And while realistically, Tate wasn’t that far off, he knew that willpower and a high tolerance to pain would expedite him through a fair chunk of recovery time.
Mostly he was thankful that the past twelve hours seemed to have been the trick needed to get the last of the drugs out of his system, or at least diminished to the point where all he had left was a splitting hangover of a headache. He could live with that.
Thunder rattled the cabin walls again as Derek slowly worked his way into more of a sitting position. Well, his head was propped up higher than his chest now, anyway. It was a start. His stomach rumbled again, which he took as a good sign, despite the fact that the idea of food at the moment made him want to puke. By tomorrow, he estimated, he’d be closer to tackling that endeavor without turning green at the thought, but he’d try to get some of Tate’s soup down later. The faster he could get some nutrients back into his system, the better. He glanced at the open door on the opposite side of the room, the one leading to the master bathroom. Another adventure to be tackled as soon as humanly possible.
He might have seen Tate at her worst, but she’d kept her recovery process an intensely personal one, dealing only with a few hand-selected medical personnel throughout, until she could leave the team for good and retire here to continue healing on her own. He understood the need for that kind of privacy, on many levels, when dealing with such catastrophic injuries, both physical and mental.
Given her intimate acquaintance with those kinds of privacy issues, he realized she’d be more than capable of helping him with his far more rudimentary needs. However, he was just as determined as she’d been to handle as much of his recovery privately as possible. And it had little to do with modesty or pride. They had a mission ahead, and as partners they would have to know, have to be able to trust, that they could rely on each other. He needed her to believe, without question, that he was capable of leading this mission, of getting them through this.
The front door to the cabin banged open and shut again, drawing his attention to the bedroom door. She didn’t come immediately down the hall. He heard her in the kitchen first, making a clatter, then finally her footsteps coming closer. Thunder continued to rattle walls as heavy rain slashed at the windows. The gloom was so thick now, the lightning strikes barely penetrated it. He guessed it was early evening, which meant he’d slept another couple hours before the storm had woken him up.
“I should have turned on a light for you before I left,” she said as she entered the room, a small tray balanced in her hands.
“That’s okay. And you didn’t have to go to all the trouble,” he said, grunting as he tried to shift his weight a bit further upright.
“Derek—”
“It’s enough I’m here, doing…this to you. You don’t have to spoon-feed me on top of it.”
“Your shoulder—”
“Hurts like hell, but will be fine. If you’ve got something I could fashion into a sling to take the weight off of it for a bit, that—”
“I’ve got a sling. Just stop what you’re doing before you make things worse.”
“To quote you earlier, I can take care of myself.”
“If by that you mean you can drag yourself, half-dead, to the doorstep of someone who can keep your sorry ass from dying, then yes, you most certainly can. Now, if you’re determined to abuse your already abused body, then fine, but at least suck up your pride long enough to let me help you sit up.”
She set the tray down on the nightstand with something of a clatter, causing the soup to slop over the side of the bowl a bit. She turned to him, hands on her hips.
“I know I look like hell, but I’m not as bad off as it seems,” he told her.
“Right.”
He found himself smiling, and didn’t even wince this time when it pulled at the broken skin at the corners of his mouth and eyebrow. His cursory once-over before she’d come in from the storm had revealed that she’d cleaned the dried blood from his face, hands, and wrists at some point during his unconsciousness and put ointment on the cuts. He tried not to think about those narrow, strong fingers touching him. Mostly because the thought of her ministering to him didn’t bother him nearly as much as it should have. “I don’t recall you ever taking such a tone before.” He lifted a hand, and did wince a little when his shoulder protested. “Not that I don’t deserve every sharp tone in the book. I’m just saying it’s a different side of you.”
“Get used to it. I might have to suffer whatever hell on earth you’ve brought back into my world, but I don’t have to suffer arrogance or condescension along with it.”
“Is that how you see me? Arrogant and condescending?”
“What, you think you’re all sweetness and light?”
“Tough, but fair, would be a closer assessment.”
“You were both, true. I respected the way you ran the program, and I respected your personal work ethic.”
“But you didn’t like me much.”
She simply stared at him. “I knew I could count on you to do whatever had to be done to ensure a successful mission, and I knew I could trust you with my life and those of my fellow agents. Nothing else mattered.”
He nodded. “Fair enough.”
“But I don’t work for you any longer. So, if I’m thinking something, or reacting to something, you’ll be the first to know about it. Whether or not you approve of what I have to say, or the way in which I say it, means little to me.”
“Understood.”
She turned her back on him and walked over to a tall dresser situated to the side of the bed, opposite the wall of windows. He hadn’t been in the position to pay much attention to how she’d furnished her home, but while she rooted through the drawers, he did now. He used the term “furnished” rather than “decorated,” as there were the necessary items, all sturdy and durable looking, if not exactly stylish or even matching, but next to nothing extra added beyond that. A small matted and framed print of some kind hung next to the bathroom door, and a colored glass jar with a spray of dried flowers in it sat on the dresser. The nightstand held a generic-looking lamp and a clock. No books or clutter of any kind. Although she might have moved that kind of stuff out of reach or sight when she’d moved him in here.
It wasn’t exactly barracks, as the log walls, beamed ceilings, and woven rugs on the plank wood floors, leant the room warmth, but it didn’t look much like a home either. Made him curious about the rest of the house. He watched as she dug through first one, then another of the dresser drawers. Other than through a high-powered scope, it was his first opportunity to truly look at her up close. His head was still pounding with a blistering headache, but his eyesight was blessedly clear now.
He knew from watching her over the past week that she moved relatively smoothly, if not exactly gracefully, which, considering how broken she’d been, was somewhat surprising. Clearly, if she’d moved his bulk from the front room to this bed, she’d regained both her strength and range of motion, and the muscles to throw behind it. She was leaner now, he thought, recalling her once solid, sturdy frame. He wouldn’t go so far as to call her skinny, though there didn’t seem to be much to spare on her frame these days. More…rawboned.
He thought about her face, which he’d mostly only seen with a scowl since reentering her world. Not that he could blame her, but he’d thought her drawn features were more a result of that expression. Now he was thinking that it went with the rest of her. Not exactly bony or narrow, but definitely harder, and a bit weathered. He wondered whether it was the natural result of her rehabilitation—her face had been pretty banged up by her captors—or a result of living a rather elemental lifestyle out in the middle of nowhere.
Her hair, which she’d kept chin length during the time she worked for him, was the only luxuriant thing about her now. It was long, or longer than he’d ever seen it, brushing below her shoulders,