“But I keep thinking I should be doing something,” Meg said. “What about the car? Do we need to call a wrecker or the insurance agent?” she asked.
“Already taken care of,” said Ginny. “Oh! I almost forgot. That bear left a claw in the side panel of the car. Must have hurt like hell when that ripped off,” she said as she dug in her pocket. She pulled a huge claw capped with silver out and handed it to Meg. It covered her palm from her thumb in an arch over to her pinkie finger. It was heavy.
“Oh my gods,” said Meg with a shudder. She had pocket knives smaller than that claw.
“We notified the park rangers up in that area that a bear had attacked you. They’re looking for it just in case. Of course they said there were no grizzlies up there, or wolves, but we both know differently,” said Duke.
“Oh yeah,” said Meg still holding the claw. She’d give it to Luc when he woke up later.
“If they don’t find it, some of us are thinking of going up and taking care of it,” said Duke.
“With guns or fangs?” asked Ginny who thought the whole idea was stupid. Leave the damned animal alone had been her thoughts when asked.
“Guns of course. Geeze Ginny, we aren’t stupid,” said Duke.
The look Ginny shot him said otherwise.
“We’ve got the office guys looking for another Subaru. We know how attached Luc was to his, but there isn’t enough left of that one to make good scrap. I’ll let you know what they find,” Ginny said.
“Okay,” said Meg. She hadn’t realized the car was that damaged. Granted, she never really looked at it, but after looking at the claw, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to see it.
“Meg,” came a faint call from the bedroom.
“Be there in a second Luc,” said Meg.
“We’ll be back later. Call if you need us,” said Ginny as she propelled Duke through the door.
“Bye,” said Meg as she waved and then headed to the bedroom.
*
Luc was sitting up in bed and trying to move to get comfortable. He saw her and stopped. Meg sat down on the edge of the bed, the claw closed in her hand.
“Hey Meg, are they gone yet?” he asked.
“Yes, finally. It’s good to be home,” she said.
“Yeah, I could hear most of what you were talking about. What did Ginny give you?” he asked.
“Um,…” she hesitated. “This,” she said as she handed him the claw.
Luc took the claw in his hand. He turned it over once or twice and then his hand went to his neck. “Damn I was lucky,” he said. “We were lucky.”
“Yes, we were,” said Meg. They sat there for a moment just looking at the claw.
“Do you think we could get me in the shower?” he asked.
“I guess. Can we get the bandages wet?” she asked.
“I don’t care. We can always put new ones on. I just itch.” said Luc.
“Okay,” said Meg and took the claw from Luc.
Luc slowly got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. He got out of his pajama bottoms while Meg ran the shower. When it was warm, she helped Luc into the shower. Then she stripped of and climbed in with him. It took about ten minutes for the bandages to soak off. In the meantime, Meg soaped the exposed bits of Luc.
“I guess you got messy,” she teased as she scrubbed his lower back.
“Yeah, sponge baths just don’t work well on fur,” he said.
“Nope, they don’t,” said Meg. She started to work on the bandages, not exactly sure if she wanted to see the damage. She hadn’t been in the room when he shifted. The first layers peeled off and then the gauze next to the stitches. The first surprise was that most of them were staples and only those near his face were regular stitches. The side of his neck was a series of long rakes running from his earlobe and jaw line back to his shoulder. Nearly his whole shoulder was covered in scratches and gashes that were scabbing up inbetween the claw marks that were stapled closed.
“Oh Luc,” said Meg. “Do you want to see it?”
“No, I saw it in the hospital. Ugly mess, but I never said I was a beauty queen,” he said softly.
“The doctor said it was close, but I didn’t realize how close,” she said realizing how near to the jugular the one claw had gotten.
“I almost died. If you hadn’t taken over the driving, I would have died,” he said turning his head into the water. The water hid his tears.
Meg wrapped her arms around him. “Let’s get you out of the shower and dried off. We can bandage lightly and then you need to sleep,” she said.
Luc nodded. It took forever to get him dried off. They got his pajama bottoms on and the bandages done up enough that he wouldn’t rub his stitches against the sheets. He got in bed and Meg went out to make them something to eat.
She came back with toasted cheese sandwiches, tomato soup in cups and peanut butter cookies. It was painful for Luc to eat, so they didn’t talk much while they devoured the food. Meg took the empty dishes to the kitchen and then they curled up in bed. Meg wrapped her arms around Luc as they snuggled.
“You know, this has to be a first,” he said.
“Oh? What kind of first?” Meg asked.
“Here we are in bed, alone in the house, and I haven’t ravished you,” he said in a teasing tone.
“Like you could,” she said sarcastically.
“Believe me, if I didn’t hurt so much, I would ravish you until you passed out,” he said.
“Well, I’ll hold you to that. Just remember, when you are healed and the doctor says you can go back to being yourself, you owe me one ravishment, and a total pass out from pleasure,” said Meg.
“I promise,” he said with a yawn. In moments, they were both asleep.
*