A moment later, the doctor cleared his throat and looked serious again so Sierra brought her eyes up from the floor to focus on his kind features once again. “He’s in recovery now and the medicine we used to induce the coma will be wearing off pretty soon. He’ll be moved to the intensive care unit and I can’t say how long it will take before he recovers enough to be moved to a regular room, much less to be released.” He looked sad as he said, “This could be a long, painful and expensive ordeal ahead for your brother.”
“Don’t worry about payment. I’ll make sure everything is taken care of. Just make sure he’s not in any pain. Please!” Sierra cried, relieved that he was still alive. She’d take it one day at a time. “When can I see him?” she asked, not sure if the beaten man even wanted to see her but she could peek at him while he was unconscious, just to make sure he was really okay.
The doctor smiled, blushing slightly when Sierra smiled back at him. Embarrassed at his reaction since he was a fifty year old man and this woman couldn’t be older than twenty, he admonished himself and reminded himself of his mission at the moment. Besides, she was probably younger than twenty by the kind, innocent look about her.
As the doctor glanced around, he noticed several other men in the waiting room were having the same problem and he instinctively wanted to put a protective wall around this girl-child, to guard her against their lascivious thoughts. He hated the way several of the men were glancing in her direction, some of them actually staring with adoration.
In answer to her question, he said, “He’ll be brought to the ICU as soon as the nurses in the recovery room think that he is well enough to endure the change. Once he’s set up, the nurses will allow you to talk to him. Whatever you say, be positive, talk to him, let him hear your voice so he knows that his family is around him, reassure him that everything is going to be okay and tell him stories of his past or about your other brothers and sisters. We don’t know all that happens with the brain, but we know that he will hear your voice and recognize what you’re telling him.”
“Yes!” she gasped, excited about the doctor’s prognosis and eager to help in any way possible. “I’ll go down there right now.”
She was grabbing her purse as the doctor walked wearily down the hallway when one of the nurses stopped her. “Miss?” she called out.
Sierra stopped hurrying, trying to smile but she was too tired at this point, and too relieved. All she wanted to do was to see this stranger and make sure that her father hadn’t damaged him too much. “Yes?” she asked.
“I’m sorry to bring this up at this point, but we need your brother’s insurance information,” the nurse said, handing the forms on a clipboard to Sierra.
Sierra had no idea if the man had health insurance or not, but she wasn’t going to impose the expense of her father’s brutality on the man’s financial woes. Pulling out her wallet, she slipped a credit card out of the slot. “Here, use this for any expenses,” she said, knowing that her father hadn’t put any limit on this credit card. It would serve him right to pay for the recovery of the man he’d beaten. “Don’t spare any expense to help this man get better,” Sierra urged the nurse who was looking back at her with a surprised expression.
“But don’t you want…” she started to say, only to stop when Sierra shook her head adamantly.
“No. All expenses should go on that card. If the card won’t cover it, contact me immediately and I’ll make sure everything is paid for,” she said, writing down her contact information. She would sell the jewelry her father had given her over the years in order to pay the man’s hospital expenses if the credit card wouldn’t cover all the costs.
With that, Sierra walked away, furious with her father and shaking with anticipation at seeing the stranger she’d never actually met. Their eyes had seen each other, but she was sure he wouldn’t remember her. There had been too much going on at the party for him to have really seen her so she’d have to be careful. She didn’t want him to recognize her since it might bring back bad memories.
She followed the directions to the ICU and was finally directed to the correct room. She found the man laying on the hospital bed hooked up to so many machines her stomach twisted into knots just hearing their beeping noises.
She was amazed because, even with bruises covering his face, bandages around his head and around his chest, his leg encased in a cast and so many machines beeping around him, the man still managed to look amazingly sexy and confident. She stepped into the room, her fingers tenderly touching his hand as she sat down in the chair. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, looking at the man’s features in an effort to see if he understood anything she’d said. “I can’t believe my father did this to you, but I’ll try very hard to make it right.”
She told him what the doctor had said, commenting on how nice he looked, how handsome he had seemed when he’d first stepped out onto the patio and how he had taken her breath away. She kept talking to him, fearful that one of the nurses would tell her that she had to leave or that visiting hours were finished. But no one disturbed her although occasionally someone came in to check on the man’s vitals or to put something into the IV.
The morning sun was just starting to creep over the horizon but she ignored the time and her exhaustion. The nurse came in at some point, smiled at Sierra and urged her to keep talking because it was “helping enormously”. Apparently, the man’s vitals were extremely strong for someone in his condition. There was a worry about infection, but Sierra promised to be careful, not sure if she could do anything to stop an infection, but willing to do anything to try.
She had no concept of time, just of the man’s features as he valiantly tried to recover from his injuries. She held his hand, her fingers rubbing his bruised and bloodied knuckles, surprised at the calluses on his fingers and the palm of his hand. It indicated that he was a working man. The complete opposite of what she had thought upon first seeing him. That only made him more attractive to her and she wanted to comfort him. His calluses and his dress shirt were a contradiction. The shirt was obviously expensive, but his hand indicated a completely different lifestyle. She liked even the mystery about him.
As she stared at his handsome, beaten and bruised face, her thoughts drifted to what he might be like as a person. She wanted to kiss him, to run her fingers through his hair and feel the softness. Or would his hair be rough like his hands? His chest was so muscular and she blushed when one of the nurses stepped in to check his bandages, revealing the man’s stomach which was ridged with muscles, just as she’d suspected when she’d seen him across the pool. What she hadn’t anticipated was the enticing line of black hair that curled up from below the stiff hospital sheet. Very intriguing, she thought as she tried to hide her interest from the nurses.