My eyes darted back to her, and I ended up caving to the urge to perch on the edge of the bed.
“What is it, Miss Elizabeth? What’s on your mind?”
She heaved the heaviest sigh I think I’d ever heard grace a woman’s lips.
She deserved better sounds to make than that.
“I’m not good with being cooped up, that’s all,” she said as she laid there and looked up at me.
I nodded softly. “I get it.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled as her gaze diverted back to the wall.
I reached for the blanket and pulled it back up over her shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”
“I need to contact my commanding officer.”
I just shook my head. “No technological outbound communications until Ranger says it’s safe.”
Her eyes closed. “Then I don’t need anything.”
I didn’t like this. I didn’t like her like this. I wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t suit her. The pain. The exhaustion. The sadness.
My hand found the hump of her knee on top of the covers and mindlessly settled there. “You really are safe here, Miss Elizabeth. I hope you know that.”
Another heavy sigh. “I know, Doc.”
I wish I knew what else to say. Surely there was something else to say. I’d always been shit with women. The only girl I ever had any decent relationship with was my sister.
Her memory made me swallow hard. “All right.”
I patted her knee one last time before I stood onto my feet. I gave her one last look, but she wasn’t even watching me. Just lying there with her still-bruised eyes gazing at the wall of the bedroom.
“Would you like the curtains open for a view, Miss Elizabeth?” I asked.
She just shook her head softly, though.
I officially ran out of things to ask.
“If you need anything,” I said as I turned and reached for the knob of the door, “please, don’t hesitate to ask. I am at your command.”
And just as I went to swing the door closed, the smallest voice hit my ears.
It was so small that I almost missed it.
“How are things with you and Anna?”
It took my brain a second to compute the soft question before my brow furrowed. “What?”
I watched her roll over in bed before she faced me, those beautiful gray eyes of hers peeking from just beyond the rim of the blanket.
My God, her eyes were beautiful.
“Oh, come on,” she said as she got comfortable in her new position. “You two are flirting every chance you get. I already have to listen to everyone else fuck in this place. Am I going to have to add you two to the list?”
I’d never been so stumped by a set of words in all my life. “You think Anna and I are?—?”
She shrugged and cut me off. “I mean, you’re always together. Always talking, and laughing. She does the rounds with you. Isn’t that the kind of stuff two people do whenever they’re cooped up indoors and want to do things with each other?”
