Alex (In the Company of Snipers) (4 page)

“N-no.” She stared at the floor, frail, sick, and needy, the blanket clutched in one shaky hand, the metal bed rail in the other.

He retrieved a plastic washtub from his kitchen cupboard, filled it with warm water, and brought some supplies to the cot. A couple of old wooden crates served as end tables and footrests. He nudged one close to the cot with his foot and placed the washtub there, wishing she could do this next part by herself. As shaky as she was, he doubted it. The last thing he needed was to be picking her up again.

“Put your arm in this tub,” he ordered brusquely.

She obeyed. Tears trickled down both cheeks now. Usually a woman in tears melted him, and this one was plainly frightened, but he was too annoyed to worry about it now. It was going to be a long night. He was hungry and tired and—
This is not how I planned my vacation.

Smoke settled against the door with a disinterested thud. Whisper, on the other hand, sat close by, watching his new best friend with bright eyes.

Alex brushed the big dog aside with his knee. “Move it,” he growled. “Go lay down.”

The dog circled the cabin, but came right back to where he had been before, watching while Alex scooped a cup of the warm, soapy water and poured it down her arm. Instantly he regretted his words. Whisper didn’t deserve the bad treatment he had just dished out any more than she did.

She shivered.

“Let me know if I’m hurting you.” Right now, he just wanted to get this unpleasant task behind him and food on the table.

As he wrung the washcloth and commenced wiping the grime away, he saw imbedded gravel and dirt in the crusted-over patches on her hand and arm. This gentle cleaning had to cause some level of pain, but she didn’t flinch or cry. Not so much as a whimper. He had to give her credit for not pitching a fuss even when he took hold of her arm, twisting it gently to make sure he cleaned it entirely. She trembled, but he ignored that response. Anyone in her condition would be shaking.
It’s adrenaline, that’s all.

At last the softened scabs released most of the surface dirt and debris. By the time one arm and hand was clean and dried, Alex knew she needed real medical help. Unfortunately, he was it.

He tried small talk. “What did you do, fall off a motorcycle or something?”

“I don’t think so,” she said timidly, staring into the water.

Alex let it go at that. The problem was that one patch of bloody scabs only led to another, and they all needed to be cleaned and treated. His mind automatically catalogued every bruise, scrape, and cut as he worked. The damage was mostly confined to her hands, arms, shoulders, legs, and back. Apparently she had tucked her face into her chest when she fell. In doing so, she must have also taken a hard knock to the back of her head. As more of her skin came into view, he detected other marks as well, little round scars, like chicken-pox maybe. Maybe not.

“I need to clean your back.” Might as well get the worst part over and done with.

Wordlessly, she dropped the blanket off her shoulders and looked away.

The second he lifted the back of her torn shirt, she jumped. Threads of it stuck. He winced as fresh blood trickled from her scab-encrusted shoulder blades. Empathy brought the same feeling to his shoulders. He had been here before, once due to a stunt on his Harley motorcycle and again due to that rope swing over the river when he was a know-it-all kid. He looked closer, not believing what else he saw.
Oh, hell ….

He tugged the shirt off, leaving nothing above her waist but her bra. Those shoulders had taken the brunt of something else long before the road rash. He bristled. Ugly scars marked her skin. Some were too pink to be very old. He knew cigarette burns when he saw them. That explained the other marks on her arms, too.

Compassion glimmered. This woman might have fallen off a bike or out of a car a couple of days ago, but someone had hurting her before that. His conscience pricked him. In a flash, his demeanor softened, and he wanted to kick himself. His irritation vanished in a rush of sympathy—and shame.

Damn. This gal needs help.

The truth had finally broken through his hard head. This poor woman needed more than just help. She needed somebody to care. Kelsey hadn’t asked to be here anymore than she had asked for the abuse he saw heaped on her back. For all Alex’s complaining and feeling sorry for himself, he wasn’t much better.
Poor kid.

