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My smile fades.
No, Saige. That man is gone. Probably forever. You walked away once for a reason.
More light streams in, making my dry eyes itch.
The door creaks open. I snap my gaze toward it, my body tensing beneath the scratchy covers and a mattress so thin that I struggle to believe anyone could have a decent night’s sleep unless they had nice strong drugs to knock them out.
A bright-eyed woman in her early twenties, wearing pink scrubs and her honey-blonde hair in a braid, smiles at me from the doorway. “Good morning. I’m Nurse Olivia. I’m just starting my shift, so I wanted to do a quick check on my patients. Sorry if I woke you.”
I twist my lips into something I hope resembles a smile. “You didn’t wake me.”
She edges in the doorway, her brow furrowed in concern. “You don’t look like you slept at all.”
“Oh, my ribs…” Once again I let my voice trail off and let her fill in the rest.
Her frown deepens. “Let me go find a doctor and—”
And have my pain meds increased so I’m too out of it to focus? No.
I shake my head. “It isn’t that bad. I think I just rolled onto it at night. I’m okay.”
She doesn’t believe me. At least not completely. But she backs out of the room. “Well, try to sleep a little more, and I’ll be back to check on you later, okay?”
I nod. “Okay.”
But I don’t sleep once she’s left. I spend the next several minutes planning out all the things I’m going to need to do to get out of this hospital.
* * *
My ribs scream at me as I ease myself off the edge of the bed. My toes make the barest contact with the floor, but I don’t go further than that. I can’t bring myself to do that just yet.
I’m taking a breath when the sensation of being watched makes me jerk my head toward my doorway.
Olivia left my door open when she checked on me after breakfast, something I was desperate to tell her not to do. But if I’d told her that, she’d want to know why, and there are some questions I never intend to answer.
A dark-haired man with blue-green eyes and a scruffy, careless sort of sexiness gazes back at me.Not shifter.He doesn’t have that feral look in his eye I’ve learned shifters have. If a girl was interested in falling into bed with a guy who looks like the hot European doctor you’d find on some TV show, they wouldn’t say no to this guy.
I’m not that girl.
But that doesn’t stop me from wondering for the first time since I opened my eyes what a girl must look like after being dragged from the river and lying unconscious in a hospital bed for a week.
He must be a doctor or a surgeon going by the navy scrubs he’s wearing. There’s something a little too commanding in his gaze for him to be a nurse.
“Hi,” he says, his accent all American with a drawl to go along with the lazy smile in his eyes. Probably a surfer when he was in college. Or a stoner.
Not knowing what to say in case he takes it as an invitation to come closer, I say nothing.
His lips quirk into a wider smile. “Shy, huh?”
I frown. “I’d like you to leave.” It’s rude, I know. But if he’s a doctor or a surgeon—whatever he is—I’m a patient here, so he has to leave if I tell him to. Or I can scream.
But he doesn’t leave. His gaze sweeps me from head to toe. “Simon said you were in pretty bad shape, but back on your feet already?” His gaze lingers on my throat. “Impressive.”
I don’t like the attention he’s paying the bites on my neck. To a human, they would look like an out-of-control dog or a coyote had savaged me, if you even find coyotes in big cities. A shifter would know they were looking at multiple failed attempts to turn me. The way this guy’s looking at my throat is as if he knows what they mean.
But he’s human.
I’m sure of it.
