Free Once More With Feeling by Emilie Richards

tolerated an obstetrician who had
lectured him on hospital policy throughout the entire delivery. All
because he loved her.
    Where was Owen now? She couldn't believe he
had let Dr. James Roney keep him away.
    Perhaps Owen had better things to do with
his time.
    Elisabeth had grown accustomed to her own
tears. She supposed some tears were in order now that she was lying
immobilized in a hospital bed and her husband was nowhere in sight.
She wondered if Anna Jacquard was comforting him. Or perhaps the
reality was even worse. Perhaps he and Anna were sitting outside
this room together, waiting to hear about their future. She
couldn't make herself believe that Owen wished her dead. But she
wondered exactly how sad he would have been if she had died in the
accident. A wife recovering from a near fatal car crash was a tough
wife to divorce, and Owen had a reputation to protect.
    Car crash.
    For a moment her thoughts squealed like the
sounds of two sets of brakes and collided like a limo and a
Mercedes bent on total destruction.
    She had been in a car crash. A hideous,
head-on car crash. and the driver of the other vehicle had been
none other than Gypsy Dugan.
    She moaned. The accident was suddenly clear
to her. She had been speeding. There had been no opportunity to
steer clear of the limo because she had been going too fast. At the
last possible moment she had thrown up her arms to protect her
face. She had blacked out when the steering wheel slammed against
her chest.
    She had heard two men talking about Gypsy,
and now she knew why. So Gypsy was still alive, but her prognosis
was unclear. Elisabeth had nearly killed her. And if Gypsy didn't
recover. . .
    "Oh, God . . ."
    There was no comforting response from anyone
in the room. She was alone.
    And what about her own injuries? Elisabeth
could recall the moment of impact and the terrible, crushing pain.
She was still in pain, but she hadn't asked the doctor what
injuries she had suffered. She had asked about Owen. That seemed
remarkably foolish now.
    "Perry . . ."
    There was no answer. If Perry was on duty
she had probably gone out into the hall with the doctor, and
Elisabeth was alone with her fears.
    She had to know how badly she'd been
injured. She tried to focus on her own pain. What hurt, and how
badly? Her head throbbed unmercifully, but she ignored that. She
already knew her head had been injured, probably from contact with
the windshield.
    She stared at her feet and tried to pinpoint
the worst of the pain. One hip--she couldn't remember what to call
that side of her body--felt as if it were aimed in an entirely new
direction. The leg below it felt as if it had been wrenched from
the socket, then jammed in place backwards. She tried to wiggle her
foot and found she couldn't.
    She told herself not to panic. The foot was
still there. It had to be. She forced herself to concentrate on the
rest of her body. A shoulder and an elbow hurt, and so did her
neck. She had the oddest feeling that someone had been using her
abdomen as a trampoline, and her chest for target practice.
Everything felt different, as if the body was a stranger's, but she
had been too protected and too careful as a child to have a frame
of reference.
    She had to see for herself. That was only
one way to quiet her own fears. Perry had said she was hooked up to
machines, but how many? Was she still dependent on technology to
keep her alive?
    She turned her head, one slow inch at a
time. Light washed over her in waves, but she didn't black out. She
was perspiring by the time she turned her head toward the door. She
couldn't see all of the room now, but she could see enough to know
it was small and colorless. The door was shut, but it had a large
window that looked out on a hallway. There was one fluorescent bulb
above a sink and mirror. She couldn't see anything else.
    She hadn't passed out. She had moved her
head, and she was still conscious. Slowly, carefully, she turned
back to her original position, and when