TWENTY-NINE
I was sitting in the examining room when Red burst in. I watched his eyes as he took in the scene: the sterile, pale hospital green walls and strong overhead lights which make everything, even childbirth, look so much more dire; me looking wild and disheveled in my crushed velvet Witch of Camelot dress, ruined hands held out as if in supplication. For a moment, he looked as if he were going to cry. Then he came forward and knelt at the floor by my feet.
“Jesus, Doc, you okay?”
I held Red's gaze as the startled young intern turned back to my hands. Hazel eyes, so much easier to read than Hunter's dark brown. “Not really,” I said. “I burned my hands.”
“I know.”
“I'm supposed to be taking care of my mother's animals.”
“You need taking care of yourself, Doc.”
The intern, who had been examining my hands, paused. “How old are these burns?”
“I don't know. Half an hour. An hour.” I sniffed loudly, like a six-year-old. “When do I go into the OR?” Red put his hand on my shoulder.
“Lady, these burns are at least a week old. Who treated you initially?”
I stared into the intern's round face. He had large, dark pores and one thick unibrow which stretched across both eyes, making him look permanently irritated and puzzled. “The EMTs treated me about half an hour ago. What are you talking about, a week old? There was exposed adipose, charred tissue …”
“Are you a doctor?” The doughy face with its villainous brow looked even more irritated and puzzled than before.
“No, a vet.”
“Well.” He held out my hands as if they were exhibit A. The flesh on my palms was bright pink, horrible to look at, but still, not anywhere near as damaged as it had been forty minutes earlier. “These wounds show substantial healing, wouldn't you say? More than an hour's worth, clearly.”
I stared at my palms, raw with new skin. “I don't understand it. I swear to you, this happened only a short time ago.”
“Look, I'm not going to argue with you. I'll just put on a dry sterile dressing and give you some supplies to take home. You'll still need some help with the rebandaging.”
“I don't have any help.” My voice came out thin and small, embarrassing me. I felt that the intern disapproved of me, and this bothered me, too.
“Abra, where's Hunter?” I turned to the owner of that soft Texas drawl and felt calmer. Red, unable to take my hand, had decided to hold both my shoulders. I couldn't see his face, but I could feel his chest behind my head.
“He's home.” The intern wrapped and snipped.
“And you are …”
It was lovely not to have to look at him. “Staying at my mother's. At Beast Castle.”
Red didn't react right away to the news that my mother was the vampire screen queen Piper LeFever. Instead, he just took a deep breath and said, “I see.” Then his grip on my shoulders tightened, and I realized I was crying.
“All right,” said the intern, “that's done. So you'll be taking her home? I need to give you some instructions.”
I stared at the intern's ear. He was not looking at me anymore. “Wait a minute. That's it? Don't I need IV antibiotics?”
“Ma'am, you may have needed that a week ago, but not today.”
I looked at Red for support. “But there was charring, tissue damage, loss of sensation …”
“Listen, ma'am, you can wait to speak with the admitting doctor who saw you first, or you can look at your chart—second-degree burns.” The intern pulled his latex gloves off with a flourish. “Now, do you want the instructions, or not?”
Red placed one hand on my shoulder, and said, “We'll take the instructions—boy.”
I didn't pay attention as the surly intern told Red how to care for my injured paws. As we were about to leave, a tall woman in a tomato red jacket came up to me. Her blond hair had been sculpted into a shape faintly reminiscent of a turkey, and I wondered if this was intentional, as a nod to the holiday.
“Are you Ms. Barrow? I'm sorry, but we weren't able to find a number for the contact you gave us.” She checked her file. “Red Mallin. Is there anyone else I can try to call for you?”
I turned to Red, confused. “But someone must have called him.”
“No,” the woman said, rechecking her information. “We tried, but there's no number available from Information.”
“It's okay,” Red said, giving the woman an easy smile. “I got here, and that's the important thing. Now, I guess I'd better take this lady home.” As the lady in the red jacket frowned in puzzlement, I let Red put his arm around my shoulders and guide me out of the hospital without comment, aware of his head, not so far above mine, and of his lean strength. He half-lifted me into the passenger side of his pickup truck and then walked around to the driver's seat.
