Page 61 of Savage Reckoning

“I won’t. Of course I won’t, but…”

I lay my hand on her shoulder. “I know.”

I return to Ethan’s room later, to check in with the agency nurse before I leave for the night. He has someone in attendance twenty-four-seven, so she will do the night shift until her colleague takes over at six in the morning. I’ll be on call throughout.

“Everything okay?” I ask from the doorway.

“Fine, Doctor.”

“If you need anything, you have my number.”

“I do. Right here.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then.”

I make my way to my quarters next door, to find my bed still rumpled from my romp with Gabriel yesterday. Have I really not been back here since then? I really do need to get more sleep.

I straighten the duvet, fling off my work clothes, and crawl onto the mattress. My body is exhausted, but my brain hasn’t got the memo. Thoughts and images swirl around my head, mostly concerned with a certain US army colonel I used to love.

Or thought I did, until he turned out to be a liar and a cheat.

And then, he morphed into something else, and I had to think again. Reassess. Nothing is quite as it seems. Seemed.

I get out of bed. I’m too confused to sleep. I need to be active, busy. That way I’ve no time to brood on how things might have been or might still be if I choose to believe in that magical new future that Gabe seems to be convinced is there for the taking.

Was he always a dreamer? I thought that was my specialty, until I was brought down to earth with a bump. Until the brutal truth slapped me in the face and made a mockery of all I’d begun to build. Am I really going down that road again?

I cast a baleful eye back at the bed. Yes, apparently, I am. And this time I’m doing it with my eyes wide open.

I’ve convinced myself to get back into bed when my phone rings. I check the clock on the bedside table. It’s twenty past three in the morning. Shit.

“Doctor Alexander,” I recite, in my best professional, ready-for-anything tone.

“His readings have changed.”

“Changed? How?” I instantly recognise the voice of the agency nurse.

“Heart rate has increased, and blood pressure is up at one thirty-three over seventy. It was—”

“I know. One fifteen over twenty. I’m on my way.”

I throw on a T-shirt and leggings and make a dash for the connecting door. I don’t even bother with shoes. I’m back in Ethan’s room less than two minutes later. “Any more change?”

“No, Doctor. But the BP is holding…”

It’s not that I don’t accept her findings, but I do my own observations anyway which bear out the reports I just had. I consider phoning Mr Renny, but he’ll only say what I’m thinking, these are good signs. Promising signs. That conversation will keep until a more godly hour. So instead, I settle by Ethan’s bedside and take his hand in mine.

“Everyone’s here, waiting for you. You need to wake up because we want you back. We need you. Cristina needs you, and so do your sons. We know who shot you down now, but we don’t know why. Maybe you can help with that, but you need to come back to us first. Can you do that, do you think?”

I might have dismissed what comes next as my imagination. Wishful thinking. But the nurse sees it, too.

“Doctor? Did he…?”

“Did he what, Sarah?” I hardly dare to breathe until she confirms what I’m barely daring to think.

“His hand moved. I’m sure I saw it…”

I felt it. The faintest tremor against my fingertips. Almost imperceptible, but we both saw it.

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