Page 4 of Needing More
The sound of the door opening stole her attention and she looked through her lashes to see a doctor step in followed by two people in purple scrubs.
"Okay great, you're up," the woman said cheerfully. "We're going to get you down for an MRI scan to make sure the concussion you received didn't do any major damage."
Not waiting for a response, the attendants began to fiddle with the bed, unlatching things with loud clicks that made Sapphire wince until finally, her bed was moving. Realizing they were taking her from the room entirely she turned desperately in the bed, ignoring the pain in her head, and tried to look back at Vic.
Would he still be here when she came back? Or was he angry about what she had said? She didn't want to be alone. Sapphire imagined coming back and spending the night alone in the sterile empty room as she waited and worried about Joel and Hayden. Although she didn't know Vic very well, she didn't want him to leave her alone.
Out through the wide door, the attendants pushed her bed behind the doctor leading the way. Turning, Sapphire looked back into the room and exhaled in relief at the sight of Vic standing in the doorway with one hand braced on the frame as he looked at her.
As if knowing what she had been thinking, he gave her a reassuring smile. "I'll be here when you come back."
Chapter 3
"Youreallydon'thaveto do this," Sapphire said in a low strained voice.
Speaking too loudly or any noise above a whisper was just too painful at the moment. The doctor said her scan looked good and her concussion was considered minor, but the throbbing in her head was saying otherwise, despite the doctor's assurances that the headaches would go away.
"Mmm sure," Vic murmured as he drove the truck down the highway and past Main Street and the turn in for Old Main Street, where the café was. "You can barely walk straight; you're wearing my darkest pair of shades and I know you're currently considering taking the ones I'm wearing and doubling them up."
Sapphire jerked in her seat at that. How did he know?
"The sun is just so bright!" she moaned. Looking over her shoulder, she eyed the back seat longingly. When he had rolled her wheelchair out to his parked truck, Vic had offered for her to sit in the front or the back. Like an idiot, she said the front. Now as she looked at the dark confines of the extended cab back seat with its near blacked out windows, she truly regretted her decision.
"We're almost there," Vic assured her.
Guiltily she looked back at him. "But aren’t you taking care of your dad and the farm, not to mention working the bar? Really, I can just stay at my place. I'll be fine."
Slowing down at the light, Vic turned his head toward her. With his hair now pulled back into his little man-bun, she could see the strong lines of his face, the sharp cut of his jaw, and angular lines of cheekbones casting shadows on his face giving him almost lupine features.
"You're not staying by yourself and that's the end of it." Even though he kept his deep voice soft for her sake, she could still feel the intensity of the decree.
If she had even the slightest bit of energy to spare, she would cross her arms over her chest and give him a frosty look in return. Instead, she settled on a petulant mumble under her breath. "I could just leave, you know. You can't make me stay."
Vic let out a small chuckle. "Sweetheart, I had to put you into the truck like a child. You wouldn't even make it down my driveway without passing out."
The memory of him picking her up and out of the wheelchair burned across her cheeks and neck.
Before she could come up with a tart reply his phone rang. Vic pressed the speaker button and held up the phone with one hand as he steered with the other.
"I got you on speaker," he answered.
"Sapphire?" Hayden's desperate voice rang out in the truck's cab.
Sapphire's heart filled at once with happiness and relief even as her brow furrowed into a scowl.
"Yes, I'm alive," she answered coldly. "Not that you would have known."
"We did know," it was Joel's voice now and she could imagine him wrestling with Hayden to get to the phone. "And we were there when you were first admitted, but you were unconscious."
Vic did tell her that they had all three been in her room when she first got to the hospital and she could even partially remember their voices in her dreams. Not that it mattered. They weren't there when she woke up and that was the sword of anger she was going to die on.
"Yeah, well I will never know, will I?"
Vic gave her a reproving look which only made her want to hit him and cry at the same time.
Guiltily, she added. "I'm glad you're okay and you better come home soon so I cannot speak to you in person."
"We'll be home soon." She could hear the mixture of emotions in Hayden's deep voice and imagined him giving her those sad eyes that made her want to hold him. "I love you. And Vic—watch her."
