“Not so bad…guess.”
The officer laughed, but she didn’t know why.
A nurse joined the doctor and they gently examined her, checking her reflexes and responses, asking lots of questions.
Finally, the doctor sent the nurse out of the cubicle for a pain reliever and he straightened to stand beside her bed. “I’d like you to have an MRI, but from my initial examination, you appear to be a very lucky young woman. You appear to have no more than a mild concussion. It could have been a lot worse.”
She blinked. “Yeah. I think he wanted to kill me.”
“Why do you say that?” the policeman asked.
That began the interrogation.
Chapter 4
It was hard to focus, and she just wanted to go to sleep, not to mention that talking to the authorities always made her tense. She had no good memories connected with the police. A state policeman had come to tell her and her mom that her dad was dead. After that, her encounters with the police had always been full of fear…both hers and her mother’s. Unless Mom had been too drunk to be afraid. Then she’d been belligerent and that had only increased Claire’s fear.
It had been years since Claire had had a negative run-in with a cop, but old habits died hard. No matter how irrational they were. But she tried to answer the officer’s questions the best she could. Finally, when her words were slurring, the doctor shooed the officer out of her cubicle.
“Can I go home now?” she asked the doctor.
“I would still like to do an MRI.”
She shuddered inwardly at what that kind of test would cost. “No.”
“You need it.”
“You said…concussion not so bad.” It was hard to concentrate after answering so many questions for the officer. She was so tired and her head still hurt.
“I would like to confirm that diagnosis with the test.”
“Not good enough reason…” She drew in a shallow breath. “I want to go home now.”
“Do you live alone?”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t going to like hearing this, but in that case, with your symptoms, I would rather keep you overnight for observation than send you home.”
“No.” She didn’t have medical insurance. No way was she going to stay overnight in the hospital. The bill from the ambulance and her emergency room visit would be high enough.
“You will be taking an unnecessary risk with your health.”
“But not a big risk.” And it was necessary, even if he couldn’t see it.
“That depends on how you look at it,” he said.
“Not staying.”
The doctor nodded his head curtly, as if he could tell it would be useless to argue further.
“You’ll need to call someone. You cannot go home alone, and you’ll have to sign a release form saying you are denying the prescribed medical treatment.”
“I’ll sign the form.” But there was no one she could call.
When she told him that, he would try again to insist she stay overnight.
She opened her mouth, prepared to argue her case despite her aching head and weakened state. The doctor got called to another patient before she could start, and she breathed a sigh of relief. If she could get up and get dressed before he got back, she would have a stronger case for discharging herself.
She gingerly slid her legs over the side of the bed and pulled herself into a sitting position with the hand-bar on the bed. Then she stayed where she was until her head stopped spinning. Slowly, moving her head as little as possible, she stood up and then shuffled, one slow step at a time, to the cupboard where she figured they had stored her clothes.
She searched it gingerly, careful not to jar her head with her movements. She hit pay dirt on the third drawer. She couldn’t stifle a groan of frustration when she realized what she was looking at. She’d been brought in to the hospital in her pajamas.
A spaghetti strap tank top and white cotton bikini panties were hardly appropriate for her trip home. Especially on public transport. Maybe she could wear a hospital gown over them and splurge on a taxi. It would cost less than staying the night in the hospital.
It took forever to get her clothes on. She was sliding the gown back on like a robe when the curtain swept back with a series of metallic clicks.
“What are you doing out of bed?”
She looked up and stared, not able to comprehend the vision before her. It was Hotwire, and his eyes were blazing blue fire at her.
“I’m getting dressed.” She paused and took a deep breath, then let it out. “So I can go home.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“It feels like it got knocked out of my head,” she admitted.
“Claire, damn it to hell.”
She’d never heard Hotwire swear. It sounded strange and gave the impression he was really rattled. He didn’t stop with one word, either, but let out a string of obscenities that would have made any dockworker proud.
He bit off a final four-letter utterance and glared at her. “You were going to go back to the house where you were attacked…by yourself…in this condition?”
“I can’t afford a night in the hospital.”
“Can you afford to die?”
She didn’t answer. There was nothing to say to that. He wouldn’t understand the mentality that came from going where you had to when you knew you had no options. Most people took their personal safety for granted, assuming it was theirs by right. She knew it was a luxury a person could not always afford.
For no reason she could understand, her eyes filled with tears. And it made her mad. She never cried, darn it. Tears were for the weak and she was not weak. Not like her parents. She’d proven that time and again. And she’d keep proving it until she believed it.
He said something under his breath and then strong hands gently helped her pull the gown on. He tugged it close and tied the dangling strings to keep it that way.
When he was done, he carefully lifted her into his arms. “It’ll be okay, sugar.”
The doctor came back in. He took in the sight of Hotwire standing there, holding her in his arms like a small child, though even in her awful condition she felt one hundred percent female, being held like this.
He smiled wryly. “I take it she’ll be going home with you.”
“Why
