Lyn Stone – Mission: Marriage: Bulletproof Marriage (страница 13)
Luckily, their room had French doors that led out to a small terrace. Privacy was always a good thing.
“Get me in that way. We need to avoid any questions from our hostess.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she huffed.
Shouts from the porch they’d recently vacated told them the police had arrived. Sweat rolling down his brow, Sean struggled futilely to increase his pace.
“Come on,” she urged. Together they shuffled forward as fast as they could. Sean kept his teeth clenched against the pain, forcing himself to move without uttering a sound of complaint.
Finally, they slipped through the metal garden gate. Natalie pulled it closed behind them, then quickly picked the lock on the French doors.
Pushing Sean inside, she slammed the door closed and drew the curtain shut. He staggered to the bed and dropped down on the mattress, breathing heavily.
They were safe. For the time being.
“What now?” he panted.
Licking her lips, she swallowed. “I have to see about getting that bullet out of your leg.” She rummaged around in the knapsack she’d carried with her all day, finally pulling out a small box. Then she grabbed the pillowcase off one of the pillows and tore it into strips, and some of the strips into pieces.
“No way.” He tried to rise, but couldn’t. Fighting against nausea and unconsciousness, he couldn’t even lift his leg to move it. “Damn thing burns like hell.”
“Hold still.” Her voice, still harsh and sounding completely unlike her, stopped him cold.
Through a haze of pain, he eyed her. “Like I can move,” he ground out, wondering if she’d ever been shot. He had, almost more times than he could count, though never seriously. No major organs or arteries. This was one aspect of his job he hadn’t missed over the last two years.
“You might be wanting to move in a minute.” Was that a warning? Without waiting for his response, she pushed him back and began unwrapping the makeshift tourniquet that had kept him from bleeding to death.
Each pass of the material hurt like hell.
Gritting his teeth, he bit back a few choice curse words. Instead, he managed to keep his voice relatively level. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’ve got to get the bullet out. And it’ll be painful.”
Her matter-of-fact tone told him she was cutting him no slack. Still, he’d done fieldwork for too long to argue with truth.
“How about whiskey? Do you have any?”
She barely even glanced at him. “No, of course not. Do you?”
He shook his head, wincing as a piece of fabric caught on the edge of his raw wound. The sharp bite of pain made everything spin, and he sucked in air, trying to stay conscious.
Wouldn’t do to show weakness before the woman he was supposed to protect. He bit back a groan.
“I’ll be as gentle as possible.” Was that a hint of concern in her voice? She began rummaging in the plastic box.
“I appreciate that,” he managed, the pain overwhelming. Worse, she hadn’t even started searching for the bullet. “Let’s get this over with.” He grabbed a piece of cloth from the small stack she had in front of her, twisted it and shoved it in his mouth.
“Wait a second.” She continued rummaging. “I think I saw some pain pills in here. Aha!” She held up a small, brown plastic bottle. “These might work.”
He took two and swallowed them dry.
“Ready?”
He nodded.
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Go ahead and pass out if that will help.”
Pass out? Who did she think he was? “Hell no,” he growled, mumbling around the cloth. Finally, he yanked it out and glared at her. “I’ve had bullets removed in the field before. I want to make sure you do this right.”
In the act of disinfecting her hands with waterless cleanser, she paused. “I’m sure I can handle it.”
“Have you ever done this before?”
“No.”
At least she was honest. Still, her answer didn’t give him the confidence in her ability he’d hoped for.
“Have you?” she asked.
He jerked his chin in a brief nod. “Of course. Make sure you sterilize whatever you use to get the bullet out.”
Intent on separating the rest of the blood-soaked material from his skin, she didn’t respond. When she had the area clear, she sucked in her breath with an audible hiss.
The sound had him raising his head. “Are
Instead of answering, she bent over him and, setting her jaw in that intent way she had, picked up a pair of tweezers, coated them with waterless cleanser and held a match to them. “Sterilized,” she said, still focused on the bloody mess the bullet had made of his leg.
