Free Once More With Feeling by Emilie Richards Page A

she was finished she was
staring at the ceiling again.
    She had passed the first test, and there was
no one to stop her from attempting the second. There were tubes in
her arms, but no restraints bound her to the bed rails. She moved
each arm carefully, and pain streaked to her fingertips. Undaunted,
she flattened her palms against the mattress. One hand was wrapped
in gauze, but her fingers weren't restrained. She arched that hand
and dug in with her fingertips. Her other hand flattened and
pushed. She lifted slowly. She wasn't foolish enough to think she
could sit up. All she wanted was enough height to be able to see
her feet.
    She pushed harder and perspiration dripped
into her eyes. She was higher now, but tiring quickly. One look.
She needed one look, then she could collapse back to the bed and
process what she'd seen.
    She gathered all her strength and pushed
herself higher. The room was warm, and she wasn't covered by a
sheet. Her gaze traveled down her legs. There were two feet at the
end of the bed, and one was in a cast, suspended on something that
looked like a complicated rope and pulley.
    Strength gone, she fell back to the mattress
and let relief fill her. She was still in one piece, although
obviously that piece was now the worse for wear. But she was alive
and on the mend. She was going to survive this.
    She lay quietly and thought about the body
she'd just seen. She had lost weight, but she didn't look as bad as
she'd feared. Her hips were definitely narrower, and her breasts
were smaller. She lifted her head a little and peered down at them.
Yes, smaller, but perhaps that was only because she was lying down.
They made small but impressive mounds under the plain hospital
gown.
    Her legs seemed longer.
    She closed her eyes and tried to remember
her legs. Her eyes had traveled farther than she'd expected in
order to find her feet. But she was not in the best condition to
make accurate judgments. Her feet had seemed very far away, but for
the last three weeks, she hadn't even remembered she had a body.
What could she expect?
    Her legs seemed longer.
    The thought nagged at her, despite her
attempts to put it in a proper perspective. And her breasts seemed
smaller and firmer. She had been a vegetable since the accident,
and surely that had made changes in her physical condition. But the
worst accident couldn't replace short, sturdy legs with a chorus
girl's. And weight loss under these conditions didn't firm and tone
a body.
    She looked younger.
    Had she really needed to lose weight so
badly that even a near-fatal car crash had improved her
appearance?
    She needed proof she was imagining all the
changes, but she didn't want to risk another look. She settled for
raising her hands. Seconds passed as she lifted them to eye level.
Her nails were short and blunt, probably to keep her from
scratching herself or one of her caretakers. But her fingers were
long and shapely, like her legs. She stared at them and tried to
analyze in what ways they seemed different. Had her fingers always
been this long? Her hands this narrow?
    There was something else. Something missing.
She stared harder, even though her hands were trembling by now. Her
skin seemed darker, more an olive tint than rose. Maybe her heart
wasn't pumping properly or her liver or kidneys had sustained
damage.
    There was something missing.
    She moved her hands closer to her face and
squinted at them. She stared at the hand closest to the door, and
then she remembered. Her wedding ring and the solitaire diamond
that Owen had given her on their tenth wedding anniversary were
gone.
    She dropped her hand to the bed and closed
her eyes again. Of course the rings were gone. She was in a
hospital where anything could disappear. On admittance they had
probably taken all her jewelry and locked it in a safe. Owen
probably had everything in his possession.
    There was something missing.
    She opened her eyes again and raised her
hand one last time. She stared at her ring