Page 17 of Dr Feel Good
“Resourceful. And never mistake me for a frontiersman. I like comfort too fucking much.”
Her stomach growled again, and she licked her lips. “I like roughing it, but at the moment I’d love the food.”
I picked up the bowl and brought it to her, wondering if she realized she probably couldn’t feed herself unless she was left-handed. Besides, she’d existed on IV fluids for three days.
When she lifted the bowl, it tilted. If I hadn’t been there to rescue it, it would’ve spilled on her and the bed.
“Thank you. If you can just give me the spoon, I can feed myself.”
“Of course you can. However, I’m hungry too, so let’s wait until tomorrow so I can test your abilities.”
“You want to feed me?”
“Iwillfeed you.”
“I’m allowing your highhandedness today,” she said indignantly. “After all, you could’ve left me to bleed out in the snow, but you didn’t.”
“That would be against the oath I took.”
She snorted. “Yeah, well, I’d just as soon deck a doctor than trust one.”
Not awake a full fucking hour and already her thuggery reared its ugly head.
Still, I didn’t know what to make of the beauty in my bed. Suspicious? Definitely. Dangerous? Probably. She was also surprisingly jovial, given the circumstances. I’d met patients who fell into depression due to the tits they bought being smaller than expected, so I unwillingly admired Athena’s disposition. It irked me that her presence wasn’t unwelcome.
I fed her in the same silence that she ate. She’d lost weight, and her skin remained pale. I couldn’t help but wonder how she’d looked before she was injured, since she was still so gorgeous now, made even more so by her fragility.
She eagerly accepted another spoonful. A slight wrinkle of her nose hinted that she wasn’t a fan.
“What do you think of the food?” I asked politely, watching her throat work as she swallowed.
“It’s…okay. It’s food, so...”
Well, that didn’t sound entirely positive.
Setting the spoon in the bowl instead of scooping more soup, I cocked my head. “And that means…what exactly?”
“That it has a good texture but leaves me wondering if you’re allergic to spices.”
I bristled at her not-so-hidden insult to my cooking. After all the fucking work I’d gone through to make something with what I had on hand. I was happy to find freeze-dried broccoli, bouillon cubes, and a brick of cheddar. Then I’d had to dig out the Dutch oven and the rack to keep the food away from the open flames. To top it off, I couldn’t open the flue because I didn’t want snow and ice to get into the cabin, and she repaid me by not liking what I fed her?
“It has spices,” I said flatly. “Salt and pepper, which is all you should have in your condition.”
“I got shot; my taste buds didn’t fucking evaporate,” she said with a sniff.
My amusement at her quip annoyed me to the depths of my soul. Women like her were nothing but trouble. My life was perfect, peaceful. She’d paid for her criminal activity, but in an alternate scenario, a stray bullet could’ve leftmeinjured. Or worse, dead.
“By the way, salt and pepper aren’t spices. They’re requirements.”
Lovely. An uneducated criminal. I snorted. “They’re indeed spices,” I sneered.
She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll fucking ignore that.”
I folded my arms. “Your lack of knowledge isn’t my fault.”
“Look, dude, you know fuck all about me.”
“I’m not your dude,” I snapped. “And I know enough about you not to hear anything you have to say.”
