Page 17 of Twins for the Enemy

Chapter thirteen

~FARAH~

The nurse is so petite that when she tries to help me out of the wheelchair and back into my hospital bed, I’m more worried about falling onto her and shattering her bones than falling to the floor.

As I sink onto the lumpy hospital bed, I glance at the nurse’s ID. Kailee. Had she already told me that? The CT scan didn’t show any brain damage, but I’m starting to think I’ve just been too distracted by Kieran’s confusing behavior to register anyone else around me.

“Did Kieran leave?” I ask .

“We tried to convince him to stay in the waiting room,” she says. “But he refused. He’s in the first room we took you to. We’ve had a nurse updating him through your tests. We’re almost finished, and we can bring him back in. I do want to ask you a question before he returns.”

“Okay,” I say. I look down at the ankle brace. Mild sprain. All of this money for an injury that will be fine in a couple of weeks.

“So.” Kailee pulls over a stool, the wheels squeaking against the floor.

“Sometimes, women… well, men and women… will tell us stories about their injuries. They tripped on the stairs. They slipped in the shower. They ran into a wall. Sometimes, those stories aren’t quite true.

I want to ask you if your story is true. ”

I point down to my ankle. “You know I’m not lying. You’re the ones who told me it was sprained.”

“Oh, no, we don’t think you’re faking an injury,” she assures me. “We just want to ask you… if you feel unsafe around your husband. ”

“Unsafe?” I ask. “What? I’m—are you asking me if he’s abusing me?”

“We ask to be safe,” she says, so much earnestness on her face that I almost feel bad for lying to her about being Kieran’s wife. It’s almost funny that she thinks I’m lying about my injury when I’m lying about everything except that.

But is it a lie?

I am a captive. This could be my escape. I could get Kieran questioned by the police and slip away. It would give me at least a couple of hours of a head start. I could return to the mansion and steal and sell what I need to survive.

He’d still be able to track me down. I still don’t know how he did it the first time.

But even if he couldn’t, some part of me is still a prisoner to him. Not always in an unpleasant or undesired way.

“No.” I force a laugh out. “I appreciate your concern, but it’s all true. My husband shoveled out a path for me so I could watch this deer that visits our yard. I went racing back to our house, and I slipped. It’s humiliating, but nobody committed a crime.”

Her eyes search my face for a second longer before she smiles and pops off the stool.

“Well, I’m so glad that’s the case,” she says. “You can change back into your clothes. I’ll get your husband.”

After she leaves, closing the door, I pull my clothes onto my lap.

With my hand wrapped around the sweatpants and shirt that Kieran gave me, I remember the feeling of Kieran’s hand holding onto mine.

It isn’t like they say in those paperback romances, where our hands fit perfectly.

His hand is disproportionately larger than mine and much rougher, probably from rock climbing and woodworking.

We’re a contradiction, but when he held onto me, I felt safe.

It’s terrifying because I know now that I’d never felt safe before.

And if I consider this safety, what the hell is wrong with me ?

As I unfold my pants from the top of my pile, my shirt falls off the top. I look down at it from the height of the hospital bed. For someone who prides themselves on being self-sufficient, this sprain is going to be the death of me.

I lean my weight on my elbow as I lower myself to the floor, snatching my shirt back up.

Getting back on the bed is going to be a much more complicated process that could involve a humiliating number of injuries, so I reach my hand up to pull down the rest of my clothes and sit on the floor like I’m a toddler who hasn’t quite conquered getting dressed.

I undo the lazy bow on my hospital gown that keeps me from flashing the whole hospital. I try to pull my arm out, but I’m sitting on part of the gown, so my arm becomes trapped halfway in and halfway out of the sleeve.

I wonder if anyone has ever written a Cinderella story where Cinderella leaves a grippy sock behind at the hospital for the prince to match to her feet. After all, who couldn’t fall in love with a woman struggling to get off a piece of clothing that’s less than a potato sack?

The door swings open. Kieran slips in, infuriatingly graceful for such a towering man.

He appears more disheveled than I’ve ever seen him—his hair sticking in different directions, shadows under his eyes, and a fidgety energy to him.

