Page 4 of Unworthy
Heath walked around the sofa to stand in front of me with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face. I sighed. My chest rose and fell with the movement and if I hadn’t been so focused on his unhappy expression, I would have missed his gaze flicking away from my eyes to my body for a moment, and the two slashes of colour that appeared high on his cheekbones after that stolen glance. He cleared his throat and when he spoke again, his voice was tight.
“I told you I’d come back and see to your feet.” He pulled his bag off his shoulder and chucked it on the coffee table so he could open it up and pull out some medical looking kit. “And I went and found your bike. It’s got a puncture but otherwise the rusty piece of crap seems to have survived.”
I blinked. “You went to get my bike for me?”
He shifted uncomfortably for a moment, flashing me a quick, irritated look.
“I know how much you love that thing.”
“Thanks, Heath,” I said softly and the colour in his cheeks deepened before he shook his head as if to clear it.
“Well, now that I’m here I’d better see what a mess you’ve made of those lacerations. You should have come into the department with me.”
I looked at the ceiling, seeking patience. He may have rescued my bike but he was as high-handed and patronising as ever.
“My feet are fine.”
In response to that blatant lie Heath moved to the end of the sofa where my feet were resting, chucked a whole load of my best crystals off the coffee table onto the adjacent chair and sat down in front of my feet.
“Hey! Watch it, some of those are delicate. And they were arranged precisely to align the energies in the room.”
He ignored me and, to my shock, grabbed my ankles, swivelling me around so that my feet were resting across his lap.
“Your feet are not fine.”
“What are you–?”
“Midge, I am a doctor. An emergency department doctor.”
I rolled my eyes as he unpacked various dressings and a large bottle of pink cleaning solution. Typical Heath, banging on about how bloody clever he is: Iknowyou’re a doctor, mate – give it a rest for once.
“I know you believe in all your witchy hippie medicine,” he went on, “but as a qualified medical professional, I can say your feet are not fine. They’re very fucking far from fine. Blood is still soaking through your shit bandaging. You’re still limping. The lacerations I saw earlier will not have closed in the last twelve hours – they were too deep.” He’d begun unravelling my bandages now and muttered a few choice swear words once he had uncovered my soles. “This will sting a bit.” He lifted my feet up and lay them back onto an absorbent pad on his lap, snapped on his surgical gloves, then started cleaning my feet with the pink solution. It burned pretty intensely, but I didn’t flinch. “You okay?”
I shrugged. “I’m fine.”
He went back to his task, scrubbing at my soles now. Every so often, he flicked a look back up at my face. “I must admit, I thought you’d be yelping by now. I brought some local anaesthetic in case.”
“I’m not a complete baby, you know. The saltwater stings worse than that stuff when I get shredded on the reef.”
Heath paused what he was doing and sat up straighter to frown down at me. “When you getshredded? Why the hell are you getting shredded?”
“Windsurfing and kiting aren’t sports for the faint-hearted you know. Not around here. I’ve had my fair share of scrapes. No biggy.”
Heath’s gaze moved along from my feet up my legs until he sucked a sharp breath in through his teeth.
“Jesus Christ. What is all this?” He traced a long scar up the side of my calf, then focused on a slightly raised area of scarring around my knee. Leaning forward slightly, he seemed to be inspecting all the smaller scars on my feet and shins. I felt my face heat at his scrutiny of my legs. Typical that he was looking at them so closely for imperfections rather than any other reason.
“It’s nothing. A mate I was surfing with in South Africa got bitten by a shark – nowthatis some insane scarring.”
All the colour had now left Heath’s face. He looked like he was going to be sick. “I had no idea it was so dangerous. Why the fuck does Max let you do it?”
I narrowed my eyes at him and crossed my arms over my chest. “Max does notletme do anything.” My voice was now low with fury. “I am actually an adult you know. I can make my own decisions.”
“Clearly not if your legs end up sliced to smithereens. Bloody hell, there’s more on your arms too! I thought you wore a wetsuit?”
I rolled my eyes. “I wear a shorty in summer, and I didn’t really need one at all in South Africa.”
“Surely not all windsurfers have to take these types of risks?”