An instant later she began poking with her tweezers.
Shoving his temporary gag back in place, Sean felt as if she was stabbing him with a fiery torch. Damn, that hurt. He tried to force himself to breathe deeply and evenly, fighting to maintain consciousness.
Struggling not to cry out, he broke out in a sweat. Hot and cold, dizziness and nausea, then, despite his best intentions, everything faded to gray and he passed out.
By the time she located the bullet, Natalie’s shirt clung to her back, drenched in perspiration. She dropped the bloody piece of metal onto the plastic lid and picked up her small bottle of rubbing alcohol. One thing she’d learned early on in her career—when doing fieldwork, always have a rudimentary first aid kit handy. Luckily, she hadn’t lost hers in the gun battle.
Bracing herself, she dumped half the bottle into Sean’s open wound.
“Aaaah!” Sitting bolt upright, Sean cursed. Then, mercifully for both of them, his eyes glazed over and he went back to unconsciousness.
“Good,” she muttered. Snatching up a needle and thread, she lit another match and sterilized the needle. Then, praying Sean stayed unaware, she began stitching up the wound.
Later, with the wound dressed and wrapped, Natalie made herself a cup of tea with the tiny electric kettle the B and B provided. Taking a seat in the chair at the side of the bed, she watched her husband sleep, wishing she could sort out her chaotic emotions.
Previously an optimist, she’d learned the hard way that clouds didn’t always have silver linings. People died, friends lost touch, and previously warm and sunny days were prone to become gray with a simple change in the direction of the wind.
Life wasn’t fair and if you didn’t like that, there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it.
Her rose-colored glasses forever broken, she’d grieved heavily over the loss of Sean. Her friends and coworkers had worried about her, finally contacting her father to help them pull her out of the deep, dark depression.
And she’d realized she had to go on without Sean. Somehow. Burying the ever-present sorrow deep inside her, she’d set about redefining her life, vowing she would live on her own terms now.
Though she’d always enjoyed her job, she hadn’t become fiercely intent on it until after Sean died. She’d made SIS her entire focus.
This showed in her work. In the two years she’d lived alone, she’d been promoted twice. Headquarters had even offered her a desk job, a plum most agents would have snatched eagerly.
Not her. She’d refused, preferring fieldwork. Every new assignment had brought her a fierce kind of happiness—the only happiness she knew these days. She lived for the excitement, the adrenaline rush. After all, danger and her emerging talent for cracking codes had been a working distraction from her pain.
She’d solved a few solid cases, one of them huge. Her father had been proud of her and Corbett Lazlo had even offered her a job working for him at the elite Lazlo Group. She’d said no, her loyalty to SIS strong. Her anger at Lazlo for the role he’d played in her life was still there, even if she knew it was unreasonable. Then her entire team had been killed and she’d become a target. And once again, the fates had intervened. Emerging from the grave, Sean had reappeared to claim her. Not dead. Not even hurt.
All along, she’d been living a lie. Her entire life—before and after his so-called death—had been false.
The turmoil this knowledge caused her felt overwhelming.
She had no time to deal with it. The mysterious and evil Hungarian they hunted seemed involved with it all—the SIS, the Lazlo Group, destroying her life and her team—and Sean’s, too, if she were honest.
Sean’s voice startled her.
“Could I have some water?” He licked his lips, his dark gaze as powerful as always.
Nodding, she rose and went to the tap, half filling a glass and carrying it to him. She moved the other pillow behind him and helped him sit up before handing him the glass.
He drank eagerly, gulping so quickly he spilled most of the water on the sheets. When he’d finished, she took it from him and placed it on the nightstand.
“You’re going to be all right,” she said.
Though he nodded, something in his gaze as he searched her face made her feel as if he knew what she’d been thinking. Hell, maybe he did. They’d used to joke about being able to read each other’s minds.
She’d once found this immensely satisfying, proof they were totally compatible. Now, she found it unsettling.