Zander. Her best friend. She wanted to fist her fingers into his shirt in order to keep him next to her. Always.
He knelt before her, his features tense.
“My heart’s ... been pounding,” she told him. “And I’m ... short of breath.”
“Are you dehydrated?” he asked.
“No.”
“Panic attack?”
“Maybe. I ... think so.”
“Is it getting worse? Or better?”
“It might be getting ... a little better.”
“What’s this?” He indicated the paper towel still wrapped around her cut.
“I sliced my finger. It’s not bad ... though.”
He sat, pulled her onto his lap, and braced his back against the wall. She lay against the incline of his chest, his arms wrapped around her. “Let’s work on breathing,” he said. “We’ll start with three counts in, three counts out.” They breathed in unison. Gradually in, gradually out. “Can you slow it down even more?” he asked her after a time.
She nodded.
Mercifully, her mind began to release its terror. Her heart quieted. The aftermath left her weak, shaky, and holding on to her composure by a strand as thin as a spider web.
“Better?” Zander asked.
“Slightly.”
“I’m going to get you some water.” He set her gently down.
“I can get it.”
“I know you can. But let me get it for you.” He returned with a glass of ice water.
She accepted it and took an experimental sip.
He must have remembered where her medicine drawer was located, because he lowered himself before her, holding a tube of antibacterial ointment and a bandage.
With the sort of concentration she’d guess brain surgeons usedwhen operating, he removed the paper towel and studied the small incision on the pad of her finger. He dabbed ointment onto it, then applied the bandage.
The crumbling sensation his nearness had evoked since her abduction overtook her. This time, she wasn’t equal to it. Watching him doctor her fingerslayed her. A panoramic view opened in her memory of all the things he’d done for her, all the things he’d sacrificed for her. Tears started streaming down her cheeks.
He stared directly at her. She knew she looked a wreck, but she gazed levelly back at him, tears and all.
“Water,” he suggested.
She drank more water. She cried and drank. Drank and cried. Eventually, she drained the glass.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her upstairs to her bedroom. After he’d deposited her on her bed, he created a backrest out of her array of throw pillows.
She cried.
He climbed onto the queen bed with its white duvet and propped his upper body on the pillow ramp. Then he looped an arm underneath her, and curved her in beside him. She rested her head on his shoulder. He took hold of her hand, then tucked their joined hands between them.
“This isn’t so bad, is it?” he whispered, referring to their cozy position.
