Pinups and Possibilities (11 page)

I didn’t know how long I’d been experiencing the in-and-out of moments of consciousness. Sometimes it felt like moments, other times like days. As I tried to focus on the elusive matter of time, my mind drifted, and I almost wanted to slip out again, but forced myself to focus. I didn’t know where I was, or even what events had led me there. I was only aware of the present. Parts of me ached. Parts of me burned. Something was lodged in my throat and an oxygen mask covered my face.

Jesus.

I dragged my eyes open. A man in a white coat hovered beside my bed, fiddling with an IV. With arms that felt like lead, I lifted my hands to my head and yanked off the mask. I pulled at a tube fastened to my nose, but it was taped down tightly, and it wouldn’t budge. After a moment I gave up, then cleared my throat as best I could.

“What happened?” I croaked.

The second the words were out of my mouth, I coughed and spluttered, and the man in the white coat whipped around to place a firm hand on my shoulder.

“Easy there, son,” he said.

I tried to stutter out another question, but that too ended in a choked cough.

The doctor—assuming that’s what he was—stepped away, then returned a moment later with a cup and a straw.

“I’d like to give you ice chips,” he told me. “But supplies are a little hard to come by.”

I sipped the water with a grateful nod, then held still as the other man took my pulse and my blood pressure. My eyes wandered the room. It wasn’t a hospital. That much was clear. There were bars on the windows, and the smell of concrete mixed with gasoline permeated the air.

“We’re above a garage,” the doctor explained apologetically. “It was the closest safe house.”

“Safe house?” I managed to get the question out without wheezing.

“Maybe you should let
me
explain.”

The cold voice came from the other side of the room, and it made the doctor’s eyes dart nervously to his feet. I settled my own gaze on the source of the words. A man unfolded himself from a chair in the corner and took a few steps toward my bed.

“Just give us a moment, Dr. Howell,” he said.

“Please, Cohen. I’ve told you before. It’s just Howell, plain and simple,” the man in the coat muttered as he backed away.

The cool-eyed man laughed a humourless laugh. “You’ll always be a doctor in my book.”

Something about this man—Cohen—set my teeth on edge. I kept silent as the doctor-who-wasn’t-a-doctor exited the room, and didn’t speak until Cohen addressed me directly.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Darren?” he asked.

“Tired as hell and sore as fuck,” I admitted.

“I can get Howell to give you some more pain meds, if you like.”

I shook my head. “I think I’ve had enough.”

“Good.” He sounded a little too pleased.

“How long have I been here?”

“Two weeks.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Two weeks,” the man repeated.

My heart dropped and my throat constricted. Fourteen days? How was that even possible?

Cohen answered my unasked question as if I’d spoke in aloud. “For the first two days, Howell thought you were a write-off. He pumped you full of morphine, just to make you comfortable. When you kept breathing…he insisted on tube-feeding you, too.”

My guts churned at the casual way he talked about my life. Like it didn’t matter if it went on or not.

“The fourth and fifth day,” Cohen went on. “Howell kept you under on purpose. Pumped in the oxygen along with the morphine and antibiotics. Said you got lucky. Not too much smoke inhalation. Sixth and seventh day, he dialled back the drugs and you came in and out, muttering, screaming about the pain. Apparently that’s pretty normal. I hear second- and third-degree burns are excruciating. But you got lucky there, too, I guess. Howell told me the burns were limited to one side of your torso and things would’ve been much worse if it’d been your legs or chest. He still thought you ought to be in a burn-trauma unit and could’ve done with some skin grafts. But it’s too late now. And besides that…a tough fucker like you doesn’t need all that coddling, right?”

My head was spinning. Burns made the pain make sense. Smoke inhalation explained the ragged feeling in my chest. But none of it jogged my memory. Had my employer been notified? My few friends? I shook my head, and nausea overwhelmed me.

“When can I go home?” I rasped.

He laughed. “Home, Mr. Darren? Never. Not unless you want to go to jail.”

“Jail?”

“You got drunk and drove. You killed a girl, my friend. The only reason you’re not behind bars right this second is that Howell was kind enough to pull you from the wreckage.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Why?” Cohen asked. “Because you’d remember it? You don’t even remember how you got here.”

