Page 18 of Kept By the Loan Shark

Chapter Six

The sensation of something squeezing my arm woke me. Blinking with confusion, I glanced around the hospital room. The memories came rushing back, and I closed my eyes again. The band squeezing my arm suddenly loosened. Blood pressure cuff, I thought at the soft hiss of air.

“Cassie?” Hagen’s familiar voice drew my attention away from the band squeezing my left arm to the right side of my bed. My vision crossed, and I blinked a few more times to clear it. When that didn’t work, I tried to focus on just one of the images of him. He searched my eyes, as if terrified I wouldn’t remember him.

“You weren’t here.” I hated the whine that had sneaked into my voice, but I was hurt, emotionally and physically.

“I’m sorry, Cassie.” Hagen’s strong hand held mine as he lifted it carefully to kiss the back of it. My eyes had a hard time focusing, but even so, I could see the swelling and scrapes on his knuckles. Had he been in a fight?

“You weren’t home,” he said, “and I tried calling you. I went to the apartment. There were police everywhere. I saw the blood by your car.” He stopped and swallowed hard. “One of your neighbors told me they had taken you in an ambulance, but no one knew which hospital. It took me forever to find you, and I had to call in a favor to get in here with you.”

“Kyle called you.”

“He didn’t.” Hagen shook his head as he gently stroked my hand. “Maybe he called the wrong number.”

“Maybe.”

Hagen started to lift his hand, as if he wanted to stroke my hair as he often did when we were cuddled close together, but he flexed his fingers and lowered them back to the bed. I couldn’t see my head, but I could feel the bandages. He carefully trailed his fingertips across my cheek and down my nose toward my mouth. His eyes darkened, and he seemed overcome with emotion. “Oh, baby, what did they do to you?”

“Not they,” I corrected, tiredly. “It was Janine.”

He seemed taken aback. “Janine?”

“You hurt Travis so she hurt me,” I explained, my eyelids drooping again. Feeling myself falling back asleep, I tried to make him understand the situation. “It’s your fault.”

“Cassie?” He said my name in a voice filled with hurt. “Cassie, that’s not true. I didn’t do anything to Travis.”

“She said you did.” Even though I wanted to keep talking to him, to find out the truth, I couldn’t stay awake. I fell back into a bottomless chasm of exhaustion and could only hope that Hagen would be next to my bed when I woke up.

He was still there when I woke up—but he wasn’t alone.

A nurse with a perky auburn ponytail and a warm smile crouched down next to him, one hand on his thigh and the other holding his hand. It wasn’t the kind of touch two strangers would share. It was intimate and familiar.

When Hagen realized I was awake, he drew away from her quickly, standing so fast he almost knocked her back onto her butt. He seemed to realize his mistake as soon as he made it and hurriedly reached down to steady and help her stand. She was tall and not even the utilitarian cut of her scrubs could hide her incredible curves. Laughing softly, she patted him on the back and shook her head. “Easy, John. She’s not going anywhere.”

With a smile, she walked to the hand sanitizer dispenser on the far wall and waited for a dollop to fill her hands. As she rubbed them together, she introduced herself. “I’m Vicky. I’ll be your nurse today. How are you feeling?”

Moving my confused gaze away from Hagen, I winced at the pain in my back and side. “Sore.”

“Your head or your body?”

“My body,” I clarified.

“You took some nasty hits. The bruising is pretty bad.” She checked the IV pump next to the bed and the tubes flowing out of it. “You have a shoe print on your backside.”

Upon hearing that detail, Hagen actually grunted. I glanced at him, noticing his stiff jaw and his tightly crossed arms. Anger radiated from him, and I worried he was going to give himself a stroke if he didn’t calm down.

“The police were here earlier, but we sent them away. The doctors will be by to do rounds soon, and you’ll need some more tests, a CT for sure. If the doctors think you’re up to some questioning, we’ll let the police in to see you.”

I didn’t say anything to that. My blurry gaze remained fixed on Hagen, and I wondered if he was sharing my same thoughts about the situation. If I pressed charges against Janine, if I fingered her as the assailant who had beaten me last night, would she turn around and blame Hagen for the attack on Travis? Would both of them end up in jail?

And, anyway, I wasn’t sure what the point of pressing charges would be. It wasn’t going to rewind the clock and prevent my injuries.

“How does your head feel?” She checked the drainage tube dangling from my bandaged head.

“Okay,” I remarked, thinking it was a good sign that my splitting headache had vanished. “There’s kind of a throb. Not bad like last night before the surgery.”

“Good. Can you rate the pain? On a scale of one to ten?”

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