Read Online Hummingbird by Lavyrle Spencer - Free Book Online

it looked like she was wiping her eyes. But why the hell would she be crying over him?
    When she faced him again, he tried to say, "My name's not Cameron," but once more the pain shot through his throat, and the sound was unrecognizable.
    "Don't try to speak, Mr. Cameron. You've had some foreign objects in your mouth and throat, that's why it hurts so badly. Please lie still."
    He attempted to sit up, but she came immediately and pressed those cool hands of hers on his chest to stay him. "Please, Mr Cameron," she pleaded, "please don't. You're in no condition to move yet. If you promise you won't try to get up, I will remove these gauze bindings." She peered into his stark eyes that were lined with dark suspicion of her.
    He had a damn good look at her then, and she looked about as strong as a ten-year-old boy, but her eyes told him she'd give it her best shot at subduing him if need be. So far, every time he'd moved, some muscle pained him like a blue bitch. He felt disinclined to tussle with even such a hummingbird as her. He scowled, gave her the merest nod, then there was a snipping sound above his head and again at his foot and she came away holding the gauze strips, freeing him to move limbs that somehow now refused to do his bidding. "Dear me, Mr. Cameron, you can see what a weakened condition you're in." She lowered his dead arm and began rubbing it deftly, massaging the muscles. "Give the blood a chance to get back…
    It'll be all right in a minute. You mustn't move, though, please. I have to leave you alone for a bit while I prepare you some food. You've been unconscious for two days."
    But suddenly the blood came racing back like a spring cataract, pounding through his arm, shooting needles of hot ice everywhere. He gasped and arched. But gasping hurt his throat and arching hurt everything else. He tried to swear but that hurt worse, so with a drooping of eyelids he subsided, fighting the giddy sensation that his skin was trying to explode. She clasped the inert hand under her armpit while he lay there listening to the deft sound of her beating the blood back into his prickling limb; it sounded like she was making a meat patty for his dinner. He felt nothing of her and a moment later opened his eyes to find his hand again on the sheet at his side, the woman gone from the room.
    His right knee was raised. When he flexed its muscles a film of sweat erupted from his forehead and armpits. What the hell! he thought. He looked down his bare torso. A white patch decorated his right thigh. Automatically lifting his right hand to explore the bandage, a new pain gripped him, mis time centered in the hand. It felt as if some giant paw were doling out a grisly handshake. He used his left hand instead, exploring damp, clinging cloths that guarded some secret near his groin. It told him nothing.
    Feeling around, he found a sheet drawn across his left leg, covering his privates, and folded back across his navel. To wake up naked in a woman's bed didn't surprise him at all, but to wake up in one belonging to a woman like this sure as hell did!
    His eyes wandered while he listened to clinking, domestic sounds from around the doorway, and he wondered how long it had been since he'd been in a place like this. The room looked like some old maid's flower garden—flowers everywhere! He had no doubt it was her room, that like a hummingbird she'd fit into it. He saw a pair of portraits beside the bouquet, in a hinged, oval frame, and an open book on the bay window seat, with the tail end of a crocheted bookmark trailing from its pages. There was a small rocker with a needlepoint cushion, and a basket of sewing things on the floor beside it. A chifforobe stood against one wall, the dressing table against another.
    Through the doorway he saw a green velvet settee in what must be her parlor. A little table beside it, and an oil lamp with globes of opaque white glass painted with roses. God, more flowers! he thought. A corner of a