Beloved Wolf Read Online Free Page B

to call my mother and ask for her help, because something’s terribly wrong with my mother.”
    Joe was rescued from having to find some way to respond to Sophie’s heartbreaking remark by the entrance of Dr. Hardy, who had come to remove the stitches in Sophie’s face.
    â€œGood morning, Sophie, Senator,” the cosmetic surgeon said, handsome and imposing in his green scrubs. “Final unveiling today, Sophie. Are you ready?”
    Sophie’s hand tightened around Joe’s. “I guess so,” she said quietly.
    â€œGood,” Dr. Hardy said, nodding as a nurse entered and handed him a paper package containing a pair of sterile gloves. “Now remember, Sophie, this isn’t the completed look. You’re sort of a work in progress. You’ll be swollen, bruised, and the cut is still going to look red, angry. That’s to be expected. Later, in, oh, about six months, we’ll go back to the operating room for a little of my magic. Isn’t that right, Alice?” he asked the nurse. “Tell Sophie. I’m a magician.”
    The nurse rolled her eyes, then grinned at the doctor, obviously the object of some substantial hero worship. “I don’t know about the magic part, Doctor,but I do know that Miss Colton has nothing to worry about. That scar is as good as gone.”
    â€œThank you, Alice, and there’ll be a little something extra in your paycheck this week,” Dr. Hardy said, winking at Sophie, then advancing toward the bed even as Sophie began to cringe against the pillows. “No, no, Sophie. We’re going to make this as quick and painless as possible, I promise. Alice is going to remove the bandages and then we’ll get those stitches out of there before they start to do more harm than good. And then, young lady, you, your crutches and your leg brace get to go home—at least that’s the word on the street. Okay? Is that a deal?”
    â€œDad?” Sophie said, squeezing Joe’s hand until his circulation was all but cut off. “You’ll get me a mirror. You promised.”
    Joe nodded, his throat clogged with tears, with fear for how the scar would look, how its appearance would impact his daughter. She’d only allowed Chet to visit her a single time, and had kept her head averted during the visit, so that she hadn’t even asked him about the bandage over his nose. And then she’d made him promise not to try to see her again until she contacted him.
    Joe wasn’t sure if she was angry with her fiancé, if she blamed him for her attack or if she was afraid that her appearance had been ruined, so that Chet would be disgusted with her, repelled by her scar.
    No matter what Sophie felt, however, Joe had already made up his mind that any man who would stay away from the bedside of his injured fiancée becauseshe told him to…well, he wasn’t the man for his Sophie!
    Joe blinked, surprised to see that the bandage was already gone, and that Dr. Hardy was in the process of removing the stitches, his green-clad frame blocking Joe’s view of his daughter’s face.
    And then it was done, and Sophie was nervously asking for the mirror.
    â€œMaybe later, baby,” Joe said, only to be cut off by Dr. Hardy, who took a mirror from Alice and handed it to Sophie.
    â€œJust don’t get used to how you look, Sophie, because that’s going to change—not that it’s looking so bad right now, in my opinion. You’re young, your health is excellent, and I expect the final scar to be almost invisible.”
    Sophie held the mirror in front of her, slowly lifted her hand to tentatively touch the livid red wound that stretched from just below her ear, up and over her jawbone, then back down, so that it ran under her chin.
    â€œHe—he didn’t make a very clean cut, did he?” she asked at last, putting down the mirror. “I could be marked with a big S, for Sophie. Or for