She poked my abdomen and ribs next. I saw stars, but not a peep came from me in protest.
“That hurt at all?” she asked. Doctor-to-patient talk. Detached, professional.
“No. Maybe. Yes, a little. Okay, quite a lot. Ow! That wasn’t so bad. Ow!”
“Getting hit by a train isn’t the way to keep the average human body in excellent running shape,” she said. She touched my ribs again, gentler this time.
“That wasn’t my plan,” I said, offering the only defense I had.
“What was your plan?”
“My fleeting thought up at Big Sur was that maybe he knew where Naomi was, and I couldn’t let him get away. My ultimate plan was to find Naomi. It still is.”
Kate used both her hands to feel my rib cage. She applied pressure, but nothing too extreme. She asked me if it hurt to take a breath.
“To tell the truth, I kind of like this part,” I told her. “You have a nice touch.”
“Uh-huh. Now the trousers, Alex. You can keep your drawers on if it makes you feel better.” A little of her drawl was creeping into her speech.
“My drawers?” I grinned.
“Your bikini underwear from Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Whatever you’re wearing today. Let’s see the goodies, Alex. I’d like to see a little skin.”
“You don’t have to show such obvious damn glee about this.” I was very much awake all of a sudden. I did like the way Kate touched me, though. I liked it a lot, in fact. Different kinds of sparks were starting to fly.
I pulled off my pants. I could not get to my socks, not even close.
“Mmm. Not so bad, actually,” she offered her opinion of something or other. I began to feel hot, uncomfortably warm, in the hotel room. Under these circumstances, anyway.
Kate applied gentle pressure against my hips, then against my pelvis. She asked me to slowly raise my feet off the bed, one at a time, while she kept her hands firmly on my hip joints. Very carefully, she felt my legs from my groin area, all the way down to my feet. I mostly liked that, too.
“Lots of abrasions,” she said. “I wish I had some bacitracin ointment on hand. It’s an antibiotic.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
Finally, Kate stopped all the probing and poking and pulled away from me. She frowned and wrinkled her nose, nibbled her upper lip. She looked smart, academic, professional as the surgeon general.
“Blood pressure’s a little high, borderline, but I don’t think anything’s broken,” she pronounced. “I don’t like the discoloration on your abdomen and your left hip, though. Tomorrow you’ll feel sore and stiff, and we have to go over to Cedars-Sinai and get a few X rays taken. Do we have a deal?”
Actually, I felt a little better after Kate examined me and pronounced that I wouldn’t die suddenly during the night. “Yes. It wouldn’t be a complete day without one of our deals. Thank you for the examination, Doctor… thank you, Kate,” I said.
“You’re quite welcome. It was an honor.” She finally smiled. “You look a little like Muhammad Ali, you know. The Great One.”
So I have been told. “In his prime,” I joked. “I do dance like a butterfly.”
“I’ll bet. I sting like a bee.” She winked and crinkled her nose again. A nice tic of hers.
Kate lay back on the bed. I stayed there beside her. Close, but not close enough to touch. We were at least a foot apart. Very strange, but nice strange. I missed her touch already.
We were quiet for the next minute or so. I glanced over at her. Maybe it was more than a glance. Kate had on a black skirt with black tights, a red peasant blouse. The bruises on her face had faded. I wondered about the rest of her. I held in a sigh.
“I’m not Nanu the ice queen,” she said softly. “Trust me, I’m normal as they come. Frisky, fun, a little crazy. At least I was a month ago.”
I was surprised that Kate thought I might be feeling that way about her. She was the opposite, warm and compassionate. “I think you’re great, Kate. Truth be told, I like you an awful lot.” There, it was out. Probably an understatement at that.
We kissed gently. Just the briefest kiss. There was something right about it. I liked the feel of Kate’s lips, her mouth on mine. We kissed again, maybe to prove that the first one hadn’t been a mistake, or maybe to prove that it had been.
I felt as if I could kiss Kate all night, but we both gently pulled away. This was probably more than either of us could handle right now.