AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh no. Had her injuries caused her to be deaf?Please, God. Please don’t add that to her ailments.
Tentatively, she wrapped her fingers around his and barely squeezed.
He seemed to release a breath at the same time I did.
“On a scale of one to ten, what is your pain? One is hardly any. Ten is unbearable. When I say the number, squeeze my finger.”
He rattled off numbers, back to his in-control voice.
At nine, she squeezed.
Oh, sweetheart. I hate you’re in so much pain.
Dr. Ellis made a noncommittal noise. “We’re going to do the same thing so you can tell me where your pain is most acute. When I say where it hurts, you squeeze my finger.”
He went through a laundry list of body parts. She squeezed after every word.
Dr. Ellis’s jaw tightened with each squeeze.
“It’s going to be difficult to stay still, but I need you to try. Can you do that for me?”
She squeezed his finger again.
“Welcome back, Miss Cunningham. I’ll figure out the best regimen to mitigate your pain. But you need to get used to the idea of seeing a lot of me.” He nodded curtly and slid his finger from hers.
I chased him out of the room. “What do you think?”
“What’s her pain tolerance?” he asked as if I hadn’t spoken.
I wracked my brain. She hadn’t sustained too many injuries. Like any child, she’d cried when she had skinned her knees, but it never kept her down long.
“Pretty high.”
He walked back toward what I assumed was his office.
“Why?” I called.
“I have to decide whether to keep her sedated to stop the pain and risk she doesn’t return to consciousness again or to make her suffer through it.”
The words were a gut punch.
“She wouldn’t want to never wake up. Ask her. She’ll tell you.”
“I’ll take that into consideration.”
I saw why Kane didn’t like the man. His bedside manner was not the best . . . except it hadn’t been bad with Penelope.
He simply didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear. Which naturally, I didn’t like.
Kane didn’t like him because he was handsome.
I drew in a long breath. A hurdle was crossed. Penelope was awake.
We just had to figure out how to keep her that way.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
KANE
