Chapter 7
ZOE
It took me a moment to place her. It was Nurse Foreman standing before me. She was the cranky old lady who’d worked at the doctor surgery when I was a kid. She’d been the one to poke me with needles giving me my shots. She was the one who’d bandaged knees when I’d toppled from my horse and taken more skin off than I should have. She was the one who’d been there the night at training when I’d fallen over and realised my elbow wasn’t working correctly. In fact, it was anything but. It was hanging out of the socket. She’d strapped it to my body and wrapped me in a towel and sent me to the hospital to have it put back into place.
And now here she was saving me again. She’d checked my stitches, added more pain killers to my IV line, and lightly poked at my tender ribs.
After taking my temperature, she sat down on the end of my bed, and explained my injuries. I had broken ribs, ten stitches in my forehead, scrapes on my knees and cheeks. Burns on my ankles and wrists, and a few other injuries that I couldn’t even repeat. Not even in my mind.
“Zoe, I know you probably aren’t ready, but you need to make a statement to the police,” Nurse Foreman informed me.
“I…I can’t do that,” I spluttered as unexpected tears toppled from my eyes and down my cheeks.
Inside my head I was screaming. Fuck no! I wasn’t talking. I didn’t want to relive anything. I didn’t even remember what happened. How could they expect me to talk about it?
“Zoe, you can and you will. I believe in you. I always did,” she reminded me warmly.
“Yeah, Zoe!” a deep voice added.
At the sound of his voice my gaze snapped up and met with his. It took a moment before recognition set in. Derek Cartwright in the flesh. Standing before me. Looking good enough to eat. He stood at the end of my bed in full uniform. I’d forgotten that he’d grown up and joined the police force. Every time I’d seen him over the years he’d been off duty and usually half pissed thanks to the shenanigans he and Spencer got involved in.
“Derek.” I could hear the tenderness in my voice.
“I’ll leave you two to it. But Derek Cartwright, if you so much as make that girl cry a single tear, I’ll hurt you. Got it?” Nurse Foreman cautioned as she tucked in the blankets tightly around my legs before slipping out the door.
We both watched her go, pulling the door closed behind her. Neither of us said a word. Derek made his way across the room and sat on the end of my bed.
“Zoe,” his raspy voice drawled.
“You know, I think she’s telling the truth,” I offered.
“Who?”
“Nurse Foreman. I think she really would hurt you.”
“I don’t doubt it for a second.” He shrugged with a half-smile on his face, but I knew it was fake. It didn’t meet his eyes.
“Isn’t threatening a police officer an offence?”
“Yep, but there’s always an exception. Nurse Foreman is always the exception,” he added with a wink.
I know we were avoiding the elephant in the room but I didn’t want to talk about it.
“So…”
“Zoe,” he softened. He was a walking talking contradiction. He was tall with broad shoulders and a toughness that radiated off him. “You know we need to have this conversation.”
“Yeah,” I admitted demurely. “But…”
“It doesn’t mean you want to? Am I right?” I nodded and my head pounded.
“Yeah, just…”
“Make it as painless as possible?”
“Please.”
“I’ll do my best.”
