’t you tell her?” Matt demanded. “It was a perfect opportunity, if you know a police officer personally.”

“Molina was on the ABA case. We don’t get along.”

“Still, it’s her job—”

“Not the small stuff. Matt, I don’t want to tell her, and I won’t. Maybe I don’t need to go to the police at all.”

He was about to argue, but at that moment her name was finally called. Matt squeezed her hand as other eyes glanced up to follow her into the examining area. She didn’t limp, but neither did her footsteps announce her assertive progress. Instead of a click, she padded as silently as Midnight Louie, only she owed her subtle approach to L.A. Gear metallic pink sneakers.

They made her feel like a kid, as the two men had made her feel helpless, as Matt’s solicitude had made her feel like a teenager with a hopeless crush, as Molina’s presence had made her feel found out. Hopeless and helpless.