I turned over that statement in my mind and couldn’t refute it.

“Let me show you a picture,” Cohen offered, sounding delighted to inflict more pain.

A cold, hollow seed sprouted in my chest and spread out with a self-loathing I knew I would never be able to shake.

When Painter had gone into the bathroom, I’d stared after him for about thirty seconds with my jaw on my chest. The dangerous pattern on his torso made my heart ache. A hundred questions begged to be asked. In spite of what I’d said to him about not getting personal, the second he’d hinted at his past, I’d wanted to know more. That look in his eyes—dark and ashamed, but somehow still defiant—begged to be explored. It was the same thing I’d glimpsed in the bar, the same thing that drew me to him. The same thing that made me put aside thoughts of Jayme.

Jayme.

I needed to try once again to get away.

I couldn’t dwell on Painter right then. I had to get
out
.

I yanked as hard as I could on the handcuffs. I willed the joints in my fingers to collapse in on themselves like a contortionist’s, but the best I could do was to fold my thumb in enough that it didn’t scrape too badly as I pulled. I yanked once more. All that happened was a beaded line of blood appeared on the back of my hand. It took me moment to realize my breath was coming in short, panicked gasps. The shower had already been running for several minutes, and I didn’t know how much more time I would have.

“Shit!”

I winced immediately after I said it, then remembered that Jayme wasn’t around.

“Shit, shit, shit,
shit
!”

Calm down,
I told myself.
Come up with a plan.

I stopped struggling and stared forlornly out the window. The motel itself reminded me of an army barracks. It was a squat, two-storey structure with no adornments except the dingy sign. There were no other buildings in sight, and no indication as to why someone had stuck it right there in the middle of nowhere. Still, there were employees, and they had to get to and from work somehow. If I could get away, I could beg for a ride.

But first you have to get free.

Painter had confiscated my purse and hidden it somewhere, but when I slumped down in my chair and turned my eyes back to the room, I spotted my soft-sided suitcase lying on the bed.

My mind jumped hopefully.

Jayme’s pills.

Had they fallen out when Painter emptied the bag in the car? I couldn’t remember. With a quick glance toward the bathroom door, I strained until I reached the bag. Once it was in my hands, I unzipped it and closed my hand on the Velcro pocket inside.

Please,
I prayed.

I didn’t bother to stifle a relieved sigh as my fingers closed around the little bottle. I yanked it out and gave it a grateful squeeze.

Jayme’s name was on the side, as were the accompanying instructions. One caplet at bedtime, it read. But Painter was a big man. Much bigger than Jayme. And he had a lot of muscle. I could only imagine what his metabolism was like.

How much would be enough?

I popped off the lid and shook two of the caplets into my hand. I considered them for a second. Just to be safe, I added a third dose.

Quickly, I grabbed Painter’s bottle of water, opened each caplet and dumped them through the narrow top. I swirled the powder around, watching it until it was fully dissolved, then set the bottle back on the table.

I tossed my bag back onto the bed just as the washroom door squeaked open. I opened my mouth, but whatever I’d been about to say failed me. Painter came into the room, dressed in only snug-fitting boxer briefs and nothing else. His olive-toned skin had been made ruddy by the hot shower, and the scars on his body stood out from the redness in a dark, puckered mess.

I should look away,
I thought.

But I couldn’t.

My eyes grazed over the markings, noting the way they stretched out more thinly across his well-defined abdominal muscles and the way they thickened under his pecs before fading again to nothing.

He didn’t look at me as he grabbed his jeans from his overnight bag and slid them over his hips, or as he grabbed his water bottle. I watched guiltily as he took a big swig. I held my breath, waiting for him to comment on the flavour or notice the grainy texture, but he just grimaced and took another gulp before he sat on the edge of the bed.

He put his head in his hands and still didn’t look my way as he spoke. “I’m sorry.”

His words caught me off guard. “What?”

“I know how unfair this situation seems. And I have no right to ask personal questions, or to expect you to treat me with anything other than disdain. I’ve been held against my will in the past, and I wouldn’t have been half as nice to the man who locked me up as you’ve been to me.”

