Free Familiar Stranger by Sharon Sala

going to the emergency room. You're going to have that taken out like a decent human being, not ripped out of your flesh like some barbarian."
    "But I am a barbarian," he muttered.
    "Not in my world, you're not."
    "Damn it, Cara, it's a little bitty hook."
    "That's imbedded in your back," she retorted.
    He glared.
    She frowned.
    He sighed.
    She began gathering up their things.
    "Give me those," David said, taking the heaviest of their gear out of her hands. "I'm not crippled."
    "No, just difficult," she said, and then started to cry. "God … don't do that," David said, as he followed her to the car.
    "I have to," Cara said.
    "Why?"
    "Because I'm a woman and because if I don't cry, I might say something stupid. Trust me. It's better if I cry."
    In spite of the burning pain in his back, he had to grin.
    When they reached the SUV, she opened the back door and slid the rods inside.
    "Is this something I should start getting used to?" David asked.
    Her cheeks were streaked with tears, her eyes still brimming, but she managed a weak smile as she took the tackle boxes from him and put them in the floorboard behind the front seat.
    "What? You mean crying?" she asked.
    "Um … that and being bossed around."
    This time her smile was genuine. "Was I bossing?"
    "Oh, yeah."
    "How did you feel about it?"
    He grinned back. "Scared?"
    "Oh, right," she muttered, and held out her hand. "May I please have the car keys?"
    "And you're driving, too? Dang, Cara, I'm not dying."
    "Do you know where the hospital is?"
    "Oh."
    "That's what I thought. The keys, please."
    He handed them to her without further argument and got into the passenger side.
    "What about the fish that we caught?" he asked.
    "Drat," Cara muttered, as she realized she'd left her stringer of fish in the water. "Wait a minute. I'll be right back."
    David watched her sprinting toward the lake, her long, slender legs making quick work of the distance. When she reached the shore, he saw her kneel and lift the stringer out of the water. But to his surprise, she didn't bring it to the car. Instead, she gently removed each one and released them into the lake.
    When she got to the car, she tossed the empty stringer into the back seat with the rest of the tackle and brushed her hands on the seat of her pants.
    "So, I'm not going to have to clean them after all," David said.
    She looked at the bloodstained portion of his shirt and the hook still protruding from his back, and her eyes filled with sympathetic pain.
    "I just realized how the fish must have felt when they bit the bait. I thought it was only fair that I let them go."
    David's heart twisted. Her empathy for suffering was humbling. He thought of all his years in the military and then his years with SPEAR and wondered, if she knew what he'd done in the name of freedom, would she still be as sympathetic to his pain?
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Chapter 5
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    T hey walked into the emergency room, still arguing. The nurse at the admitting desk looked up, saw the blood on the man's shirt as well as some of the same spots on Cara's arms.
    "Cara! My word! What on earth is going on? Are you hurt?"
    "I'm not, but he is," Cara said. "He's got a fishhook in his back."
    "Goodness gracious," the nurse said. "Come this way. We'll get that taken care of immediately."
    In a town as small as Chiltingham, it stood to reason Cara would be recognized, but for David, a man who'd spent most of his adult life pretending to be someone else, it was a bit disconcerting.
    "How did this happen?" Frances said, as she reached for a pair of scissors and began cutting David's shirt down the middle of the back.
    "I liked that shirt," David muttered.
    "You can buy another one," Cara said. "Now quit fussing and let her do her thing."
    David wanted to glare, but the damned hook was really starting to throb. If he had to give up a good T-shirt, then so be it. Anything to get a little relief from the pain.
    "There now," Frances said. "I'm going to get Dr. Edwards. I'll be right