Tall, Dark and Fearless: Frisco's Kid

CHAPTER NINE

THE HOSPITAL EMERGENCY room was crowded. Mia was ignored by the nurses at the front desk, so she finally gave up and simply walked into the back. She was stepped around, pushed past and nearly knocked over as she searched for Frisco.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for—”

“Not now, dear,” a nurse told her, briskly moving down the hallway.

Mia heard him before she saw him. His voice was low, and his language was abominable. It was definitely Alan Francisco.

She followed the sound of his voice into a big room that held six beds, all filled. He was sitting up, his right leg stretched out in front of him, his injured knee swollen and bruised. His T-shirt was covered with blood, he had a cut on his cheekbone directly underneath his right eye and his elbows and other knee looked abraded and raw.

A doctor was examining his knee. “That hurt, too?” he asked, glancing up at Frisco.

Yes, was the gist of the reply, minus all of the colorful superlatives. A new sheen of sweat had broken out on Frisco’s face, and he wiped at his upper lip with the back of one hand as he braced himself for the rest of the examination.

“I thought you promised Tasha no more bad words.”

Startled, he looked up, and directly into her eyes. “What are you doing here? Where’s Tash?”

Mia had surprised him. And not pleasantly, either. She could see myriad emotions flicker across hisface. Embarrassment. Shame. Humiliation. She knew he didn’t want her to see him like this, looking beaten and bloodied.

“She’s with Thomas,” Mia told him. “I thought you might want…” What? She thought he might want a hand to hold? No, she already knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t need or want that. She shook her head. She’d come here purely for herself. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Depends on your definition of the word,” he said. “In my book, it means I’m not dead.”

“Excuse me, miss, but is Mr. Francisco a friend of yours?” It was the doctor. “Perhaps you’ll be able to convince him to take the pain medication we’ve offered him.”

Mia shook her head. “No, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. He’s extremely stubborn—and it’s Lieutenant, not Mister. If he’s decided that he doesn’t want it—”

“Yes, he has decided he doesn’t want it,” Frisco interjected. “And he also hates being talked about as if he weren’t in the room, so do you mind…?”

“The medication would make him rest much more comfortably—”

“Look, all I want you to do is X-ray my damn knee and make sure it’s not broken. Do you think maybe you can do that?”

“He’s a lieutenant in which organization?” the doctor asked Mia.

“Please ask him directly,” she said. “Surely you can respect him and not talk over his head this way.”

“I’m with the Navy SEALs—was with the SEALs,” Frisco said.

The doctor snapped closed Frisco’s patient clipboard. “Perfect. I should have known. Nurse!” he shouted, already striding away. “Send this man to X-ray, and then arrange a transfer over to the VA facility up by the naval base….”

Frisco was watching Mia, and when she turned to look at him, he gave her a half smile. “Thanks for trying.”

“Why don’t you take the pain medicine?” she asked.

“Because I don’t want to be stoned and drooling when Dwayne comes back for round two.”

Mia couldn’t breathe. “Comes back?” she repeated. “Why? Who was he anyway? And what did he want?”

Frisco shifted his weight, unable to keep from wincing. “Apparently my darling sister owes him some money.”

“How much money?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” He shook his head. “I’m gonna pay Sharon a little visit in the morning—to hell with the detox center’s rules.”

“When I saw that knife he was holding…” Mia’s voice shook and she stopped. She closed her eyes, willing back the sudden rush of tears. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been that scared. “I didn’t want to leave you there alone.”

She opened her eyes to find him watching her, the expression on his face unreadable. “Didn’t you think I could take that guy and win?” he asked softly.

She didn’t need to answer him—she knew he could read her reply in her eyes. She knew how painful it was for him to walk, even with a cane. She knew his limitations. How could he have taken on a man as big as Dwayne—a man who had a knife, as well—and not been hurt? And he had been hurt. Badly, it looked like.

He laughed bitterly, looking away from her. “No wonder you damn near ran away from me on the beach. You don’t think I’m much of a man, do you?”

Mia was shocked. “That’s not true! That’s not why—”

“Time to go down to X-ray,” a nurse announced, pushing a wheelchair up to Frisco’s bed.

Frisco didn’t wait for the nurse to help him. He lifted himself off the bed and lowered himself into the chair. He jostled his knee, and it had to have hurt like hell, but he didn’t say a word. When he looked up at Mia, though, she could see all of his pain in his eyes. “Just go home,” he said quietly.

“They’re backed up down there—this could take a while, a few hours even,” the nurse informed Mia as she began pushing Frisco out of the room. “You can’t come with him, so you’ll just be sitting out in the waiting room. If you want to leave, he could call you when he’s done.”

