Cat In An Aqua Storm

The excuse for not speaking allowed her to consider her answer. To tell the truth meant mentioning Max, whom she couldn’t explain to herself, much less to Matt Devine. And the more people who knew about Max, perhaps the more danger they were in.

She finally looked at him and shook her head, trying to indicate that it was no use asking or answering such questions. He took the gesture for a no, and she let him. “Let me see.” He reached for her face.

She winced but held still.

“You cut the inside of your cheek on your teeth. Bleeds a lot, but not serious. Looks like some swelling near the left eye. May swell more later.”

The calm cataloging of her injuries made them seem remote, removed. Her chills were subsiding, but the pain was deepening.

“Why are you holding your arms like that?” Matt was asking.

“Like what?” She looked down where her hands clutched the blanket’s satin-bound edges. She was sitting huddled over herself, as if cold, her arms crossed over her midriff, the left one cradling the right.

“They”—just mentioning it revived the shock of the blows—“punched me.”

He gently lifted her right arm, supported the wrist. “Wrist isn’t broken, or you’d be screaming.” He pulled until her elbow straightened, and she hissed through her teeth. “A bad wrench, I’d guess. It could be sore for a while.”

He shot her an apologetic glance for hurting her, then rotated the arm. The pain wasn’t as intense as when she tried to do something with it. Matt was watching her arm and her face with that same distant consideration, like a doctor, or a personal trainer. Of course. He practiced the martial arts. He’d know about... combat injuries.

“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.