Page 72 of Silent Threat
Chapter Seventeen
COLE PULLED BACKthe curtain and stopped in his tracks. Annie was sitting in bed, lifting her metal IV pole, ready to swing.
“What are you doing?”
She put down her weapon and lay back on her pillows, the fight going out of her. “I thought you were someone else.”
She’d been scared. A bruise darkened her pale cheek.
Cole’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. His heart beat the old war-drum rhythm he’d thought would never sound inside him again. The war drum demanded death.
A red abrasion on her neck looked as if someone had tried to choke her.
“Seat belt,” she said when she caught him staring.
“Who was it?” He kept his voice even, because flying into a rage wouldn’t help Annie, and he’d come to help if he could.
Her chestnut hair spread on the hospital pillow in twisted tangles, almost as if floating in water. He thought of the dark waters of the reservoir where he’d been told the accident had happened.
She could have gone in and not come up again.
He fought the urge to reach out and fold her into his arms.
“I couldn’t see,” she said.
Fear clouded her eyes, which did nothing to dampen his murderous impulses. Her fear slammed into him like a torpedo into a submarine and ripped his guts apart.
“How bad is it? What did the doctor say?”
“I haven’t seen him yet,” she said just as the man showed up at Cole’s elbow in a white coat with a black stethoscope hanging around his neck.
The doctor began to speak, but he had his head turned toward Annie, and Cole could only see that the corner of the guy’s mouth was moving. He stepped out to give the doctor space and give Annie privacy. Cole wasn’t the husband, or the boyfriend, so he had no right to be there.
The thought bothered him more than it should have.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his back to the curtain.
A woman was running down the hallway toward him. She resembled Annie—except blonde and with a lot more makeup, clothes tight instead of Annie’s easy, natural style.
Cole recognized her from TV. Annie’s cousin.
“In here.” Cole nodded toward the curtain behind him. “She’s OK. The doctor’s with her.”
“Thanks. Hi. I’m Kelly.”
Cole took the offered hand. “I’m Cole. From Hope Hill.”
“You work together?”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh.” Kelly pulled her hand back, probably evaluating just how crazy he might be.
“I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Would you like some?” he asked, because she suddenly looked uncomfortable with him, and because he didn’t want to chat, didn’t want to explain that he was deaf.
He didn’t want to go through the whole ritual of the surprise, then the apologetic murmurings, then the pitying looks, then the awkwardness of the person not knowing how to talk to him. The whole one-act play when the other person pretended hard that everything was A-OK, while acting completely weirded out.
He couldn’t read Kelly’s lips because she suddenly dropped her head, looking down at her boots, but he got enough from the shake of her head.So no coffee.
