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Or wait, had her trip to the ER technically been their first date?
Who was keeping track, anyway.
Boy, Darius was tough, though. He refused all pain medication and just gritted his teeth through what was clearly agony.
And now… the “healer” was packing up his supplies, and speaking to Darius, not that Anne could understand what was being said—
She frowned and looked back and forth between them. It was that language again… that Darius had spoken with the doctor at the ER, that he’d mumbled when he’d stared up at her on the bed.
Shifting her position into a sit once again, she continued to hold Darius’s hand, and tried to take in the words to see if there was anything in them she could understand—and it was then that she realized the doctor had refused to acknowledge her presence in any way.
Physicians had crap bedside manners, didn’t they.
Fortunately, the man departed shortly thereafter. In the aftermath, everybody who was left just stared at Darius.
“With all those bandages, you look like someone quilted you,” the bodyguard with the icy eyes announced as he lit up yet another cigarette.
He had gone through quite a number of them, which suggested that, gruff exterior aside, he had not been unaffected by Darius’s suffering. The good news, she supposed, was that the smoking had given the butler a job, something that the older gentleman had seemed grateful for. Fritz had literally stood at the man’s elbow with an ashtray in his palms, becoming nothing more than a stand for the thing. It had worked for the both of them, however, the soldier and the butler, side by side, as if they’d known each other for a century.
“Thanks, Laura Ashley,” Darius muttered to his friend. “Now give us a help up, so that I can get her to her feet.”
The gloved hand was extended and Darius was pulled off the floor.
And that was when Anne noticed properly that he didn’t have his shirt or his jacket on.
Good… Lord. His body was packed with the kind of muscle that Olympic athletes cultivated, everything from his powerful shoulders to his pecs to his ribbed abdomen a display of male beauty and strength.
“Anne?” Darius murmured as he offered his palm to her.
She looked away. Looked back.
Then she clasped what he’d put out and got gently drawn up off the kitchen floor. He asked her something, maybe like “Are you okay?” and she murmured a yes, even though she hadn’t quite tracked the question. Then he was turning to the man in leather.
Darius said something in that dialect, and then there was a pause. For a moment, it looked like the two men were going to embrace, but then they seemed to move past that to shake instead.
“Take care of him,” the other bodyguard said as he inclined his head to her.
Then that was that. He just walked out the door. But what did she expect? A farewell cruise goodbye—à la Love Boat where they all stood on the back stoop and waved hankies at the departure?
“I’d really like to go to bed,” Darius said with exhaustion as he propped himself against the counter.
“Then let’s get you upstairs,” she offered. “Before I go home.”
There was a hesitation. And then he nodded. “All right.”
Abruptly, the butler seemed flustered, but Darius just shook his head. “I think that would be great.” He extended his arm. “Come here so I can lean on you.”
Holy… smokes.
As she fitted herself against him and they started walking, their bodies somehow puzzle-piece’d even though he was so much taller and broader. And wow. His cologne. While they went along, she could smell nothing of the horrible stench from before. Maybe the aftershave was more of an herbal wash that the doctor had used?
Whatever it was, she felt like she was getting drunk off it.
“Boy, he really didn’t like me,” she murmured as they passed through the dining room.
“Who?”
“The doctor.”
Darius looked down at her. “Don’t worry about him. He’s a knob.”
“I take it that is not a compliment.”
“Nope, not in the slightest.”
As they arrived at the foyer and turned to the stairs, her steps faltered, and he stopped along with her. Turning her head, she stared into the parlor—and the hairs on the back of her neck came to attention.
“Are you okay?” he said. “I know this has been a lot.”
Tell him what happened, she thought.
“No, it’s not that. It’s that I…”
Except it was so strange. As she focused on the space in front of the fireplace, she wasn’t sure exactly what she’d seen there. Her recollection of some kind of mysterious figure in black was a distillation that was murky and unclear, and things became foggier and foggier as she tried to remember with greater clarity.
To the point where it was as if her memories were disintegrating.
“Anne?”
She opened her mouth, but wasn’t sure what to say. Wasn’t sure whether she’d seen anything at all. Maybe it had been a dream that had been spliced into reality… and she’d just lost track of time?