But then I remember what I look like—a t-rex arm, dangling uselessly in a half-opened hospital gown—and I concede that he looks like Prince Charming. He’s just one who isn’t looking for a match to a hospital sock.

I expect a raised eyebrow and a sarcastic comment, but surprise and concern flood his features and he quickly strides over, kneeling down beside me.

A vague memory of him doing the same thing after I fell threatens to make me feel affection toward him.

“Did you fall?” he asks, his hand touching my arm that isn’t in a sleeve-related crisis .

“No, unfortunately, this was on purpose,” I sigh, flapping my trapped arm. “Don’t worry. I’m a professional at screw-ups. It makes me good at improvisation.”

“Is this you being good at improvisation?”

“I was just taking a breather.” I shrug, which only further shows how trapped my arm is. “Even the pros need a break once in a while.”

“You turned your hospital gown into a straitjacket. It’s fitting.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in the psych ward,” I say. “But I’m not surprised that you’re familiar with them.”

“Just let me help you.”

He offers me his hand, noble enough to offer it to my liberated hand. I reluctantly take it.

He pulls me up to my feet. As we’re face-to-face, he drapes my hand on his shoulder so I can steady myself. The back of the gown flutters open.

His hands brush dirt off the back of my thighs. My heart catches in my chest, but before I can think too much about it, he’s yanking the sleeve off of my trapped arm, letting the gown drop.

It’s dangling from my other shoulder now, but I’m still pressed against him, naked except for my underwear.

It’s cold in the room and I should feel exposed, but I don’t.

It’s that same sense of safety I’ve always felt around him, but there’s also a sense of taking all of the bad in my life and turning it into dust.

His arm grazes down my body as he leans down to grab my clothes. My hand moves up his arm to his shoulder to maintain my balance. As he stands back up, his arm finds its way back around my waist, as if a gravitational pull exists between us.

Our heads bow close to each other as he helps me to get one leg through the sweatpants. I lean against his chest while he widens the hole of the leg opening for the other side, getting it past the ankle brace. He has this newer spicy, warm fragrance on top of his usual earthy scent .

I could imagine he’d started wearing something scented for me, but that would be a dangerous road to go down.

He pulls the pants up to my waist, letting the elastic band give the smallest snap against my hips.

When I look at him, his eyes are filled with a burning desire that makes it hard to look at and even harder to look away.

How did I let it get to this point?

“The babies are fine,” I breathe.

“The doctor told me.”

“And I’ll find a way to repay you for all of this,” I say. “I know it couldn’t be cheap.”

“I’d consider it an insult if you did.”

I tilt my head toward him, but he ignores it, gathering my bra and helping to pull my arms through it. He clasps it as I lean against the bed.

It leads me to thoughts that I shouldn’t have. The bed frame isn’t fortified enough for the fantasies flitting through my mind.

I need to snap out of it. Think of something sad. Tragic. It shouldn’t be so difficult in a hospital.

“So, you made a large enough donation that they named the trauma center after you,” I mention. “Did you lose someone… from that?”

I remember the name Olivia. I remember the name Robert Young, a name that causes him so much rage it could form a blade or a bullet.

“My sister,” he says. “Olivia. She died in a car accident.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say. “Did you—that must have been horrible.”

“It was.”

He pulls my shirt—his shirt—over my head.

“Is that why you were so nice to me after my car crash?” I ask.

“Olivia did cross my mind,” he says. “Until I saw you. I wasn’t thinking much about my sister after that. You were overwhelmingly vulnerable and needed help, but you look nothing like Olivia.”

He rearranges some of my hair that got messed up as he dressed me.

“You’re something new,” he says. And I feel like it for the first time.

Kieran drives, one hand on the wheel, leaning back into the driver’s seat—but not like the college boys where they’re trying to prove how relaxed they are. It’s very natural to him. To an almost concerning level, especially when he hasn’t said a word since we left the hospital.

I hadn’t realized we’d been in the hospital so long. Night has crawled through the roads, giving Chicago the appearance of a moody nightclub .

