He carries me into the kitchen, where fewer people remain. I look at the clock and see it’s after ten o’clock. Talk about overstaying my welcome.
“Dad, I’m gonna borrow your truck. I’m taking Mikayla to the clinic,” Caine says.
My brain is in a fog as I look around. I feel both weighed down and as though I’m floating, which makes no sense. I begin to wonder if maybe the fever is making me a bit delirious. Maybe I’d imagined the Cody look-alike and his angry glare. I don’t see him now.
“I’ll make you and Kyle a plate for dinner and bring it to the clinic,” a beautiful woman with chestnut-colored hair says. She’s so regal. Her posture is perfect, and she has the kindest green eyes.
I could picture wings extending from her body and her flying around like a fairy. That’s what she looks like, a fairy.
“Aren’t you just the sweetest thing,” she says with a kind smile and soft hand on my cheek.
I don’t know why she says that, but her cool touch is soothing. I close my eyes. I begin to shiver. I can’t decide if I’m hot or cold, so I burrow into Caine’s chest, searching for his warmth ashe places me in the front seat of a huge truck.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” the fairy says before Caine shuts the door.
Once again, I drift to sleep, but now with the image of a pretty fairy fluttering around me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Caine
It takes all of ten minutes to get to Kyle’s clinic, but to me, it felt like ten hours. Every uncomfortable moan, shiver, and shudder has me on edge.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Hot then cold, back and forth as she throws the blanket off and reaches for it not a minute later.
My hands shake as I drive. A shudder passes through me like a lightning bolt, straightto my gut. Never have I ever felt such fear.
When she fainted in my arms, my legs began to tremble. I kept saying her name, over and over, but she lay limp in my arms. My chest ached in a way it never had before. Fear and the knowledge that there was nothing I could do—it almost paralyzed me. My father had to direct me to the den. I just stood there, my legs buckling.
Ashen, basically gray was the color of her skin. And dry, so dry. How had I not noticed? I’m so in-tune with her body in some respects, yet when she was ill, I completely missed the signs. I thought she was just tired. Hell, I was tired. I am tired.
Seeing her throw up, knowing she hadn’t eaten—that was another level of Hell because there was nothing I could do. She was in pain, and I couldn’t stop it.
I carry her into the back room where Kyle is waiting. He has a small setup with a hospital bed, an IV and a blood pressure cuff. The place really is like a tiny hospital, except he can’t do major surgeries, no room for that.
I lie Mikayla down on the hospital bed and watch as my friend washes his hands, pulls on gloves and places a needle on a table to begin an IV in her arm.
He runs his hands over her abdomen, but other than looking uncomfortable, Mikayla doesn’t make a peep; she doesn’t even stir or wake up.
“I’m gonna push fluids and give her a dose of acetaminophen for the fever,” Kyle says. “I’m gonna give her ibuprofen in about fourhours. If you want to help, getting her undressed and giving her a cool sponge bath can help reduce the fever too.”
I nod. “Can you leave the room so I can undress her?”
“Caine…” my friend says, then rolls his eyes. “Fine, hurry up and let me know so I can start the IV.”
When Kyle leaves the room, I sit beside Mikayla and pull her dress up. My heart hurts at the heat of her skin. She’s so hot it’s alarming.
I realize Kyle thinks I’m being unreasonable but, fuck if I’m gonna let him see Mikayla half naked. I will be here and do the things necessary to keep his eyes off her. He may be a doctor, but I know attraction when I see it. Granted, he’d never act on it beyond his asshole-ish behavior yesterday, but I’m not feeding whatever fantasy he may have about my girlfriend’s body. Her perfection is for me and me alone.
I pull the dress over her head, and she stirs, opening her eyes at me.
“You look like Ares, the god of war,” she whispers. “Are you here to take me away?” she asks, her eyes fill as she blinks back her tears.
“No, sweetheart, I’m here to take care of you,” I tell her, tucking a fiery tendril behind her ear.
“You look like my boyfriend,” she says. “He’s a Greek god,” she whispers. “But don’t tell him.”
I smile. I can’t say that doesn’t boost my ego about twenty feet into the air.
