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tanding at the side of the room, Chaya watched as Ethan hung the IV he’d attached to Angel’s arm on the metal pole Duke had hastily screwed together and attached to the headboard of the bed.
He’d cut the stitches free on her leg, cleaned the wound, packed it with an antibiotic he’d picked up from the hospital, covered it with that noxious-smelling salve Memmie Mary made, then secured gauze over it rather than a bandage. The arm he did the same to, just to be safe, he’d stated, though the puncture from a sharp branch couldn’t possibly cause the same reaction as the chemical that had been on that knife. That chemical was the cause of the infection, but the penicillin he’d used because the severity of the wound had been deemed minimal didn’t work well with Angel’s system.
It wasn’t just the wounds that had Chaya fighting her tears, though. It was his comment that the leg was going to have a hell of a scar to add to her collection. When Ethan finished she moved closer to her daughter, gazed down at her smaller, more delicate body, and felt her breath hitch.
The tank top had ridden up just enough to reveal the scar on her side from a bullet she’d taken the year before. Duke had shown her the scar higher up where Angel had taken another knife. A knife had pierced her lung a few years prior, and that scar, too, showed clearly on her other side.
There were small scars, a few larger, on both legs. She’d taken a bullet in her right arm at some point, and there was a scar from a knife just beneath her jaw that looked at least a decade old.
“She has more war wounds than you do,” she whispered, lifting her head to gaze at Natches where he remained next to the patio doors with Dawg and Rowdy.
“Let me pull the sheet over her and he can come over with you,” Duke murmured, dragging the fabric over Angel’s tanned legs to above her waist. “She doesn’t like anyone seeing those scars.”
“Badges of courage,” Chaya whispered as Natches came behind her, his hands settling on her shoulders before he pulled her against his chest.
“The chemical on that knife is a habit that gang uses. We weren’t aware of it until Doc Marlin called.” Ethan breathed out roughly. “When the tests came back he asked where it happened. When I told him he pulled the information for me while I was on my way to him. The infection comes on slow and unless it’s treated correctly will keep coming back, stronger than before. He’s pretty sure this will clear it up, though.”
“She should be in a hospital,” Chaya whispered.
“We take her to a hospital and she’ll slice and dice every one of us when she comes out,” Ethan grunted. “We tried that once in Texas. The rescue of a little girl being held by cartel members there. She has a pretty little scar on her head where a bullet winged her, scared Duke to hell and back. He forced Tracker to call the paramedics. When she woke, she disappeared on all of us for months and swore she’d kill us the next time we put her in one of those germ labs, as she called them.”
“Can I stay with her for a while?” Chaya turned her gaze to Duke. “I know the others wanted you with them when they went over the information they’ve pulled in. Bliss and I could stay with her.”
She needed to stay with her. She needed, at least this one time, to comfort the baby that had been taken from her. To cry over her. To tell her how very much she loved her without the suspicion and pain that filled Angel’s gaze at any other time.
She saw the indecision in Duke’s face, his need to be with her as well.
“You can leave the door between the suite and the kitchen open. When she wakes”—she swallowed tightly—“she’ll be defensive again and won’t want me with her. I need this, Duke. And so does Bliss.”
His lips tightened, but he finally gave a brief nod of his head.
“She gets pissed, you take the blame,” he grunted. “She gets damned prickly over things that happen when Ethan has to knock her out.”
Wrapping her arms around herself, Chaya looked down at her daughter then back to Duke.
“Why knock her out? He could have just given her something for the pain.” As many scars as that child had she couldn’t be pain-phobic.
“Pain meds alone make her dopey, then she gets phobic,” Ethan stated, checking Angel’s blood pressure on the other arm. “She completely freaked out on me once, thought she was a kid again, trapped in that hotel. We had to hold her down and all of us swore we never would again.”
The memory was obviously one that neither Duke nor Ethan were comfortable with.
“I’ll be right outside the door,” Duke told her. “You need me or Ethan, send Bliss.”
Chaya nodded. When Natches released her to follow Duke and Ethan from the room, she sat on the side of the bed, touched her daughter’s still hand, and wiped away another tear.
God help her. How could she possibly fix this?
EIGHTEEN
Chaya glanced at the doorway as Duke entered the bedroom on the tail end of the ridiculous story she’d been telling Angel. One she used to make up for her daughter all those years ago.
Binny’s Adventures in BeeBee’s World.
“Binny was her teddy bear,” she told Duke, seeing his thoughtful expression. “God, she loved that damned bear. Dragged it everywhere. He would get so filthy.” She laughed softly. “I finally became desperate to keep from washing him so often. I sewed straps to his back and shoulders so she could carry him like a backpack. The damned thing was almost bigger than her.” She grinned. “Then she had to have a pocket in his tummy so she could store her treasures, as she called them.”