“No, thank you,” Mia said. She turned to Frisco. “Alan, you are so wrong about—”

“Just go home,” he said again.

“No,” she said. “No, I’m going to wait for you.”

“Don’t,” he said. He glanced up at her just before the nurse pushed him out the door. “And don’t call me Alan.”

FRISCO RODE IN the wheelchair back to the E.R. lobby with his eyes closed. His X-rays had taken a few aeons longer than forever, and he had to believe Mia had given up on him and gone home.

It was nearly eight o’clock at night. He was still supposed to meet with the doctor to talk about what his X-rays had shown. But he’d seen the film and already knew what the doctor was going to say. His knee wasn’t broken. It was bruised and inflamed. There may have been ligament damage, but it was hard to tell—his injury and all of his subsequent surgeries had left things looking pretty severely scrambled.

The doctor was going to recommend shipping him over to the VA hospital for further consultation and possible treatment.

But that was going to have to wait. He had Natasha at home to take care of, and some lunatic named Dwayne to deal with.

“Where are you taking him?” It was Mia’s musical voice. She was still here, waiting for him, just as she’d said. Frisco didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. He kept his eyes closed, and tried not to care too much either way.

“The doctor has to take a look at the X-rays,” the nurse told her. “We’re overcrowded tonight. Depending on how things go, it could be another five minutes or two hours.”

“May I sit with him?” Mia asked.

“Sure,” the nurse said. “He can wait out here as well as anyplace else.”

Frisco felt his wheelchair moved awkwardly into position, heard the nurse walk away. Then he felt Mia’s cool fingers touch his forehead, pushing his hair back and off his face.

“I know you’re not really asleep,” she said.

Her hand felt so good in his hair. Too good. Frisco reached up and caught her wrist as he opened his eyes, pushing her away from him. “That’s right,” he said. “I’m just shutting everything out.”

She was gazing at him with eyes that were a perfect mixture of green and brown. “Well, before you shut me out again, I want you to know—I don’t judge whether or not someone is a man based on his ability to beat an opponent into a bloody pulp. And I wasn’t running away from you on the beach today.”

Frisco shut his eyes again. “Look, you don’t have to explain why you don’t want to sleep with me. If you don’t, then you don’t. That’s all I need to know.”

“I was running away from myself,” she said very softly, a catch in her voice.

Frisco opened his eyes. She was looking at him with tears in her beautiful eyes and his heart lurched. “Mia, don’t, really…it’s all right.” It wasn’t, but he would have said or done anything to keep her from crying.

“No, it’s not,” she said. “I really want to be your friend, but I don’t know if I can. I’ve been sitting here for the past few hours, just thinking about it, and…” She shook her head and a tear escaped down her cheek.

Frisco was lost. His chest felt so tight, he could barely breathe, and he knew the awful truth. He was glad Mia had waited for him. He was glad she’d come to the hospital. Yeah, he’d also been mortified that she’d seen him like this, but at the same time, her presence had made him feel good. For the first time in forever he didn’t feel so damned alone.

But now he’d somehow made her cry. He reached for her, cupping her face with his hand and brushing away that tear with his thumb. “It’s not that big a deal,” he whispered.

“No?” she said, looking up at him. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek more fully into the palm of his hand. She turned her head slightly and brushed his fingers with her lips. When she opened her eyes again, he could see a fire burning, white-hot and molten. All sweetness, all girlish innocence was gone from her face. She was all woman, pure female desire as she gazed back at him.

His mouth went totally, instantly dry.

“You touch me, even just like this, and I feel it,” she said huskily. “This chemistry—it’s impossible to ignore.”

She was right, and he couldn’t help himself. He pushed his hand up and into the softness of her long, dark hair. She closed her eyes again at the sensation, and he felt his heart begin to pound.

“I know you feel it, too,” she whispered.

Frisco nodded. Yes. He traced the soft curve of her ear, then let his hand slide down her neck. Her skin was so smooth, like satin beneath his fingers.

But then she reached for his hand, intertwining their fingers, squeezing his hand, breaking the spell. “But for me, that’s not enough,” she told him. “I need more than sexual chemistry. I need…love.”

Silence. Big, giant silence. Frisco could hear his heart beating and the rush of his blood through his veins. He could hear the sounds of other people in the waiting room—hushed conversations, a child’s quiet crying. He could hear a distant television, the clatter of an empty gurney being wheeled too quickly down the hall.

“I can’t give you that,” he told her.

“I know,” she said softly. “And that’s why I ran away.” She smiled at him, so sweetly, so sadly. The seductive temptress was gone, leaving behind this nice girl who wanted more than he could give her, who knew enough not even to ask.

