Not good.
Not good at all.
I had to help her into the tub. Despite my obvious physical attraction to her, based on my dick’s reaction, she’s definitely too sick to entertain any of the thoughts running around in my head. I need to give Trident a call and see if there’s any way he can get up here with any medical supplies, but it’ll have to wait until I have her out of the tub and back into the warmth of the bed. My mind is racing as I try to think of what I can make for her that might help other than the tea. Chicken noodle soup. It’s always made me feel better when I was hurt. Winnie’s voice filters through my thoughts and I smile. Hearing her voice in my mind always helps me settle down. Sometimes, when she was too injured to go right to sleep, my mom would make her some soup, saying it had healing properties. Lilli coughs, a deep, barking sound; it pulls me from my thoughts. “C’mon, pretty girl, let’s get you into something warm.”
Once I have her dried off and dressed again, I get her settled on the couch then head into the kitchen to start a pot of chicken noodle soup. Hearing her cough again, I fix her a mug of tea with some of the local honey I have and carry it back to her. “Thank you,” she says, taking it from me. Her eyes still look glassy, but I think her fever has come down a little just from the bath.
“Let’s get some Tylenol in you, too,” I state, handing her the two capsules I grabbed before coming back to where she’s laying on the couch, the fireplace crackling in the background. My heart clenches at how pitiful of a picture she portrays. I adamantly shake my head because I’ve never met anyone who’s gotten under my skin as quickly and succinctly as Lilli has. That’s because she’s the one for you, Winnie whispers.
“I don’t usually get sick,” she counters after swallowing what I gave her.
“Honestly, I think the stress that you’ve been under from your parents dying, plus, whatever the fuck those two assholes have been giving you, lowered your body’s immune system. Add to it your traipse through the blizzard and you had the makings for a perfect storm going on, sweetheart. I’m gonna call Trident and see if he can get up here to help.”
“What can he do?” she questions as she blows the steam from her mug.
“He’s an emergency room trauma nurse and was our medic when we served in the Navy together. He can get his hands on the stuff to help you get better quicker than if we just ride it out. You just try to relax and let me call him.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a burden, you weren’t anticipating playing nursemaid to a perfect stranger.” Her voice is small, something that I don’t like at all, because she’s definitely not a wallflower.
“You’re not a bother to me, Lilli, and you’ll never be a burden. This is part of me taking care of what’s mine,” I emphatically state. Her eyes draw up when I make that proclamation. She may be questioning my sanity right about now, but she’ll soon learn that I don’t spew words I don’t mean.
Even though there’s not much room in the cabin, I step over to the kitchen area and putter with the soup on the stove as I place the call to my right hand man, my enforcer.
“Yo,” Trident says as he answers my call.
“How hard would it be for you to get yourself up here with some medical shit?” I question, but really, my voice comes out as a demand for his help.
“What do you need? Wait, isn’t it still snowing, or blizzarding I should say?” I chuckle because it’s been snowing non-stop for such a long period of time, I wonder what the hell I was thinking coming up here in the first place.
“Lilli’s fucking sick as fuck, brother.” When he called me a few days ago to tell me what they found with her car, I filled him in on who she was and why she was here with me.
He immediately goes into a no-holds-barred tone of voice that’s what I refer to as his ‘medical mode’, asking, “What’s going on with her?”
“High fever, chills, nasty cough,” I reply, glancing over toward the couch. She’s still sitting up and I can see her sipping the tea I gave her. Her hands shake as the mug comes up to her mouth. I want to go and assist her, but I don’t want to overstep at the same time.
“How high are we talking about here?” I can hear him moving around and know that he’s probably gathering his go bag as we speak.
“It was one hundred and two a little while ago. Made her take a tepid bath and gave her some Tylenol. Making her some soup now, and she’s drinking that honey tea concoction you feed us when we’re sick.”
“Is she drinking enough fluids? Anything outside of the tea? Water, Gatorade, maybe some popsicles? You know, you have plenty of snow to make some homemade shit up there, brother.” I stop and think about what he’s asking. She’s fluctuated between hot chocolate, water, and now the tea, but she’s probably not drinking enough since the last day or two, she’s been so drowsy.
“I don’t think so now that you mention it,” I say. “I don’t have any Gatorade and I don’t know how to make homemade popsicles from snow, motherfucker.”
“Okay, I know my truck will make it up there. Gonna bring more liquids, some powdered Gatorade, plus, a bag or two of fluids and some broad-spectrum antibiotics that’ll treat pneumonia in case that’s where she’s heading. Also going to grab a nebulizer and some albuterol so she can do a few breathing treatments. It’s not ideal, but I know with the weather, your piece of shit truck won’t make it back, so I’ll come to you.” He needs to lay off the whole my shit’s better than yours bullshit he’s always spewing.
“Fucker,” I growl out. The only difference between our individual trucks is who the manufacturer is; we both have four wheel drives and because I was coming up here, and knew the weather might go sideways, I made sure to weigh mine down with bags of sand so I wouldn’t slide or fishtail.
“Whatever. Regardless, she probably shouldn’t get out right now anyhow, so this is just as good. Should be there in a few hours depending on the roads.” I should feel bad about asking him to come here during snowmageddon, but since his truck is ‘superior’ to mine, it shouldn’t be a problem.
“Thanks, brother. See you when you get here. Don’t wreck your superb truck.” I chuckle, disconnecting the call before grabbing a bottle of water and walking back to the couch. She’s fallen into a peaceful slumber, so I quietly set the bottle of water on the side table, then drawing the quilt from the back of the couch and covering her with it, I move to sit in the chair across from her. As soon as I begin to contemplate closing my eyes for a short catnap, I hear the soft ping of my phone, looking down, I see that I’ve got an incoming email from Specks.
Sliding my finger over the touch screen, I open it up. I read through the pages of information he dug up on both Anson, the piece of shit, and her so-called best friend, Kassidy, my anger growing with each word I read in his report. He also attached a video of a news conference, announcing Lillianna as a ‘supposedly’ missing person, but I don’t want to wake her up, so I’ll wait to watch that until later. Deciding that that nap I tried for earlier is the perfect thing for this snowy day, I get up and lower the heat on the stove so that the soup will simmer, then gently pick Lilli up and carry her back to the bed. She never wakes and I can hear that her breathing sounds worse even though she’s a bit cooler since her bath and the fever-reducing medicine. With a featherlight touch, I kiss her forehead, then tuck her in and crawl in behind her, one thought pounding profusely in my head.