Throwing off her covers as that last thought made her groan over its melodrama,Iris picked up Angel. Probably best that she take a trip outside with Angel. Recalibrate her emotional equilibrium.
With the miniature collie resting half on her arm and half against her body, Iris tiptoed barefoot toward the bedroom door. Maybe the cool air outside would wake her fully enough that she could find peaceful rest when she went back to bed, rather than active sleep. If she got a little chilled outside in just her pajama pants and T-shirt, all the better.
She turned the knob slowly, swung the wood open inches at a time. Making certain that she didn’t wake Scott. Lord knew he didn’t need any more awareness of her disruptive presence in his home.
Making it to the living room without a sound, she glanced back once, toward the spare bedroom door. Scott had asked that she leave it open to make it easier for him to wheel to the bathroom in the hall. And there was clearly no light coming from the room.
Breathing a sigh of relief, hoping the man was getting some real rest, she made a quick beeline for the kitchen before Morgan got a whiff of them up and about.
She didn’t dare turn on any lights. Wouldn’t need them once she got out back and her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
With help from the moon’s beaconing glow.
Keeping her eyes pinned on her goal, the back door, she rounded the half wall separating the dining area from the kitchen, and…pain shot through her foot.
“Ouch!” she let out before she could stop herself. Followed by an immediate, harshly whispered “Damn” as Angel moved against her, licking her nose.
Her toe hurt like hell. She’d stubbed it against…
“Scott?”
She’d walked into the wheel of his chair.
“My leg,” he said, his tone threadbare. Barely there.
Filled with instant alarm, Iris flipped on the overhead light, set Angel down and was kneeling at the raised footrest on the left side of his chair, ready to pull up the leg of his pajama pants when he said, “I forgot Morgan’s bed.”
Her gaze flew to his face. Noticed the whiteness. Fearing he was incoherent, she searched his gaze. Saw pain there. A ton of it. But full lucidity, too.
Before he swallowed hard and closed his eyes. As he had most of day two. When the pain had been almost more than he could bear…
She remembered the dog bed in the corner of Scott’s room. She’d thought it extraneous. Figured it for something Morgan used when Scott was gone all day.
“She sleeps in it at night,” she guessed. Hoping he’d open up his eyes.
His one bob nod felt like a victory, but not enough to quell the fresh wave of worry sluicing through her. Nor did it tell her what he was doing in the kitchen. There were no other dog beds there. Just the one. In the room she was using.
She had to figure out what they were dealing with. Using both hands to gently fold up the loose-fitting cotton covering Scott’s leg, she took one roll up at a time.
“She can’t jump…up and down…from the bed.”
“I know,” she said, halfway to his knee.
“She was pacing…whining… I lifted her up…”
She started in on what would be the last roll. Could feel the bandage against the backs of her fingers.
Wet.Oh God. Moving more quickly, she got the material out of the way, exposing the bandage that Joel had changed for Scott earlier in the day.
“She was trying to get to me…” She barely heard the words, didn’t even try to make sense of him lifting the short-legged corgi and Morgan trying to get to him at the same time, as a fresh wave of fear swept over her.
Wet and bright red.
Heart pounding, Iris grabbed a compression bandage from the medical supplies on the kitchen table. “This is probably going to hurt like hell,” she said but didn’t pause as she swiftly and tightly wrapped from below the blood-soaked bandage to inches above it.
Then, grabbing her purse and keys from the same table, she pulled a quilted vest off the coat hooks inside the laundry room door and shrugged into it one arm at a time while she pushed the chair with the other. Taking heart from the fact that Scott was able to walk his hanging, healthy right foot along with it.
He’d lost a lot of blood. Beyond that, she had no idea what they were facing. She just knew that she could get him to the hospital more rapidly herself than calling for an ambulance and waiting for it to get down to Ocean Breeze.
