Page 154 of Disgrace

“Johnathan,” the doctor said, “I think the patient could use a bit of water. Three quarters of ice, one quarter of water, please.”

“The nurse—”

“They are all busy at the moment. Siena will be fine for the entire forty seconds it will wake you to walk across the hall to the machine, and fill her a cup of water.”

John looked like he struggled the most just to get up out of that chair. His blazing gaze flitted between the doctor, and Siena momentarily before settling on her. The anger there quickly bled away when she offered him a dry-lipped smile.

Or the best she could give.

“Please?” she asked him.

John nodded, but he didn’t tear his gaze away from her until he was out of the room entirely.

“He’s very protective of you,” the doctor noted, still moving his light.

Siena followed it with her gaze as she had been instructed to do. “He can’t really help it.”

“He scares my nurses sometimes.”

“Yeah, he can’t really help that, either.”

The doctor chuckled low, and clicked the button on the end of his mini-flashlight. The bright light turned off, and then he shoved it into his breast pocket.

“All in all, you’re doing remarkably well. We expected you to wake up within a few hours of your surgery,” he explained, “but maybe your body felt you needed the extra rest, as it’s been twenty-four hours since you came out of the OR.”

Siena almost felt like a sludge hammer had come and beat her right in the chest. “A whole day?”

“Your surgery took about five hours. There was a lung to repair, and a small piece of heart. Once in there, I found fragments from the bullet had embedded into different places. I didn’t want to leave those in, so what should have been three hours turned into five. I suspected six—sometimes we all win.”

Siena coughed, and pain followed all over again. Blinding, aching pain deep in her chest cavity that then spread throughout her entire nervous system. As though it was her body’s way of trying to numb the pain a bit by spreading it out.

Still, it fucking hurt.

She pulled back the hospital gown to see the bandages wrapped around her chest. She suspected there was going to be a mighty scar left behind, but it was only details in the background of far bigger thoughts.

She had survived.

She was alive.

“How long is it going to feel like this?” she asked.

“Hmm, like what, sweetheart?”

“If he doesn’t like it, then you probably shouldn’t call me that.”

The doctor grinned, saying, “You’re probably right.”

“It feels like I am breathing in acid.”

“Ah. Well, until the wound in the lung heals, I imagine. You’re breathing without a respirator, and came out of surgery like that, so it won’t be long. You are young, and healthy. All good things. I suspect you will be discharged in a couple of weeks, and by then, you probably won’t need the bandages. Your nurses will be in twice a day to check the surgery incision, and change the bandages when needed.”

The doctor shrugged, adding, “You were incredibly lucky. Had the bullet been even a couple of millimeters to the left, your heart would have been useless. You’ll need to take it easy for a month or so. No strenuous activity—nothing more than walking from one room to the next.”

That sounded fun.

“I will make sure she rests,” John said from the doorway.

John gave Siena a sexy wink, and crossed the room with a cup of ice water in his hand. The doctor gave her one last order to get some sleep, and keep the excitement to a minimum for the first couple of days, and then he left.