Just as quickly, recrimination followed.
I’m such an ass.

“Listen. I’m going to put some antiseptic ointment on these scrapes.” At last, he found his gentle voice. “It will deaden the pain. Then we’ll get you changed into something clean. I’ve got a pair of spare sweats in the back, if you don’t mind me helping you out of these dirty clothes.”

She didn’t agree or disagree. It looked like she could barely hang onto the edge of the cot; she was trembling so hard. Alex covered her with the blanket as he removed her cutoffs. By the time he was through, she sat shivering in nothing but her underwear, looking like a survivor plucked from a natural disaster—or a man who beat his wife.

Alex moved more efficiently now. In no time at all, he cleaned and spread ointment, making sure to keep her covered as he went. Her legs were the least damaged. On closer inspection, he noticed gravel imbedded there as well. The nearest gravel road was eight miles back. He cleaned and analyzed, then cleaned some more. If she had fallen or been pushed out of a car on that road, she had certainly walked a long way.

Her words came back to him. “I had to run.” From who? Or what?

He looked up from two skinned knees. “We’re almost done. Can you hang on for just a couple more minutes?”

Again, she didn’t answer.

With unexpected patience, Alex turned his limited nursing expertise to her battered face. He began awkwardly, wrapping a towel around her neck so he wouldn’t get the blanket wet. That’s when he truly realized the intimacy involved in the care and washing of another human being, especially one as vulnerable as this woman.

She squeezed her eyes tight when he moved in close. With a quiet gasp, she held her breath Suddenly, and he was back in an Iraqi village, trying to help a little girl who had been injured when an insurgent’s improvised bomb exploded in her village. Kelsey had that same look. As much as she needed help, she was scared. Of him.

“Hey. It’s okay. I’m just going to clean your face.” He wanted to reassure her, but it was too late. He had already made too much of a negative impression.

Alex blew out a long, slow breath. The more he handled her, the more he realized his hands were too large and too rough for this kind of work. He was a pipe wrench performing delicate surgery on a china cup.

His sweet wife’s admonition on the night of his daughter’s birth came back to him. “Sweetheart, she’s not going to break.”

His heart stuttered. Sara? He hadn’t thought of that night in years. Why now?

As he smoothed the cloth over Kelsey’s forehead and cheeks, he was close enough to notice the long eyelashes beneath a puffy eyelid. Squeezing a dribble of water against the sealed eyelid, the dried blood softened enough to be wiped away. He did everything with extra gentleness now, but she still trembled.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked softly.

“No.” Her one word answer came out squeaky, fast, and sad. Again, he felt ashamed. This poor woman was primed to fight or flee—from him. Not a response he was proud of. The last thing she needed was another monster in her life.

“I’ll fix some soup when we’re done. Do you think you can eat?”

She sniffed, her one clean hand to her nose.

Very gently, he stretched a butterfly band-aid across her split cheekbone and placed another band-aid over the cut above her swollen eye, just beside the arch of a delicate brow. Her petite nose sported a smattering of brown freckles and shouldn’t have been as full of dried blood and dirt as it was. As angry as he was at the person who had hurt this petite woman, he was angrier with himself. He had acted badly today.

It was too much for her. She pushed his hand away and took a deep breath through her mouth. “Do-do you have a tissue?”

“You bet.” He scrambled for a paper towel, and then thought better of it and dampened it with cool water before he handed it to her. She was shaking so hard she could barely blow her nose, but he saw the blood.

He braced a hand to her shoulder. “I’m almost done. Let me check your lip, and we’ll call it good.” By now, Alex was nose to nose with her. He held a damp cloth to a lip that was swollen and split. He had been in enough brawls to know this kind of wound well. He just hadn’t seen it on such a delicate face before.

“Ouch,” she said softly when he smoothed a layer of ointment over her lips.

“Sorry.” He tried to be more careful. “Did someone hit you or something? Did you fall?”

