Like Arthur’s. His dazed, imploring gaze rose in my memory.
“That’s Xandra,” Colin finished. He addressed the dogs. “Sorry guys, your daddy won’t be back for a bit. But this nice guy Brooklyn and I are here to do dinner and walkies and maybe some butt-scritches, till we find out how your daddy’s doing and how soon he’ll be home.”
Resisting the temptation to look around Arthur’s home, I focused on cleaning water bowls and opening cans and bags to fill food dishes. Working with Colin, forced to guess since there was no helpful list of directions here, we got everyone fed and he located the pill he knew Xandra needed, and convinced her to take it in some minced tuna. Then we walked every canine in the building, except one poor shepherd-mix too scared to come out of the run.
It was good to keep busy, to be productive. The beat of worry in my head was muted as long as I had things to do. But by the time we reluctantly locked up for the night, with Colin taking a bag of clothes for Arthur and promising he’d come back to meet the morning volunteers, we still hadn’t heard if Arthur was okay.
I went home and scrubbed my house within an inch of its life—even though it was already spotless—until I was finally tired enough to sleep. But my dreams were haunted by hospitals and gunshots, blood, and nebulous anxiety where I tried to prevent a disaster and always arrived too late.
CHAPTER 3
ARTHUR
My mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage, all papery-dry but slimy too. A bit of plastic pressed against my nose, like a giant, dried booger. Someone had poured sand in my eyes and—oh, hell—in the middle of discovering those minor discomforts, someone stabbed me in the thigh with a hot poker, then jammed it up the back of my skull. I groaned.
“Waking up, are we?” said a cheery voice.
“No,” I muttered through gritted teeth. My next couple of breaths sounded embarrassingly like whimpers. Damn, that hurts.
“Come on, big boy,” the voice urged. “Show me you’re awake and aware, and then I can give you a bit more painkiller.”
Now that was incentive. I blinked my stinging eyes open.
The guy bending over me wasn’t familiar—at least, not to my currently half-offline brain. Blue scrubs, red curls, pale skin, a face like a teen popstar…but I didn’t think they let teens do patient care.
I licked my chapped lips. “Who?”
“I’m your floor nurse, Dylan. Welcome back. Can you tell me your name?”
“Arthur,” I managed. “Water?”
“Sure thing, honey.” He picked up a cup and tapped my lips with the straw. “Tiny sips, now. Head trauma makes some folks nauseous.”
“Head…” The water was a blessing on my tongue. I had to force myself not to gulp too fast. Something pulled along my cheek as I swallowed and I raised a hand toward my face, but Dylan caught my wrist. “There’s something on my nose,” I protested.
“Oxygen cannula. Leave it alone.”
“Oxygen? My chest’s okay.”
“Oxygen’s good for bruised brains. Sounds like you gave yours a bit of a bouncing around.”
How bad? But I was thinking and talking, despite the blinding headache, so this couldn’t be much worse than getting hit by a two-hundred-pound lineman in high school football. “My leg?” I asked. That burning pain was unfamiliar.
“What’s your birthdate?” Dylan asked, instead of answering me.
When I told him, he chuckled. “You don’t look thirty-eight. Good skin. What city are we in?”
“Gaynor Beach. Town not city.”
“Hey, we’re growing. Who’s the mayor?”
“I’ll tell you when my head isn’t killing me.”
“Good answer.”
“Painkillers?”
“Any second now. I need to finish the neuro assessment and check your vitals and then we can push the magic button.”
