Page 22 of The Heart We Guard
She hums and rolls her eyes, not wanting to admit I might be right.
I nestle back into the sofa, trying to ease the ache in my shoulder. “Just shut up and relax for five minutes, Greer. All your thinking and working and lifesaving is exhausting. You’re making me feel like I wasted half my life.”
“Fine,” she says. “But I refuse to not call it out when I see bad medical practices. You saw what I had to do to sort out your bullet wounds. If I see a person dig a finger in an open wound to get a bullet out, I might throw something.”
But she finally settles.
And when I look over ten minutes later, she’s asleep.
Her face is soft in sleep, like it loses the battle weariness she carries all day. Maybe she’s like those broads she called out. Fearless. Challenging.
But at rest, you can see how beautiful she is, and what it costs her to be who she is when she’s awake.
But there’s one thing she has that none of those other women do.
And that’s my attention.
No matter how bad an idea that might be.
7
GREER
The following evening, rain splashes against the window in a relentless beat that darkens my mood. I hate the shift to fall.
On days like this, I usually just sink within myself. Curl up on the sofa with my latest biography and a glass of delicious red wine.
Instead, I’m making dinner for two.
“What the fuck kind of music is this?” Butcher asks.
I glance at him. “Are you asking me that because you really don’t know jazz when you hear it? Or trying to tell me you don’t like jazz without telling me you’re a heathen?”
He raises an eyebrow from the chair I’ve placed at the table where I operated on him. It’s been five days since his surgery. He’s more mobile today and probably capable of being collected. Yet, he’s turned down offers to be picked up by his men for reasons I don’t understand.
And I find myself wondering what it will be like once he’s left.
I’ll miss his presence.
I put my hands on my hips. “I’m sure that look gets all your men to capitulate and do as you command, but I’m not one of your men, and I do not capitulate.”
“It’s shit.”
“It’s one of the greatest jazz quartets of all time, but I won’t waste time and energy trying to articulate its brilliance to you.”
Butcher smiles, and it strikes me that he looks quite handsome when he does. “Of course you won’t. Because there isn’t any.”
I turn back to the stove, stirring the fresh chicken and vegetable soup I made and ran through the blender. “You’re not going to bait me into answering, and considering you’re such a jazz hater, I’m going to leave this playing for the rest of the night.”
“Cruel woman. It’s hurting my ears.”
I shove the spatula around the simmering pot. “As long as it isn’t hurting either of the two areas I stitched up, we’re all good.”
“What’s for dinner?” he asks.
“A blended chicken and vegetable soup.”
“Soup? For dinner?” I can hear the childish groan in his voice.
