Page 13 of Scythe & Sparrow
“Rose, he’s not the kind of person you want to fuck with.” His expression darkens, and it feels as though there’s no escaping his warning. “He was a Lincoln County deputy before he got himself suspended a few years back, something about an arrest that got out of hand. From what I heard, it was the last straw in a string of bad behavior on the job. Now he spends most of his time between two places. His farm outside Elmsdale, and the Fergusons’ grain mill. Which is literallynext door,” he says, gesturing toward the back of my motor home. I look in the direction he’s pointing, but I see … nothing. Nothing but wheat fields beyond the fence that encompasses the campground, with no structures and no landmarks visible. When I turn back to the doc with a question in my crinkled nose and furrowed brow, he rolls his eyes. “Okay,fine. Next door is a few miles that way, but it’s still next door. Technically.”
I can’t say I love the idea of Matt being in my neighborhood, even if that neighborhood is a bunch of plants and a view for miles,an unobstructed perspective that makes it hard for him to sneak up on me. But I’m guessing he’s a crafty motherfucker, even if he is down an eye.
My stomach flips uncomfortably. I stare blankly at the horizon, my mind trapped in the memory as I replay the image of driving the cocktail sticks into his face.
“I can help you.”
The softness in Dr. Kane’s voice pulls me away from the imagery, a soothing caress, so unlike the violence of that night. When I turn to him, something about the curves and angles of his face seems pleading. “It’s safer in Hartford. I hardly ever see him there, only at the clinic once or twice a year. Elmsdale is closer for him.” The doctor’s eyes don’t leave mine as he pulls something from his pocket and holds it between us. Matt’s license. “Come and stay with me. I have a guest room. A hot shower. Functional air-conditioning. Edible food. I even know a thing or two about looking after injuries.”
I blink at him, processing his words as he patiently waits for me to catch up. “I’m out of work,” I finally say, dropping my gaze to the splint that encases my leg. “I can’t pay you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
Dr. Kane passes me the license. With a tentative hand, I grasp the edge, but I don’t pull it away.
“You’re not going to serial kill me in my sleep, are you?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. I’ve only asked him that to make him laugh. For any other man I barely know, it would be a legitimate question. But there’s something about Dr. Kane that puts me at ease. Maybe it’s the way he held my hand in the ambulance. May it’s the way he holds this damning piece of evidence between us, onethat could so easily be used to put me in jail. But I think it’s just an essence, like a vibration in the air, something I can’t touch or taste. Something I just know. I’m safe with him.
A grin slowly ignites in his full lips. “You’re not going to serial killmein my sleep, are you?”
I shake my head.
“Good. Then why don’t you pack up some of your essentials and we get the fuck out of here. This place gives meChildren of the Cornvibes,” he says as he looks toward the seemingly feral group of kids on the swings.
“Same, honestly. Except that’s wheat, not corn.”
“It’s still crops. And creepy kids. That’s enough for me.”
With an unsure smile, I pull the license free of his hand and slide it into the interior pocket of my jacket. He unloads my motorcycle as I water my plants and throw a few changes of clothes into a backpack. When I get back to the door, he takes the bag from me and slings it over a shoulder. Before I can struggle my way down from the ledge, Dr. Kane slides a strong arm around my waist and lifts me out of the RV, igniting an electric charge that skitters through my chest and dances along my ribs. I feel as though I’m floating in the bracket of his muscular grasp, like it takes no effort on his part to take my weight. When he sets me down, it’s done carefully, slowly. He offers me his arm for balance and waits until I’m steady on my foot before he passes me my crutches. And even when we leave, he walks with me, matching my slow pace when he could easily stride ahead.
I don’t remember the last time a man walked me to the passenger side of a vehicle. Or opened the door for me. Or got my belongings situated before carefully helping me inside. I don’tremember anyone buckling me in. Not ever. But he does all those things, chatting the whole time, telling me about the truck and his house and the town. He flashes me a fleeting smile before he closes the door, and I can’t recall ever feeling the way I feel now about such a simple gesture.
Dr. Kane slips into the driver’s seat and keys the engine. He shifts it into gear, but keeps his foot on the brake as he turns to look at me. “Anything I should know before we do this?”
That electric charge I just felt? It seems to burn in my guts. I shake my head again.
“Okay. Good,” he says, and then we roll away from my motor home and the Prairie Princess Campground.
I should stop him. Place my hand on the sun-kissed, corded muscle of his forearm as he reaches forward to turn up the volume on the radio. Tell him what really happened with Matt. I should shatter this moment. I should do it now, before it shatters me.
The truth rises to the surface. But it doesn’t quite break through.
LEFT UNSAID
Fionn
What the fuck am I doing?
I’ve asked myself that at least thirty times on the drive home from the campground. I’ve tried not to let it show that this thought is consuming me. I’ve kept up conversation, trying to distract myself from this mantra that repeats itself on a loop beneath my inner monologue. But now that I’ve lifted Rose out of the passenger seat and set her down on the walkway to my home, it blares through my mind like an air-raid siren.
What the fuck am I doing?
Helping. That’s what I’m doing. She asked for help, and something about her desperate request has embedded into me, a thorn that’s lodged deep in my mind. The strange thing is, I can’t remember any patient having asked me before, not like that. Symptoms. Histories. Medications. I’ve heard family ancestries, passed down in the building blocks that make each one of us unique. I’ve heard fear and gratitude. But I’ve never heard that simple plea for help. Not until Rose.
And she needs it.
Rose struggles up the steep stairs to my door on her crutches, the locomotion still unfamiliar to her. She hisses a string of curses. I want to simply pick her up and deposit her on the landing, but I hover behind her instead, waiting for her to work out the best way to maneuver on her own. When she gets to the narrow porch, she turns toward me and offers a weary but triumphant smile. I try not to be spellbound by it, but I think I fail.
“Well,” she says, snagging my attention away from her full lips and back to her eyes where it belongs. “That kind of sucked. Hope I don’t have to get anywhere quickly.”