“I sat down ….” She glanced toward the door. “Out there.”

“Right. You were on my porch. Is that all you remember?”

“A bear.” She nodded toward Whisper. “A big bear.”

“That’s just my dog,” he offered her a glass of salt water to rinse her mouth. “He won’t hurt you. Here. Swish this around and spit it out.” He held the washbasin so she could spit the blood from her mouth. That’s when he saw her teeth were bloodied as well. Probably loose, too.

“Thank you,” she whispered, wiping her mouth.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Looks like you’ve been through a pretty hard time.”

She was in rough shape, but at least she was halfway clean. She still wouldn’t look at him though.

“You had enough for one night?”

“Yes.” She shivered, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“Good. Let’s get you into some clean clothes. Come on. I’ll help you up.”

She rose shaky from the cot, balancing with both hands on his shoulders while he eased her into a pair of his old grey sweats. They were way too large, but at least they were clean and warm. They would do for tonight. That’s when he saw the bloody patch on her hip. There was one more scrape to wash and treat.

“Looks like we missed one. Lie back down and let me treat your hip. Then you’ll be done.”

“No.” She pushed him away. At least she tired to push him away. In the process, she plopped gracelessly onto the cot, off balance and exhausted. “I don’t want you to.”

“Come on. It’ll heal faster if it’s clean.” This time, his concern was genuine. “I promise. I won’t hurt you.”

“No-o.” Another tear squeezed from her puffy eye. “Please. I just don’t want to.”

He knew that look. “It’s okay. I won’t do anything you don’t want. Maybe tomorrow.”

She still didn’t look at him, her gaze fixed on the floor planks.

Well, I deserved that. Why should she look me in the eye? What was I thinking? She just needed help. That’s all. It’s not like she had broken in and stolen anything.

Dinner was quick and hot, just a cup of noodle soup and crackers, but putting something in her stomach did the trick, along with a few Advil. She had no more than emptied her cup of soup when her eyes drooped, and she slumped to the pillow.

Alex was straightening the kitchen area when he noticed Whisper had made himself comfortable on the cot. Kelsey held the big dog like a teddy bear, her arm wrapped around his neck, her face buried in his fluffy black mane. That’s when Alex heard it—the saddest sound he had heard in a long time as this stranger wept into his dog’s neck. Her stifled sobs filled Alex’s ears as quickly as it filled the cabin. Sympathy lanced the hard-as-nails crust over his heart. He wanted to hug her himself and tell her everything would be okay, but Kelsey was already in good hands, or paws rather.

Whisper laid his muzzle across her neck, his sharp black eyes focused on Alex as if telling him, “It’s okay. I found her first, and I’ve got her now. She’s mine.”

Alex let the dog stay. Kelsey needed a security blanket tonight. By the looks of it, Whisper sensed it, too.

Three

Alex

Alex sat on the floor, watching his patient sleep. Kelsey was restless. She moaned out a name, but he couldn’t decipher the mumble. There was no doubt in his mind she suffered from dehydration and exposure. The poor woman had to be hurting more then she had shown, but it was also clear someone had used her face as a punching bag within the last week and abused her long before that. He hadn’t seen any defensive wounds on her arms or hands. Why hadn’t she fought back?

She would be a pretty little thing if she didn’t look like she had just been through a war. Although she had avoided looking at him most of the evening, he knew there were dark brown eyes beneath those long lashes and swollen eyelids. He could also tell she didn’t care what happened to her. True, she had let him scrub her wounds until she was semi-clean and sore, and she had said thanks, but he didn’t get the feeling she meant it. Her whole attitude was more like ‘do what you want’ instead of ‘please, help me.’ Alex recognized the look. He could write a book on hopelessness.

His mind worked through different scenarios of the trouble she might be in: prostitution, gangs, or drugs, but Kelsey didn’t seem the type. No. There was a genteel quality to her that spoke more of sadness than anything else.