I should thank him for being with me in the hospital that long, especially when the hospital seemed to be a place that he’s repelled by.

But words seem redundant at this point.

At night, downtown Chicago has the same lit-up traffic signs, streetlights, and illuminated skyscraper offices as every other city, but it’s also darker than other cities.

At least, from what I’ve seen in photos and the movies.

It should make everything seem more threatening or depressing, but I prefer it.

It makes the colored lighting more vibrant and the skyscrapers appear darker, which causes the bright office windows to look more like levitating rooms. It makes you wonder what the person inside is doing—hustling to impress his boss?

Rereading her notes for the meeting in the morning?

Loosening his tie for the secretary as her dress pools at her feet?

I’ve missed Chicago. At first, I preferred being in the small town without the constant noise of cars, honking, and sirens.

I loved how much easier it was to walk around without worrying about all of the strangers on the sidewalk, but some part of me is always here.

Some part of me needs the tension and the darkness.

I just don’t know if I can stay. Because of the police. Because of the man driving me and the way he divides me into several contrasting people, who are feeling more and more like they’re all the genuine version of me.

As I see the red brake lights ahead and police lights flashing, I sink lower into my seat. It’s unlikely the police would be looking inside cars for an arson case from two and a half months ago, but I’m not going to risk it.

But Kieran turns before we reach that point. I let out a slow breath, sitting up again.

“Aren’t we going in the opposite direction from your house now?” I ask.

“We are.”

He doesn’t expand, and I don’t feel the need to make him. There are fewer cars this way. It’s a little more time that I have with him, where neither of us can find an excuse to leave.

I close my eyes. If he’s going the long way back home, I might as well rest.

The rhythm of the car lulls me. I hadn’t noticed Kieran putting the heated seat on, but I feel it spreading across my back, melting me further into rest.

When the car coasts to a stop, I open my eyes. I must have fallen asleep because we’re in the middle of an enchanted realm that blends a natural utopia with an aurora borealis of fairy lights.

A large fountain with water jetting upward has lights that make the water visibly blue even in the dark.

A man-made waterfall behind it has scattered white lights that glint on and off like fireflies.

A large tree casts a shadow over the fountain and waterfall, with streams of lights dripping from its branches.

Further to the left, a small pond has glowing lights inside it, which fade in and out, making it look like waves are swaying back and forth inside it.

A walkway that starts at the parking lot spirals around the tree and circles around the lake.

Small lights in different shades of blue are inserted inside the walkway, giving it an appearance like a river.

It’s so mesmerizing that it takes a minute for my eyes to land on the sign—Astasio Botanical Garden. Not quite the fairy world, but it feels close enough.

“I’ve never been here,” I admit.

“It’s a bit tucked away. I don’t think the people who know about it want the tourists here,” he says.

“Are you one of those people?”

“It’s not my kind of thing. But I thought that you’d like it.”

“I do.”

He’s gazing at me for so long, I have to look back at him.

“We need to keep our relationship strictly platonic,” he says. “We can’t keep blurring that line.”

I focus on the lights in the pond, watching the illusion of waves. “I know.”

“It’s my fault that we haven’t been, but we need to deal with this logically,” he says. “It will never work out. We’ll never get along, and it’ll be confusing for the twins.”

Maybe the lights are too much. Maybe when nighttime comes, we should accept it and not try to create light where there isn’t any.

“I agree,” I say.

“Good.” He grips the steering wheel, glancing over at me. “Does your foot hurt? That looks uncomfortable.”

I look down at my foot. I must have turned it in my sleep. It’s now angled inward like I’m pigeon-toed.

“It’s fine,” I say. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“It’s not a short ride back home,” he says. “You don’t want to be uncomfortable the whole time. ”

He reaches across my lap, his hand cradling under my calf as he moves my foot back to where he’d put it before.

The touch is tinder for the fire in my veins.

As he sits back up, I grab his arm. He looks up at me.

My hands cradle his face. I press my mouth against his, urgent and riddled with anxiety.

It’s not Chicago that I was homesick for.

He’s the contrast between familiar and exhilarating.

He’s the darkness and vivid colors I missed.