Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(76)

Garrett resumed her seat at the bedside. “I’ll be perfectly alert after a cup of strong tea,” she said stubbornly. “I can’t leave him now. He’s at the crisis.”

“You’re having your own crisis. You’re just too run-down to realize it.” An abbreviated sigh escaped him. “Fine, then. I’ll ring for tea.”

After summoning the housekeeper and conducting a brief murmured conversation at the door, West went to the bed. “How does the wound look?” he asked, curling an arm loosely around one of the corner posts. “Is it healing?”

“It appears to be,” Garrett said, “but there could be secondary sources of infection nearly anywhere in his body.”

“Are there any signs of that?”

“Not yet.” She sat in a state of nervous depletion, staring fixedly at the figure on the bed.

The tea was brought. Mumbling her thanks, she took the cup in her hands, not bothering with the saucer. She drank it all without tasting it.

“What are you using to dress the wound?” West asked, looking over the collection of bottles on the table.

“Glycerin and disinfecting drops, and a layer of oiled muslin.”

“And you’re keeping him packed with ice.”

“Yes, and trying to make him take a sip of water at least once every hour. But he won’t . . .” Garrett paused as a swoosh went through her head. She closed her eyes—a mistake—the entire room seemed to tilt.

“What is it?” she heard West ask. His voice seemed to come from very far away.

“Dizzy,” she mumbled. “Need more tea, or . . .” Her lashes fluttered upward, and she had to fight to keep her eyes open. West was in front of her, easing the china cup from her lax fingers before it could drop. His assessing gaze ran over her, and it was then that she realized what he’d done.

“What was in my tea?” she asked in a panic, trying to rise from her chair. “What did you put in it?” The room revolved. She felt his arms close around her.

“Nothing but a pinch of valerian,” West said calmly. “Which wouldn’t have had nearly this much of an effect if you weren’t ready to drop from exhaustion.”

“I’m going to kill you,” she cried.

“Yes, but to do that you’ll have to have a nice little rest first, won’t you?”

Garrett tried to strike him with her fist, but he ducked easily beneath her flailing arm, and picked her up as her knees buckled.

“Let go! I have to take care of him—he needs me—”

“I can manage the basics of nursing him while you sleep.”

“No, you can’t,” Garrett said weakly, and was horrified to hear a sob breaking from her throat. “Your patients all have four legs. H-he only has two.”

“Which means he’ll be half the trouble,” West said reasonably.

Garrett writhed with helpless rage. Ethan was on his deathbed, and this man was making light of the situation. He contained her struggles with maddening ease.

As West carried her along the hallway, Garrett desperately tried to stop crying. Her eyes were on fire. Her head throbbed and ached, and it had become so heavy that she had to rest it on his shoulder.

“There, now,” she heard him murmur. “It’s only for a few hours. When you awaken, you’ll have any revenge you want.”

“Going to dissect you,” she sobbed, “into a million pieces—”

“Yes,” West soothed, “just think about which instrument you’ll start with. Perhaps that two-sided scalpel with the funny handle.” He brought her into a pretty bedroom with flowered paper on the walls. “Martha,” he called. “Both of you. Come see to Dr. Gibson.”



No mystic’s vision of hell, with sulphurous chasms and human forms charred to ember, could have been worse than the place where Ethan was trapped. Demons with steel claws leaped at him in the darkness. He thrashed to escape, but every movement drove the claws deeper into his flesh. They dragged him to pits of fire and roasted him over white-hot coals, cackling with laughter as he cursed them.

Sometimes he was aware that he was bedridden, while a calm-faced angel tended his tortured body in ways that unleashed fresh shocks of pain. He almost preferred the demons. His wracked mind couldn’t summon her name, but he knew who she was. She insisted on tethering him to the earth with those slim, inexorable hands. He wanted to tell her he’d slipped too far, there was no coming back. But her will was stronger than his weakness.

A tide of fire rose from the floor, blossoming with blue heat. He whimpered and gasped, climbing to escape it, pulling himself up from the deep well of curling flame. There was a circle of light above him, a man reaching down. Seeing his father’s muscular arms and knotted hands, Ethan reached upward frantically.

“Da,” he whispered. “Fire—pull me out—don’t let it take me—”

“You’re out. I have you.” A powerful grip enclosed his hand.

“Don’t let go, Da.”

“I won’t. Lie still now.” His father pulled him up and laid him back, and stroked something cold over his face and neck. “Easy. The worst is over.” So much kinder than he’d ever been in life, the mean edges of his temper weathered down to patient strength.