Page 13 of A Forgotten Heart
Elsie’s eyes jerked to the doctor. “What?”
The doctor stayed focused on stitching Nick’s wound. “I told you I had a baby to deliver. If I don’t leave now, I might not make it.”
He couldn’t leave. Nick was unconscious. What if he didn’t wake up?
The doctor snipped away the thread, finished. “The bump on his head is significant. Don’t be surprised if he’s confused. You’ll need to keep him calm. He may wake disoriented.”
Shivers nipped at her spine. “But he doesn’t even…” Like her. Probably outright hated her. “I need to go home.”
The doctor pinned her with an intense look. “He has no one but you.”
The weight of his words settled.
Nick needed her.
It was so ironic she might’ve laughed if her insides didn’t feel like jelly. “What am I supposed to do?”
The doctor spoke over his shoulder as he bustled out of the room. “Keep the wound clean. Keep him calm. Don’t let him wander into the storm.”
The walls echoed with silence.
She hovered at Nick’s side. In sleep, with the angry lines around his mouth relaxed, he almost looked like the man she had known five years ago.
Where had the old Nick gone?
With a trembling hand, she lifted a lock of his hair trapped beneath his bandage. “Oh, Nick.”
His eyes fluttered open.
With a pinched brow, as if even the dim light hurt, he moved his gaze around the room. Then it landed on her.
She waited for his scowl—the one she’d seen only minutes ago on the boardwalk. But instead, his face softened into a half smile.
Confused, she let her hand drop to her side.
“Elsie. You’re here.”
Instead of contempt, there was a gruff tenderness that brought back too many painful memories.
She swallowed hard.
He started to sit up but groaned and fell back against the table.
Elsie put her hand on his chest. “You can’t get up.”
For a second, he looked like he would argue. His eyes closed, then reopened. “I love you.”
The words were like a blow to the chest, stealing her breath.
He closed his eyes again, completely out.
He loved her? It wasn’t true, she knew it, but that didn’t keep her heart from pounding. She’d believed him once, too long ago.
The doctor bustled into the room and handed her a spare shirt for Nick, which he must’ve had stashed someplace within the clinic. “Heard voices. Was he awake?”
Her hands trembled as she accepted the shirt. “Just for a minute.” She swallowed against the ache in her throat. “He wasn’t himself.”
The doctor put two fingers at Nick’s neck. “What do you mean?”
