A Family For Christmas

“I’m just going to lay you down on the bed,” he said, leaning over to keep her against him until the bed took her weight. Slowly, watching as her face came into view, searching for signs of consciousness, he stood up. Cursing the right eye that hindered the normal speed of his initial assessment.

She was older than his usual patients, to be sure, but not old. “You look to be about thirty,” he told her. Maybe late twenties. It was hard to tell with the state of her face. In the light from the ceiling fixture he saw something else.

Two things registered at once.

Her eyes had moved beneath her closed lids. Which meant she was conscious.

And the bruises on her face weren’t all recent.

“You’ve been hurt before,” he said softly, his mind racing with possibilities. The obvious first one...a spouse hitting her? If they lived off the grid, as he was doing, it could have been happening for years without anyone being the wiser.

It could also mean that the son of a bitch could turn up at his cabin at any time. Looking for his “goods.”

“Recently, too,” he added, looking for other explanations for the varying degrees of discoloration on her. He could come up with nothing but deliberate torture of some kind. Some of the bruises and lacerations were more than a week old. Maybe even two or three. Some only a day or so.

He’d need to get them cleaned up...

He caught another eyelid movement. Not a twitch. More like an attempt to remain still. And he thought of how this might seem to her. A man carrying her, telling her he was laying her on the bed...

“My name’s Dr. Simon Walsh,” he said, wishing he’d paid more attention when peers at work had mentioned abused patients. They rarely ended up with heart injuries so hadn’t been in his area of expertise. And with his peers, the patients had been children. “I’m a thoracic surgeon. On...vacation,” he added when he realized the absurdity of his current life within the explanation he felt obliged to give. “I just bought this cabin, came up here a month ago.”

He added the latter in case, as he suspected, she was from the area. Probably living somewhere in the mountainous regions of northern Nevada.

A lot of the residents he’d seen in the nearest burg, Prospector—less than a town, but more than nothing—had been Native American. He was living on the border of their reservation.

His current patient was clearly Caucasian.

“I need to see how badly you’re hurt,” he said next. He wanted to remove her outerwear. To make certain that her limbs weren’t misshapen—indicating breaks—or swollen—indicating any number of other things. He needed to see if there were worse lacerations. He needed to call someone.

But first, he grabbed the bag he never traveled without. Pulled out a blood pressure cuff and, pushing up the sleeve of her sweater, wrapped it around her arm and pumped. If her vitals told him this was an emergency, he wouldn’t have time to wait for help.

Simon was concentrating so completely on the simple blood-pressure reading—his first medical action since he was attacked and something he hadn’t done himself in years—that he was startled to glance at her face and see her watching him.

She was cognizant. Her gaze was clear. Assessing.

She glanced at the cuff, as if asking, Who travels to a cabin on vacation with a blood-pressure cuff?

“My bag’s on the floor,” he told her. And then said again, “I’m a doctor. Dr. Simon Walsh,” in case she hadn’t been fully aware during his earlier introduction.

“A thoracic surgeon, you said.” Her voice was soft, a bit rough, her mouth barely moving. Almost as though her throat was sore—and her jaw broken. He looked at the sweater zipped up around her neck, wondering if he’d find marks on her throat, too.

Had someone tried to kill her?

Repeatedly? Based on the bruises.

Or was she into something he probably didn’t want to know about?

What if she was the bad guy?

He took off the cuff and pulled a stethoscope out of his bag.

“What’s your name?”

“Cara.”

Pretty sure that a Cara what? would garner him nothing, he nodded. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

Eight years younger than he was.

“I’d like to listen to your heart, if that’s okay with you?”

She nodded slightly, timidly. Not like someone who was contemplating some nefarious deed or getaway.

Not that he’d really know. He spent his life with children. Sick children.

Children he’d been forced to leave behind because he could no longer help them...

Leaving her zipper up, he slid the stethoscope chestpiece under the T-shirt he found under her sweater. Her heartbeat was a little fast—nothing to be concerned about, considering the circumstances. Steady. Clear. Even when she took deep breaths as he instructed.

“Can I feel your abdomen? Check for internal injuries?”

She gave the barely discernable nod a second time. But added slowly, “He doesn’t ever hit me there.”

Simon’s fingers didn’t miss a beat. His heart did. His first guess had been accurate. She’d been beaten.

By a man.

Her husband?

An accomplice?

Someone trying to rob her?

A kidnapper?

“What about your extremities? Where do you hurt?”

She shook her head. Started to sit up. “I need to go,” she said. “My arms and legs are fine. Some bruises, maybe. I fell. But I can walk.”

With gentle hands used to coddling children, Simon urged her back down. Felt around both sides of her jaw bone. There were no obvious fractures.

“I can’t just let you walk away from here,” he told her. “The Hippocratic Oath and all.” He could recite the entire thing.

“It’s no longer binding,” she told him. Talking brought obvious discomfort, based on her small movements and the expression on her face, but didn’t seem to hinder her significantly.

Because she was used to the pain?