Luke's Luck (Life with the Engelhards Book 3) by Shiloh Hollis

Author:Shiloh, Hollis [Shiloh, Hollis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spare Words Press
Published: 2016-02-15T08:00:00+00:00

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The next few weeks, time passed in strange ways.

It felt like molasses sometimes, a blink of an eye in others. I was all turned around about day and night. Sometimes I was alone when I awoke, but usually there was someone there: Jude, or Alfie, or a serious-looking doctor with an impressive moustache and grave manners.

It scared me, the way he looked at me as if I were an example of a bad life poorly lived, soon not to be even left as a warning to others. Perhaps it was his eyebrows. They were massive.

Sometimes Jude was there, with his competent, intense healing face on as he touched me lightly, fingers running down trigger points of my body, touching lightly. I couldn't feel what he was doing, but Jude's magic was for healing. He was doing good things. If he saw I was awake, he smiled at me, a brilliant, sweet smile that he tried not to let become sad. Occasionally we spoke, but usually I was too tired. I just lay there and watched him.

They gave me water, food when I could stomach it (though this was usually broth). They let me sleep as much as I wanted. I wanted to — or rather, my body did. It was frustrating, because I knew I should be able to sit up, spring to my feet, or roll out of bed and crawl downstairs, at the very least. Even at my drunkest, or most injured and exhausted, I could've managed that. But now I couldn't. It was too hard to even roll over. I had to ask for help. I needed help so I could pee in a bedpan. It was weird.

Mostly, though, it was Alphonse I saw when I woke up. I was surprised how often he was there, sitting on the bed reading from one of his big fat volumes, staying close, aware of me, glancing over once in a while with a worried look on his face.

When he saw I was awake, he'd always smile — always — and put his book away and speak to me gently, asking if I needed anything, greeting me, calling me a lazybones and a slowpoke, but in the most affectionately teasing voice I'd ever heard from him. It was impossible to take offense.

His hands were very gentle as he gave me water, then stroked my sweaty hair back. "Do you need anything?" he'd ask.

Sometimes I did; sometimes I didn't. But always what I needed most I seemed to already have. He was there with me. I was so very grateful.

After about a week (or so they told me; I had no concept of how much time had passed), I was strong enough to sit up, eat a little, go to the bathroom on my own, and complain loudly and angrily.

Everything pissed me off. I was furious at my body for not working, and at those who'd hurt me apparently without me even feeling it. It made me feel dumb as well as useless.

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