Groaning, I rolled to my side, only to hiss when my right leg, which had been banging against the metal hinge of my brace all night, also decided to tell me what a dumbass I'd been not to take any pain pills. Lying on my back, I stared at the ceiling above my bed, wondering if I'd been wrong not to take any pills at all.
I heard a soft knock on my door, and I struggled to a sitting position, making sure I was at least somewhat composed. "Come in."
Luisa opened the door and stepped inside, wearing a t-shirt and shorts that looked better on her than the model in the catalog I was sure the company had used to sell it. "I just wanted to come by and see if . . . what's wrong?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, trying not to show my surprise.
Luisa crossed her arms and tapped her foot, giving me a nonplussed look. "I've been spending enough time with you over the past few weeks that I can tell when something is wrong. What is it?"
I laid back down, giving in. "My ankle hurts. Seriously, this shit is painful."
Luisa came over and sat down on the edge of my bed, looking in my eyes. "Okay. Do you trust me?"
"That's a strange question," I replied, looking back into her beautiful face with those ebony orbs of mysterious darkness. I swallowed and nodded. “Sure. Of course I do,” I said, wondering what the hell she was up to.
"Good," she said with a small smile. "Then close your eyes."
For the next few minutes, I felt her fingers tapping, touching and pushing on various points in my leg, but also on other areas in my body. While she did, she talked in a low, soft voice. "Listen to me. Let my voice guide you. I want you to feel as I touch the areas of your body, and as I do, let your body feel the sensation. Accept it as it is, with no other meaning than that it is sensation your body feels. I want you to open your mind to the pain that is in your ankle. Accept the pain, and taste it. Let it wash over you and through you, accepting it for what it is, the signals from your body that say that you are not at a hundred percent. Recognize that you’re in control of that signal, and that you can control the intensity, just like you can control the volume of a radio or the speed of a car."
She kept up her touches and taps, and as she did, I felt myself drifting, and the pain not so much stopping as becoming manageable, something I could accept and deal with. When she stopped and I opened my eyes, I was amazed. "What was that?"
"A little bit of acupressure, point therapy, and what was it you called it? Oh yes, biofeedback bullshit," she said with a little smile. "My jiu-jitsu instructor learned under Rickson Gracie, who is into that sort of thing. I learned a little bit of it myself. Now, how do you feel?"
"Better," I admitted, taking her help in sitting up. "Like you said, the pain is still there, but the volume's turned way down. Right now, the biggest thing I feel is hunger.
She smiled. "Let me get your crutches."
"So what's the plan for this morning?" Luisa asked as we ate. "I assume you don’t intend to drag everyone into the pool area and have me hold a gun to their heads until someone fesses up.”
"Effective, but far too crude," I replied, contemplating. "We need to check the security video. Even if it doesn't show the actual phone call being made, we can see who was on the grounds at the time of your leaving that morning."
"And then?"
"We start narrowing it down."
Luisa finished her omelet and set her fork on her plate. "You know what the most difficult part of all of this is going to be, I assume."
"Making sure we don’t tip off whoever sold us out," I replied in appreciation of her foresight. I smiled before growing sober. "This is going to be difficult. I'm not as skilled as some of the men who work for my father. I don't pick locks, I can't hack computers, and while I can shoot, it'd look mighty strange if I started carrying a Beretta to the toilet. I've spent most of the past four years learning more about marketing, human resources, and sales plans than some of the nastier parts of our family's business."
"And we have to come up with a reasonable explanation why I'm spending so much time with you," Luisa said with a slight blush. "I mean, I’m supposed to be a bitch to you, remember?"
"You still can be," I replied lightly. "We just know that things have changed between us, haven't they?"
She and I hadn't really talked much about that portion of our lives, perhaps out of the knowledge that regardless of what we felt, the obstacles that we might have to overcome were depressing. So, if we wanted to be friends—friends with occasional benefits, or maybe something more—it didn't really matter. We'd just have to let that go for now.
"I'm sure we can figure something out,” Luisa said after a moment. There wasn't much else to say, and she poured herself another glass of orange juice.
We finished breakfast, and I wiped my hand across my stubbly chin. "I know what I want to do first," I said as I struggled to my feet. "I need to take a bath and shave. I'm going to miss showers for the next few weeks, at least until I can keep my balance standing on one foot."
Chapter 12
Luisa