AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I did,” a woman answered. “What happened?”
“Call again. Make sure they know we need an ambulance.”
Beth had never felt pain like this. It was all she could do to keep herself from whimpering. “Arm,” she whispered.
At his tentative touch, she cried out.
“You’re bleeding.”
Was she?
He dropped to his knees beside her and talked to her, telling her she’d be fine, he’d broken a leg once and it hurt like hell but once it was casted, it quit hurting. She could have people sign her cast, he told her.
She realized at some point that she was gripping his hand, and then that he was the guy who played his music too loud but right now was being so kind she’d never mind again.
A patrol car reached them first, and she told the officer she’d been assaulted by a man swinging a baseball bat. “He ran away. That way.” She managed to point. “Tell Detective Navarro. Just here.”
He went to his car and talked on his radio. An ambulance finally pulled up. She must have passed out when the two EMTs lifted her onto a gurney because the next thing she knew, she was being unloaded at the hospital.
Someone asked who they could call for her. She wanted Tony, but what if his sister had collapsed? Besides, they’d be contacting him anyway. She gave them Matt’s name and phone number, then endured as a nurse washed grit from her raw hands and knees with a stinging solution.
No, she had no known allergies to medications.
At last the doctor gave her a shot that didn’t kill the pain but made it seem so distant, it might not be hers. Now drifting, she closed her eyes.
* * *
THE FLICKER OF light he saw through the front blinds didn’t soothe Tony’s worry. When her husband wasn’t home, Eloisa kept the TV on all the time.
“I don’t feel so alone,” she’d told Tony.
Guilt took a bite as he hammered on the door. He should have stopped by a couple times in the past two days, made sure she was all right. He knew Eloisa never told Carlos about her fears.
“He has to work,” she said. “He deserves to go out with his friends sometimes.” Seeing Tony’s expression, she shook her head. “Carlos is a good man.”
He’d seemed okay to Tony, but he knew that if he had a wife, he wouldn’t like finding out she’d been hiding something like this from him.
This was her second pregnancy, and she’d suffered in the first four months of the first as much as she was this time. He hoped they had the sense to limit the size of their family, Catholic edicts or not.
Swearing, he started down the porch steps. He’d go around back, look in the slider before he broke a window to go in—
The door opened behind him. “Tony? Is that you?” his sister said timidly.
He swung around. “Why the hell didn’t you answer the door sooner? You scared the shit out of me!”
“I was asleep!” she exclaimed, indignant. “Why are you here?”
Yeah, she was dressed, but barefoot, and her hair was sticking out in strange ways. A petite woman like their mother, Eloisa looked frail now, only a small bump showing her pregnancy. At four months, he thought, she should be ripening, not losing what muscle and fat usually padded her slight body.
“Because you haven’t been answering your phone, and Mamá was worried.”
“I love you all, but sometimes I hate being babied.” She backed up. “Come in.”
Finally able to smile, he ruffled her hair on the way in.
She snorted and stomped to the kitchen. “I suppose you want coffee.”
No, he wanted to go back to Beth’s and slide into bed with her. Except he didn’t have another condom, he reminded himself, before looking speculatively at his sister. Did she and Carlos ever use them? Might he find some in the bathroom?
Forget it. He could make a quick stop at a convenience store.
Uneasiness stirred. It would be smarter to go home. If he went to Beth’s, he might fall asleep after making love with her again. Stay the night, which could give her the wrong impression.
“Jaime asleep?” he asked his sister.
“Of course he is.” She planted a hand on her hip and glared at him. “You think I take naps while my little boy gets into trouble?”
