sense of humor, after all?
"Alas, the gypsies who raised me are far away.”
"Then you'd do better to read your own palm, Mr. Forster. You came very near death.”
"I doubt it, Doctor. I'm not easy to kill.”
Her face grew even more serious, and her voice reminded him of a professor at Oxford
who he'd regarded as a personal gadfly. "The effects of inebriety are cumulative," she
said. "How long have you been drinking?”
He hid a wince. It wasn't a subject he cared to discuss. "How long have you been a
doctor?”
She gazed into his eyes, holding him with sheer will as another werewolf might do. "I do
not think you understand, Mr. Forster. You were suffering from acute delirium tremens,
a condition that is often fatal. You have been with us for four days, most of which time
you have been unconscious or raving. I am frankly amazed to see you capable of
rational communication.”
Raving. "I suppose I made a nuisance of myself," he said. "What did I rave about?”
"Most of your words were incomprehensible." She cocked her head. "But there was a
pattern. When I first found you in a field about a mile from here, you tried to speak to
me. You warned me of some evil, that I was in danger.”
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He shivered. He didn't remember it. He didn't want to. "I'm sorry," he said. "I must have
sounded quite mad.”
"You have no recollection of this.”
He shook his head. "Unfortunately not.”
"What is the last thing you do remember?”
"I was staying in San Francisco. I won a bit of money in a game. I was planning to catch
the ferry to Oakland.”
"You are now near the town of Silverado Springs, in the Napa Valley, some miles north
of either San Francisco or Oakland," she said. "Do you often experience these periods
of amnesia?”
"Sometimes." What did they say about confession being good for the soul? It certainly
seemed to be helping now. "Generally when I have a bit too much to drink." And half the
time I don't even remember the drinking .
"It seems I owe you a great deal," he said, smiling to charm her away from more
questions. "It was kind of you to take me in and look after me. At least I can pay you for
your care." He reached for the drawer .
"We can discuss fees later, Mr. Forster.”
"Quentin, please.”
"Quentin," she said, in that schoolmistress tone. "Make an attempt to grasp that you
have been suffering a severe condition for nearly a week, that you have apparently lost
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any memory of a portion of your life, and that you may not survive another bout. Such a
state is not to be taken lightly—”
"Do you take anything lightly, Johanna?”
"Not where a life is concerned. And you are fortunate I do not, or I should have left you
in the field.”
Beneath her dogged assertiveness he detected the one thing she didn't want him to
see—a woman's inevitably soft heart. The sort of heart that had caused her to take in a
drunken stranger and care for him with no promise of reward .
And he knew his own strength. If he'd been raving, he might have become dangerous.
Dangerous to her and anyone around her .
Perhaps, this time, he'd been lucky .
"Is that why you call this place the Haven?" he asked, gesturing at the room. "You
scrape unfortunate sots like me off the floor and minister to them until they're well
again?”
"Not as a rule," she said with a twitch of her lips. Humor again—hidden, but there. "You
are something of an exception.”
He placed his hand over his heart. "I'm honored. But if this is not a Haven for
vagabonds such as myself, who does it shelter besides a skilled and lovely lady
doctor?”
His compliment seemed to go right over her head. "You have met Oscar," she said. "He
is one of the patients here.”
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"Patients?”
"You might as well know where
Kit Tunstall, R.E. Saxton