Or maybe she knew enough not to want to ask. He was no prize. He wasn’t even whole.

She released his hand, and he immediately missed the warmth of her touch.

“I see they finally got you cleaned up,” she said.

“I did it myself,” he told her, amazed they could sit here talking like this after what she’d just revealed. “I went into the bathroom near the X-ray department and washed up.”

“What happens next?” Mia asked.

What had she just revealed? Nothing, really, when it came down to it. She’d admitted that the attraction between them was powerful. She’d told him that she was looking for more than sex, that she wanted a relationship based on love. But she hadn’t said that she wanted him to love her.

Maybe she was glossing over the truth. Maybe she’d simply omitted the part about how, even if he was capable of giving her what she wanted, she had no real interest in any kind of a relationship with some crippled has-been.

“The doctor will look at my X-rays and he’ll tell me that nothing’s broken,” Frisco told her. “Nothing he can see, anyway.”

How much of that fight had she seen? he wondered. Had she seen Dwayne drop him with a single well-placed blow to his knee? Had she seen him hit the sidewalk like a stone? Had she seen Dwayne kick him while he was down there, face against the concrete like some pathetic hound dog too dumb to get out of the way?

And look at him now, back in a wheelchair. He’d sworn he’d never sit in one of these damned things again, yet here he was.

“Dammit, Lieutenant, when I sent you home to rest, I meant you should rest, not start a new career as a street fighter.” Captain Steven Horowitz was wearing his white dress uniform and he gleamed in the grimy E.R. waiting room. What the hell was he doing here?

“Dr. Wright called and said he had a former patient of mine in his emergency room, waiting to get his knee X-rayed. He said this patient’s knee was swollen and damaged from a previous injury, and on top of that, it looked as if it had recently been hit with a sledgehammer. Although apparently this patient claimed there were no sledgehammers involved in the fight he’d been in,” Horowitz said, arms folded across his chest. “The fight he’d been in. And I asked myself, now, which of my former knee-injury patients would be stupid enough to put himself into a threatening situation like a fight that might irrevocably damage his injured knee? I came up with Alan Francisco before Wright even mentioned your name.”

“Nice to see you, too, Steve,” Frisco said, wearily running his hand through his hair, pushing it off his face. He could feel Mia watching him, watching the Navy captain.

“What were you thinking?”

“Allow me to introduce Mia Summerton,” Frisco said. “Mia, I know you’re going to be disappointed, but as much as Steve looks like it, he isn’t the White Power Ranger. He’s really only just a Navy doctor. His name’s Horowitz. He answers to Captain, Doctor, Steve and sometimes even God.”

Steven Horowitz was several years older than Frisco, but he had an earnestness about him that made him seem quite a bit younger. Frisco watched him do a double take as he looked at Mia, with her long, dark hair, her beautiful face, her pretty flowered sundress that revealed her smooth, tanned shoulders and her slender, graceful arms. He watched Steve look back at his own bloody T-shirt and battered face. He knew what the doctor was thinking—what was she doing with him?

Nothing. She was doing nothing. She’d made that more than clear.

Horowitz turned back to Frisco. “I looked at the X-rays—I think you may have been lucky, but I won’t be able to know for certain until the swelling goes down.” He pulled a chair over, and looked at the former SEAL’s knee, probing it lightly with gentle fingers.

Frisco felt himself start to sweat. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mia lean forward, as if she were going to reach for his hand. But he closed his eyes, refusing to look at her, refusing to need her.

She took his hand anyway, holding it tightly until Steve was through. By then, Frisco was drenched with sweat again, and he knew his face must’ve looked gray or maybe even green. He let go of her hand abruptly, suddenly aware that he was damn near mashing her fingers.

“All right,” Steve finally said with a sigh. “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go home, and I want you to stay off your feet for the next two weeks.” He took his prescription pad from his leather bag. “I’ll give you something to make you sleep—”

“And I won’t take it,” Frisco said. “I have a…situation to deal with.”

“What kind of situation?”

Frisco shook his head. “It’s a family matter. My sister’s in some kind of trouble. All you need to know is that I’m not taking anything that’s going to make me sleep. I won’t object to a local painkiller, though.”

Steven Horowitz laughed in disgust. “If I give you that, your knee won’t hurt. And if your knee doesn’t hurt, you’re going to be up running laps, doing God knows what kind of damage. No. No way.”

Frisco leaned forward, lowering his voice, wishing Mia weren’t listening, hating himself for having to admit his weaknesses. “Steve, you know I wouldn’t ask for it if I weren’t in serious pain. I need it, man. I can’t risk taking the stuff that will knock me out.”

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