Page 72 of Love Bound
I try to pull away from him, but he keeps that big, warm hand over my mouth so I have to breathe through my nose. But it's hard, and I feel like I'm suffocating. I struggle, but he keeps his grip and slowly the room stops spinning. My breathing straightens out and he peels his hand away from my face. My lip throbs.
"Do you feel sick?" He's facing me, head dipped.
My "no" sounds weak and far away. I wrap my arms around his neck, exhausted.
Slowly he stands, swooping me up at the same time, and carries me to my bed.
***
The red digits on the alarms blaze seven twenty-five am. A full twelve hours. Maybe more. In the first few seconds of waking, I am not thinking of Steven Miller, Allison, Finn, or the car accident. I think only of Salty, then Huggins—the cat I saw yesterday—and then my memory unfolds like a flipbook in exquisite detail.
There's a drilling sensation behind my eyes.
"Finn?" I say sitting up, the gauze bandages on my legs pulling slightly.
"I'm here," he calls from the front room. But I can hear him move down the hall, and he arrives with another tall glass of water.
"Let me pee first," I say, eyeing the water glass warily.
He sets it down on the nightstand.
When I step out I can smell coffee in the kitchen and I realize how hungry I am. Finn's beating eggs and I wander out to sit at the table while he cooks. I notice the blinds are down in the back of the living room and know he's done this on purpose. Steven Miller could be out there, with his binoculars.
"This is for you," he says and slides a cheese omelet on a plate. He sets it down in front of me, but my appetite has evaporated. "You need to eat," he says, but I see there are no dirty dishes in the sink. No second plate of food.
I dutifully eat half the omelet and push the plate away. What I really want right now is coffee.
Somehow, just pouring a cup of coffee and splashing in some cream seems to return a sense of normalcy to the world and I feel like I really am home, not in some fish tank with a creepy guy watching us.
When Finn looks at me, his face is set against all the injustices of the world, and though his mouth is hard, his eyes are soft. "I promise you, Claire Russo, I will do everything I can to make sure nothing happens to you."
I move to reach up and cup his face in my hands when someone pounds on the door downstairs. Not the side door. The front door to the clinic.
Finn moves to the wall opposite the kitchen windows and peeks outside. Blue and red lights flash in staccato against the thin blinds.
"Wait here," is all he says before he nearly leaps down the stairs.
My whole body starts shaking and I have to sit down. Voices rise in the stairwell—Finn's and another man's, someone I don’t recognize.
They talk for a long time. Normally, I'd trot myself down the stairs, introduce myself, and ask what this is all about. But every muscle hurts right now and I’m so stiff I'm not sure I could get down the stairs. My jaw starts to throb.
After ten minutes or so, the door closes and Finn reappears. His face is a total mask. Running a hand through his hair, he sets an envelope on the coffee table.
"Who was that? Not one of our local guys."
Finn shakes his head, an almost imperceptible movement. "I need to go away for a few days," he says.
"What? I thought you said he's here."
"Steven Miller is only here Friday through Tuesday or so. Then he's back in Boston. That car he hit you with was stolen. Do you think you could pick him up out of a lineup?"
I nod. "Absolutely. I got that picture Nic sent."
He sits down next to me on the sofa and shakes his head again. "Miller's counting on you having a picture. No. I mean in the car. Could you ID him as the driver that ran you off the road?"
My stomach twists again. There’s no way I got that good of a look at the man in the car. I was too busy trying to stay on the highway. I can feel tears start, stinging hot and hard, and I feel like a baby.
He pulls me close to him, rubs my back. "It’s fine. It's not your fault. He's an asshole who needs to be stopped."
