She Wore Mourning by P.D. Workman (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

blankets around him, but he didn’t feel warm. His body started to shake again. He tried to speak but still couldn’t form the words.

“Try to relax. We’re going to take care of you. Everything is going to be okay.”

Then he was driving again. Or maybe he wasn’t driving, but he was in a moving vehicle. He didn’t seem to be able to control it or to anticipate the curves and the forces that pulled him to one side or the other. There were unfamiliar noises around him. Beeping and pumping and the whooshing of air. People spoke to him from time to time, but he seemed to be losing his ability to understand them.

Chapter Fifteen

Zachary woke from the nightmare with a start. He was in bed. He was warm and not shivering.

But there was still beeping, and other unfamiliar sounds, and the light around him was a flat, uninspiring white. Zachary tried to move. They had him strapped down. He couldn’t move a muscle.

Had he attempted suicide? So they had put him in restraints to prevent him from harming himself?

“Wha—what happened?”

“You were in an accident.” The voice was soft, female. Reassuring but unfamiliar.

“Drinking and driving,” someone farther away said.

Zachary tried to counter this. He would never drink and drive. He might be a screw-up, but he would never put someone else’s life in danger.

Or maybe the driver of the other vehicle had been drinking and driving. Maybe that was what the other voice meant.

He was there. Or somewhere else. There was one long shadow across the ceiling he couldn’t remember being there before. That must mean that he was somewhere else. He tried to move but again was unable. His previous awakening, or one of them, at least, came back to him.

“An accident,” he murmured.

“Yes, you were in an accident,” a voice confirmed. Familiar this time.

“Bridget?”

“No. Bridget’s not here.”

Zachary’s head was still spinning. He felt nauseated. But he couldn’t move if he needed to throw up. If he threw up when he was flat on his back, unable to turn his head, he’d drown in his own vomit. Zachary tried to keep this thought in his head to convince himself that he couldn’t throw up and to push it out of his mind because it was so disgusting and frightening.

“Colder than a witch’s behind.”

Who had said that earlier?

“Are you cold? I’ll get you another blanket.”

Zachary wasn’t cold, but he didn’t object as she unfurled another blanket over him and tugged it this way and that to cover him.

There was a hand on his arm, shaking him. “Mr. Goldman. Mr. Goldman, can you wake up for me?”

Zachary tried to pry his eyes open. It took some work. He finally opened them and blinked a few times, trying to focus and to clear the stickiness from them. He wanted to rub his eyes but he still couldn’t move. If it was an accident, why had they strapped him down?

It was a man. A doctor or nurse. He nodded encouragingly. “That’s right. How are you feeling today, Mr. Goldman?”

Zachary tried to lick his dry lips with a sore tongue. “An accident.”

“Yes. You were in an accident.” The doctor waited for him to say more. “Do you remember it?”

“No.”

“How do you feel this morning?”

Zachary blinked some more. He tried to turn his head to look around, but that didn’t work.

“Are you in pain?”

Zachary considered the question, trying to evaluate his body’s signals. “Some.”

“That’s not surprising. It’s actually a good sign.” The doctor shone his light in Zachary’s eyes. He took Zachary’s hand. “Can you squeeze my fingers?”

Zachary wasn’t sure whether he succeeded or not. The doctor continued to move around his body, testing reflexes and giving him instructions. He ended up at the head of Zachary’s bed, opposite to the side he had started on.

“It was a pretty serious accident. I understand your vehicle is a total write-off. They needed the jaws of life to get you out. There is some spinal cord trauma, but it looks like it is just bruising. We believe that as the swelling goes down, you’ll regain full mobility.”

Zachary tried to comprehend this. “There was an accident.”

“Yes. You don’t remember it?”

“No.”

“You feeling warmed up now? Your body temperature is back up to normal, but you keep complaining about being cold.”

“Cold,” Zachary repeated.

The doctor used a thermometer that beeped in Zachary’s ear. He took his pulse. He smiled down at Zachary.

“Okay. I’ll let you go back to sleep. That’s probably what your body needs the most.”

Zachary closed his eyes and opened them again, listening.

“Bridget?” he asked.

“The young lady has gone for something to eat. I’m sure she’ll be back before long.”

Zachary closed his eyes again.

“Hey. How are you doing?”

Zachary opened his eyes and tried to turn his head.

“Bridget?”

“Bridget has been in to see you, but you were asleep.”

“She was in an accident.”

“No. We were in an accident. Not Bridget.”

“She was hurt.”

“No, Zachary. I was in the car with you, not Bridget. You’re mixed up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m pretty sure.” There was a laugh in her voice. “All I have to do is look in the mirror.”

“Oh.”

She leaned over him so he could see her. Kenzie. Not Bridget. He had taken Kenzie to the inn for New Year’s dinner. She had two black eyes and a number of cuts on her face.

“Kenzie.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re hurt.”

“Superficial.”

“Oh.”

“You were hurt worse than me, but the doctor says you’ll be fine.”

Zachary drifted for a while, on the edge of sleep, but not quite able to fall asleep again.

“It was cold.”

“Yes,” Kenzie leaned closer to him. “It was really cold. They couldn’t cover you up because you were upside down.”

“I was?”

“Yes.”

Zachary’s brain worked in slow motion, making it difficult to work through each thought.

“Why?”

“Because the car was upside down. I got out, but we couldn’t get you out.”

“Colder than a witch’s behind.”

She laughed. “That’s what the fire chief said.”

“Oh.” He closed his eyes. They were aching from the light. He was close to sleep. “Do you remember what