“Come on, back to bed,” he said in a low, resonant voice.
Like maybe he had gone there in his head, too.
In response, all she could do was nod—and follow him out into the corridor. As she was behind him, she felt free to look around, but she didn’t learn anything new. Still just a long, rough hallway with bulbs hanging from wires. No one around, no sounds that she could hear other than their footfalls.
When they were back inside the clinic area, she whispered, “Who is that patient?”
Her question was ignored as they passed by the hanging sheets, and then they were over to the bed she’d been in and he was offering her an arm to steady her balance as she lowered herself down. The incense had burned out, and he got some more from a drawer and lit it.
Pulling the blankets around her, she remembered back in the days when she was little and she’d had a cold. Her mother had been so good at taking care of her: Unlimited TV, bowls of ice cream to soothe a burning throat, anything she wanted to eat at any moment, cold compresses for a hot forehead. Under normal circumstances, things had been totally regimented in the household, all kinds of schedules of chores and homework, all expectations to be exceeded, or at worst merely met, failure never an option.
Her mom had been a whip-and-a-chair kind of parent, taming her two kids into virtuous human beings who went to church, did the rosary on the regular, and never talked back.
It had not been easy growing up in such an unforgiving way.
But one set of the sniffles and a slightly elevated temperature? The whole house of demanding cards went into a free fall.
Total pampering.
Sometimes, usually after grades came out and Rio got a shellacking and a half for the two Bs she always got （math and Spanish）， she would deliberately go out and get a chill or head over to a friend’s house if they’d missed some school in the previous week because of a flu.
She had needed the reassurance, the comfort, even if it had been unconnected to the offense of her not being perfect.
“Are you okay?” Luke asked.
So quiet. Just her breathing and the soft crackle of the incense getting started.
“I didn’t see my life,” she whispered. “When I knew he was going to kill me. I thought . . . I was supposed to see my life, you know?”
Luke stood over her, looming and silent. Then he said, “That’s because you’re a survivor. Survivors like us, we stay in the present.”
“Everyone says you see your life. Right before you die.”
“And how many dead people you talk to lately?”
Rio blinked. And then smiled. “Good point. And I guess I wasn’t dying. Maybe that’s when it happens.”
Luke winced. Then looked away. Looked back. “Move over a little.”
She stared up at him in confusion. “What?”
“You need someone right now. I’m not much, but I don’t see that you have any other options.”
Actually . . . he was wrong. He was more than enough—and that made her nervous. “Okay,” she said.
Rio groaned as she pushed her body over, and then the mattress, such as it was, tilted to one side—and Luke had stretched out next to her.
Before she could form a coherent thought, she cleaved to his big, warm body, curling against him. With a quick shift, he settled her head on his arm.
“I can hear your heart beat,” she murmured.
“So I have one. Good to know.”
“Where do you get your cologne?”
“Cologne? I don’t wear any.”
Guess it was fabric softener, she thought as she wondered where he did his laundry.
Her eyes drifted around the room, casing the empty beds, the boxes and supplies, the draping around the other patient. From time to time, there were clunks deep in the inside of the building, the low percussive noises like the settling of cold in metal supports or air going through old pipes.
“I really am thankful you came when you did,” she whispered. “I wasn’t going to make it without you.”
There was a period of silence, and then the rumble of Luke’s voice reverberated up out of his rib cage and into her ear. Into her mind. Into her . . . soul.
“He deserved what he got,” he growled.
Rio propped her head up on Luke’s pec. His chin was so near and his lips were so . . . full. Above his cheeks, his eyes were closed, and his lashes were long and thick. He looked remarkably at peace considering how aggressive his voice was.
“Do you shave twelve times a day?” she murmured.
Those lips twitched in one corner. “Mind if I ask where that came from?”