He was utterly sincere, and when he finally lifted his head, his eyes were clear as they met mine, all but begging for a reply that expressed understanding of what he was doing to me. My mouth worked, but I couldn’t find an appropriate response. Inexplicably, a lump formed in my throat. It would be easy enough to tell him the truth about me and Cohen and Jayme. Maybe it would even sway things in my favour. But when I spoke, something else came out instead.

“It was Cohen who held you, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t bother to lie. “Yes.”

“He’s a bad man.”

“I guess that makes two of us.”

Painter tipped up the water bottle, and his Adam’s apple worked as he drank. Almost—
almost
—I wanted to warn him not to finish it. But it was too late anyway. He’d downed nearly the whole thing.

Shit,
I thought.
He’s going to pass out before he even unlocks me.

I rattled the cuffs emphatically. Painter stood, shoved the key into the lock wordlessly and freed me. I had to cover a relieved sigh as he flopped back down on the bed and closed his eyes, his wet hair dripping onto the pillow. With his scarred body splayed out on the bed, he looked anything but vulnerable. I wondered once again what Cohen had done to this big, beautiful man. I couldn’t quite look away from him as I considered it.

“Like what you see?”

I jumped back and blushed as I realized I’d been caught in the act. I floundered for a way to deflect both my embarrassment and his amusement. I wasn’t quick enough and Painter spoke first.

“Does he know what you do?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The boyfriend.”

“Oh. J—” I caught myself just in time, and if Painter noticed, he didn’t react. “He knows I dance.”

“But not
how
you dance?”

“No. But I bring home a pay cheque and that’s what matters.”

“He doesn’t work?”

“No.”

“Swanky arrangement.”

“It’s not like that,” I replied.

“You’re not paying the way for some deadbeat by dancing at a job you hate, all the while deceiving him about it?”

I had a hundred answers, but all of them would give away too much.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said lamely.

“Try me.”

I struggled to find a way to explain. “I grew up knowing every sordid detail of my mom’s life. And even though I know being naive would’ve killed me, there are things I wish I hadn’t seen. Things I could’ve done without. Why would I want to make someone else hurt the way I was hurt?”

“So sometimes not knowing is better than knowing?”

“Exactly.”

Painter was quiet for a moment, then he asked, “Do you know what your kind of dancing
does
to a man?”

“I have some idea. I get to see it in action, night after night.”

He opened his eyes just a little and looked at me from under his lashes.

“That’s not what I mean.” Painter’s speech was slow, and I hoped it meant the sedative was kicking in.

“What
do
you mean then?” I asked indulgently.

“It would drive me crazy if for a single second I thought one of those men in the audience wanted to do to you what
I
want to do…if you were mine…” He trailed off, leaving the word
mine
hanging in the air in a way that made me shiver with pleasure.

I waited for him to carry on, to add something else, but his breathing just deepened. I stood up quietly and stood next to his nearly still form.

“Painter?” I whispered. “Are you awake?”

“If they touched you…I’d kick their asses,” he announced, sounding more than a little high. “Too beautiful.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Thank you.”

“I’m serious. All those guys at Tangerines
,
eating you up with their eyes. If I was yours and you were mine and we were
us
…it would fucking kill me.”

His eyes fluttered open one more time. Their usual, striking-green hue was all but obscured by his dilated pupils.

“I should’ve left you locked up,” he mumbled.

“You probably should’ve,” I agreed.

One of his hands shot up and found my forearm, but his grip was loose and I didn’t bother to shake him off. Instead, I leaned down and cupped his face in both my hands and gave him a firm kiss. When I pulled away, his hand slipped back to his side and he let out a soft snore that made me grin.

“If you were
mine
,” I whispered. “I might not even have to do what I do.”

Then I counted to a hundred and eighty and grabbed the keys to the Mustang. I felt bad for borrowing it—
I’m not stealing it,
I told myself,
because I fully plan on leaving the keys for him somehow, somewhere
—but I had no other choice. I’d been gone too long to chance it with the buses and I wasn’t going to waste money on a cab.

I shoved everything I could find back into my bag and shot Painter a final, regretful glance. By the time he woke up and found another way to get back to Trent Falls, Jayme and I would long gone.