“You're not in shock, are you, Doc?”
“I should be. They were third-degree burns.”
It is not so easy to lean across the interior of a pickup truck, particularly one with a stick shift. Red managed it, his hand under my chin, forcing me to look at him.
“I know they were, Doc. But by the time that little shitheel looked at you, they were healed up some.”
“That's impossible.”
“I would have smelled the deep tissue if it had been exposed. You won't be havin' the use of your hands for a while yet, and the rest of the healing's gonna take a mite longer, but you don't have third-degree burns, I can assure you of that.”
“Red, burns just don't heal up that way. Especially deep tissue damage. It doesn't just go away.”
Red stroked the underside of my jaw with his thumb. “It does when your husband gives you a dose of what your husband did.”
A jazzy little jingle from an old public ser vice announcement flashed through my mind: VD Gets Around! No wonder Red hadn't wanted to make love with me that night. And then I realized what he was really saying. “You've known all along, haven't you? About the virus?” Red nodded. “But he said I couldn't catch it. There has to be a genetic predisposition.”
His hand came up to the back of my head, and he leaned his forehead to rest against mine. “I guess you're predisposed.”
“You know, in all the movies I've ever seen, you can only catch this from a werewolf in wolf form.”
Red started the car. “That part's pretty accurate.”
“But Hunter never—I've never seen him turn into a wolf, and he sure didn't bite me.”
Red looked uncomfortable. “Well,” he said, turning on his headlights, “it doesn't have to be blood-to-blood transmission. And if, you know, you were tired or a little tipsy one night …” His voice trailed off.
That night, after I'd drunk wine and smoked pot with Red. When Hunter's back had seemed to ripple underneath my touch. I curled up in the seat as far as the belt would allow, my head turned toward the window. “Just take me home.”
It was very dark and the headlights cast a weak beam over the winding roads, but Red seemed to know his way. For a moment, I remembered that I hadn't asked Red how he'd known to come to the hospital if no one had contacted him. And then I wondered why an animal removal operator would have an unlisted number. But before I could form any questions, I nodded off, and when I woke up I thought, for a moment, that I was a child again, and my father was carrying me to my bed.
He's really very strong, I thought, as Red settled me down and pulled back the covers.
“I have insomnia, you know. I'm not going to just fall asleep.”
Red turned the light off. “You always have trouble?”
I yawned. “For the past few years.”
The bed dipped with Red's weight. “Anything help? Hypnosis, exercise, massage, sex?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe you're one of those people meant to stay up most of the night and sleep all day.”
I leaned back and found my head on Red's arm. How warm he was. “But I want to go to sleep now. I just know I won't be able to.”
“Just lie here and let me rub your back.”
“That doesn't work.”
Red moved his hand up until it was on my stomach. “Roll over,” he said.
I turned, and he pulled my dress up at the same time as he covered me with the sheet. With his hand against my naked skin, he began tracing some sort of letters on my back. “This is silly, Red.”
“Shh. Don't try to look. Just breathe. Relax.”
I closed my eyes and he traced some foreign alphabet down my spine, to the very edge of my underwear, and then back up again. “I tried to call you. After that night with the storm.”
“I know. I'm sorry, Red.” I took a breath, then forced myself to say it. “I found out I'm pregnant with Hunter's child.”
Red didn't say anything, but his hand stilled for a moment before resuming its slow rhythmic stroking of my back. His touch was soothing in its certainty, and I found myself half-wishing his hand would move lower. Pregnancy hormones, I thought. Not my fault. After a while we left the room and were standing in the forest, and Red was a wolf that kept running ahead.
“Hold on,” I said, “I can't keep up with you.” But he'd scented a rabbit or something and kept lunging forward, and by the time I caught up with him he'd been sprayed by a skunk and sat with his tail tucked between his legs.
“You really are an idiot, Red.”
“You'll never make love to me now,” he said, and I put an arm around him, thinking, Oh, what the hell, at least he isn't screwing around.