Free Familiar Stranger by Sharon Sala Page A

back."
    Cara bit her lower lip. Now that the shirt was gone, she could actually see how deep the hook had gone.
    "If that had hit my eye, it would have blinded me. I can't believe you just stepped in front of it like that."
    "It was reflex," David said. "It didn't amount to anything much."
    "It's much to me," she muttered through tightly clenched teeth. "If I say you're a hero, then you're a hero."
    At that point, a tall, skinny man who looked to be on the far side of sixty walked up to the side of the examination table where David was sitting. If it wasn't for the white lab coat he was wearing over a Grateful Dead T-shirt and jeans, David would have doubted the man's authenticity. This, he supposed, would be Doctor Edwards.
    "Well, now, Cara, who do we have here?" he asked, looking at Cara instead of the man on the examining table.
    David frowned. They were acting as if he was dumb, as well as bloody.
    "My name is David Wilson," he said, answering for himself.
    "He's my friend," Cara said. "And if he hadn't moved as quickly as he did, that hook would have been in my face, not his back."
    Now Marvin Edwards looked at David, looking past the bloody condition of his clothes to the anger on his face and offered his hand.
    "Then on behalf of the residents of Chiltingham, let me be the one to thank you. Cara is a much beloved member of this community and it seems you have averted a tragedy. I like to fish myself, and know how these things can happen. One minute a fish is on the hook and the next it's not. Those hooks can come flying, especially if there is a lot of tension on the line. How did you react so quickly?"
    David wasn't in the mood to explain that it had been the same instinct he'd had a thousand times before in the jungles of Vietnam.
    Knowing a sniper was hidden somewhere up a tree. Knowing there were booby traps on the trail up ahead although nothing could be seen.
    Knowing that the smiling old man who appeared on the trail in front of him was holding an unpinned hand grenade beneath the sheaves of rice.
    It was an ingrained sense to survive. Or in this instance, to protect.
    "I don't know. I just did," he said.
    Marvin Edwards smiled, satisfied with David's reticent attitude. He could respect that. There were plenty of times when he didn't much want to talk. Unfortunately, in his line of work, he didn't have the luxury of clamming up.
    With the shirt off his patient's back, Marvin ran his fingers across the multitude of scars on David's body without comment, then waved at Frances.
    "Get me a syringe, Frances. We're going to need to deaden this area first."
    The nurse busied herself at a nearby table while David fidgeted beneath Cara's worried gaze.
    "Look," David said. "Trust me, Doc, this is nothing. I've been hurt enough times in my life to know the difference."
    "Then humor me so I can humor our friend Cara Justice. What do you say?"
    David grimaced. "Fine. Look and dig. It's just a hook."
    Marvin Edwards grinned. "Look and dig? I spent all those years and all that money on medical school just so I could look and dig?"
    The older man's sarcasm almost made David grin. "Sorry. Figure of speech."
    "Apology accepted," Marvin said, as he closed the curtain around the examining table and took the syringe the nurse handed him.
    "Here goes nothing. Please don't move."
    David sighed, barely aware when the doctor shoved the needle into his back, but he winked at Cara, who looked as if she was going to cry.
    "Honey, why don't you go find a bathroom and wash that blood off your hands?"
    "Are you saying you don't want me here?" she asked.
    "No. I'm saying you don't need to be here. You're going to cry again and it's really not a big deal, okay?"
    "Promise?"
    "I promise."
    "I'll be right back," she said.
    "I figured that."
    She slipped out of the curtained area, leaving the two men alone.
    "So … David, is it?" David nodded.
    "Exactly what line of business are you in?"
    "I'm semi-retired," David said.
    "Um, I see. But before