Page 9 of Scythe & Sparrow
“Tell me, are you married, Dr. Kane?”
I suppress a groan. Dr. Kane clears his throat, clearly thrown off, though I find it hard to believe he hasn’t heard overbearing questions like this before. “To my work,” he answers.
José chuckles and shakes his head. “I know how that goes. I used to be the same.”
“You’re still the same,” I say. “Speaking of which, don’t you have somewhere to be? You should be getting out of here or you’ll be setting up in the dark tonight.”
Part of me doesn’t want him to go. I wish more than anything that he’d pull up a seat and tell me stories of his younger years growing up in the circus, how he inherited a dying show and made it into a spectacle. I wish he’d tell me a lullaby of memories. That I’d wake up in my own bed, and that the last few days were nothing more than a dream that will be forgotten. But I also want to rip the Band-Aid from the wound. The longer José stays, the more likely I am to feel it, that hole in my chest that I don’t think will ever truly be filled, no matter how much I try to shore up its crumbling edges.
There’s not much I can get past José. He pushes between Dr. Kane and the bed to come to my side and press a kiss to my cheek. When he straightens, his eyes soften, the wrinkles that fan from their corners deepening with his smile. My nose stings, but I force the rising tears into submission. “Take care of yourself,pequeño gorrión. Give yourself some time. As much as you need.” I give him a jerk of a nod, and then José turns, extending a hand to Dr. Kane. “Thank you for your help, Dr. Kane.”
The doctor accepts the offered handshake, though he seems unsure, like he’s caught on José’s words. Before I can decode his expression, José draws him into a back-clapping hug. He whispers something to Dr. Kane, and the doctor’s eyes land on me, a blue that cuts through my layers to land somewhere deep and dark, where that hole seems to crumble a little more along its edges. Dr. Kane gives a slight nod in reply, then José gives him a final clap and lets him go. He turns at the threshold and gives me a wink. And then that’s it. José is gone, the wound left behind a little too fresh to cover beneath an apathetic mask.
Dr. Kane watches the door for a long moment, the tablet still clutched in his hands, his analytical stare locked on the space Joséjust occupied. Then he turns to me, and the ache of abandonment I feel must linger in my face, because he immediately flashes me a smile that’s supposed to be reassuring but comes off as anything but.
“Is my leg going to fall off, Doc?”
A crease appears between his brows. “What? No.”
“You look like you’re going to tell me it’s rotting and about to fall off.”
“It’s going to be fine,” he says, nodding to my leg where it’s splinted and suspended on a foam block. “We put pearls in it.”
“Pearls?” I snort a laugh. “You’re into pearling? No offense, but you don’t strike me as the type, Doc.”
Dr. Kane blinks at me as though he’s trying to decipher a foreign language. His expression suddenly clears, and he muffles a startled cough into his fist. “Um, antibiotic pearls. In your leg.”
“That’s a relief. We’re seriously going to have to revisit your credentials otherwise. Probably with a lawyer.”
The hot doctor’s cheeks blush in the most adorable shade of crimson. He runs a hand through his perfect hair and though it mostly falls right back into place, I feel an unexpected sense of satisfaction at seeing a few wayward strands that refuse to comply. “How’s the pain?”
“Fine,” I lie.
“Have you been taking pain medication?”
“Not really. I’m okay.”
“Have you been sleeping?”
“Sure.”
“Eating?”
I follow the doctor’s gaze to where it’s stuck on the half-eaten turkey sandwich that sits on the nightstand next to my bed.“Um …” My stomach audibly growls, filling the silence between us. “I’m not sure that really classifies as food.”
Dr. Kane frowns at me. “You need to keep up your strength. Proper nutrition will help your body repair itself and fight off infection.”
“Well,” I say as I push myself up higher on my bed, “you can let me out of here and I promise the first thing I’ll do is seek out real food.”
His frown deepens and he sets the tablet down on a side table. “How about we see how things are healing,” he says, and grabs a pair of latex gloves before approaching the side of the bed. He tells me everything he’s going to do before he does it.I’m going to take the splint off. I’m going to remove the dressing and have a look at the incision.His words are clinical and unfussy, but his hands are warm and gentle on my swollen leg. There’s a kindness in his touch that runs deeper than this professional persona. But he seems different from the man whose hand I held in the ambulance. Like that version is the real one, trapped beneath this polished veneer.
“I’m sorry about your clinic,” I say quietly as I think back on that moment we met. “I wanted to make it to the hospital.”
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?” he asks, not taking his eyes from the wound he inspects.
“I thought it would be faster if I took myself.”
“You could have called from the clinic. Or found someone to help you along the way.” Dr. Kane turns his sharp gaze to me, scouring my face with analytical intensity. “There was no one around when you had your accident?”
