EXCERPT

Firewalking

by

Marguérite Turnley
 

Chapter One

 Have you ever wanted to disappear?

The question ate through Quin’s fragile inner peace. Yes! He desperately needed to disappear, to create a new life for himself. He was sick of looking over his shoulder every minute in case a knife found its way between his shoulder blades.

Without warning, his newspaper was ripped out of his hands and replaced with a bundle of brown and white striped flannel. A woman’s firm deep voice curled around his nerve ends like an echo from a mineshaft. “We really must wear pyjamas, Mr Wylde. This is a hospital, not a hotel. We can’t have visitors complaining about the state of the ward, now can we?”

The nurse flicked blue curtains around his bed, stuck a thermometer in his mouth and grilled him about bodily functions while noting his resentfully muffled answers on his chart.

One extremely intimate question was asked, and his stifled answer drew a response of, “Speak up, please. How am I supposed to write correct answers if you whisper? Don’t be embarrassed. Everyone functions in the same basic way. Even you, Mr Wylde.”

Quin scowled ferociously at her use of the royal ‘we’ as he tried not to bite the thermometer in half. His head might be aching, his bruised and lacerated right arm bandaged in a sling, but he was still a man. He was tired of being treated like a schoolboy by women younger than himself, women he might have dated in better days. He looked at the nurse’s no-nonsense expression and thought, “No, maybe not. She’d lay me out with one punch if I got too close.”

He also wished she’d stop shouting. At the rate she was going the whole hospital would know when he went to the bathroom and what he did there. Smoothing his irritation into a smile, he lay back; one long leg bent at the knee and one muscled bare arm stretched over his head. He hooked his long fingers onto the metal bed frame and looked the nurse in the eye, saying softly, “We are wearing pyjamas, nurse, the bottom half anyway. You just aren’t looking close enough.” He slowly edged the sheet down below his waist and stroked the material with caressing fingers. He’d teach her the danger of getting too close, he decided, perversely satisfied when she took a step back. It was time he reasserted himself and took back control of his life.

“I wouldn’t dare look any closer,” she replied in a firm but slightly over-loud voice, as she tried to regain her authority, straightening an already tidy locker and glaring at his chart. “I can see you’re a dangerous man, even when you’re stuck in a hospital bed. Already you’ve got our nurses in a feeding frenzy. They’re fighting over who will give you a shower tomorrow morning. I’m just grateful I’m on afternoon shift.”

“I can shower myself,” he sat up, his arm and chest muscles flexing restlessly. The inertia of being in a hospital bed was making him long for the freedom to exercise as he pleased, maybe even go to the gym and play a few games of squash.

“No way can you shower on your own. You need to be watched. If you fall you’d be in real trouble, and so would we.”

“Watched! That’s just great.” Quin’s brow darkened with frustration then a small feral grin appeared on his mouth. “After they’ve watched me take a shower I can take a turn and watch them. It’s only fair.”

“Sorry,” she sang. “This is purely a one-way street. We get to watch. You get to be the victim. That’s the way it goes around here. And guess what? We like it that way.” Confident once more, she grinned as his scowl reappeared.

“It’s being stuck in here that’s eating me. And,” he gave her a sulphurous look, “I hate being treated like a snotty nosed kid.”

“You don’t look like one, and that’s half the problem,” she returned dryly as her eyes roved over his smooth tanned skin and firmly muscled chest, the width of his shoulders, which could never be mistaken for that of a boy, and the thick waves of seal brown hair curling down to his shoulders. His face was classically handsome, with just a touch of decadence around the eyes and mouth to make it irresistible.

“You’re a man, that’s a basic fact of life, but if you think we treat you like a kid then all you have to do is follow the rules and behave like a grown up. Cooperate and your life will be an easy ride, buck the system and your stay will be rough.”

“I can get dressed and get out of your hair right now. That would suit me just fine.” He made to get out of bed and she pushed him back with a firm hand, tucking the sheets in around him tightly as if he were a fractious child.

“You know you can’t do that,” she glared, briskly pushing a pile of pillows into a wedge behind his back. “You’ve got a severe concussion. The hospital won’t be responsible if you leave before being released officially. Anyway, you’ve got test results due. We’ll see what your doctor says tomorrow morning.”

She pulled the curtains open and once more he lay in a ward with three other men, none of whom were in any condition to provide coherent conversation. No question about it, this hospital was boring the hell out of him.

“Perhaps now you’d like a drink?” the nurse asked from the doorway.

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