Chapter
Twenty-four
Jillian kept an eye on James. At first it was to
guard the privacy she’d insisted on, but unexpectedly she found
herself staring. The campfire glow highlighted his powerful build,
the angles of his face. Even naked, he looked like a warrior, and
it annoyed her that she found that so appealing, that it played on
some sensitive primal nerve within her. That she flat-out wanted
him. . . .
She forced herself to look away then.
How could she still want James Macleod after
he’d slept with her, then ditched her? It’s just a physical thing,
she told herself sternly, a knee-jerk reaction she had no control
over. But who knew the desire would be so strong? And worse, that
her heart would be tangled up in it as well? Because here it was
three weeks later, and she was still missing him. They hadn’t even
dated, didn’t even have a relationship to speak of, and yet she
missed him constantly. And just as constantly she told herself that
it was silly infatuation, that she needed to get out more, she
needed to meet more people, she needed a hobby, she needed to date
more. She watched James zipping up his jeans on the other side of
the fire and wished she had the nerve to walk over and unzip them. Her core clenched hard. See, she told
herself. Just plain old physical attraction. So why did her heart
feel like it had a hole in it?
“I must have hit my head,” she muttered
under her breath. After all, her head did hurt an awful lot. So did
everything else, for that matter. Jillian’s stomach muscles were
sore inside and out from retching up water, and her ribs felt
bruised from trying to expel the fluid from her lungs. There was a
bright fiery pain starting to make itself known in her arm, her
hands. James had said she was under the truck. That was ridiculous.
She didn’t remember getting out of the truck. And where did all the
water come from? There were headlights, lots of lights, blinding
her . . . but she found she could remember nothing
else.
She forgot all about James then too.
Her hands were numb and sore at the same time—which she couldn’t
understand—and her body was cold and awkward. Except her arm, which
was on fire. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably as she fought with
wet fabric. She cursed the buttons as they defied her efforts. Her
anger gave way to frustration, and then nearly to tears. She
couldn’t think, she was so damned tired, and her fingers would not
obey her. Jillian was only mildly surprised when her legs suddenly
gave out. Barely noticed when strong arms caught her before she hit
the ground.
“I think I must have slipped,” she
murmured. Something was fluttering at her cheek, patting it
lightly. She tried to brush it away but her arm hurt.
“Come on, doc, I know you’re tired but
you need to stay awake for a while. Wake up for me,
Jillian.”
“Quit it. Go away,” she moaned and
turned her head away, but a large hand cupped her
cheek.
“Jillian! Wake up now.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Her
voice was raspy. She tried to sit up and a tight groan of pain
escaped her.
“Easy there, doc. You passed out. My
fault. I didn’t realize how bad you were hurt.” Gently James helped
her into a more upright position. “Just take it easy for a few
minutes, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” She was too tired and
sore to argue, too confused to think. It all took energy, and she
didn’t seem to have any. Jillian let herself lean back against him,
was surprised that his body heat seemed to be flowing right into
her. There was a fire at her feet, but there was almost as much
warmth radiating from James. In spite of all the pains that were
competing for her attention, she felt almost cozy in this big
Viking’s lap.
Those warm and cozy feelings were
short-lived as the Viking proceeded to inspect her scalp. “Ow,
dammit!”
“Got a couple of cuts here that might
need stitches. You’re bleeding quite a bit, but head wounds always
do. My younger brother Devlin cut his head open when we were little
and I thought he was going to die, there was so much blood
everywhere. Scared me. But two stitches were all it needed. He
turned around and walloped me with a stick not twenty minutes later
so I needed three stitches myself. Luckily Mom was pretty good at
it.”
“You are not
going to stitch—” Jillian fought with the blanket to get an arm
free. Although her temper lent her a few drops of adrenaline, the
blanket nearly won. She was surprised to find her right arm
bandaged and splinted from palm to elbow, surprised too to find her
hands battered and bleeding, knuckles and nails fairly singing with
pain. Was even more startled to find she was naked under the
blanket. “Where the hell are my clothes, you goddamn pervert? I’m
sure I told you not to touch me.”
“You certainly did, so I guess your
short-term memory’s intact. Saves me from having to ask you what
day it is and all that shit. Maybe the concussion isn’t too
bad.”
“I don’t have a concussion. And I want
my clothes back, right now.” She wrenched her head away from his
probing fingers. “You’re not stitching
anything.”
“Settle down before you hurt yourself
more. I wouldn’t think of taking a needle and thread to you, doc.
Connor’s got plenty of adhesive closures in the first-aid
kit.”
She struggled anyway. “I don’t care.
Just let go of me. I want my clothes and I want you to leave me
alone.” She’d made it out of his lap, trying to clutch the blanket
around her with her battered fingers and stand up at the same time.
If only she wasn’t so damn dizzy. Suddenly James was in front of
her, his powerful hands on her shoulders. Jillian’s temper flared,
thinking he was trying to restrain her. Then a glimmer of sense
kicked in, and she realized he was actually holding her
up.
“Easy there, doc. You almost passed out
again.”
“I did not.” She said it without heat
however. She didn’t have the energy left to argue and breathe at
the same time.
“Jesus Murphy, woman,” he muttered and
steadied her as she sat heavily on the ground. James grabbed a
corner of the blanket and tucked it more firmly around her. He sat
back on his heels and waited until she glared up at him. “Look,
Jillian, help’s coming, but it’s going to take a while for it to
get here. I know I’m not your first choice of rescuer right now,
but you’re stuck with me. You’re mad as hell, and you’ve got damn
good reason to be, but now isn’t the time to fight about it. You’re
injured.”
“I’m fine.”
“That so? Guess I splinted your wrist
for nothing then. And what about this?” He pressed his finger on
her left collarbone, and she yelped in spite of
herself.
“That hurt, you bastard.”
“It ought to. You’re purple from chin
to shoulder on that side. I’d be surprised if it’s not broken too.
You get into a fight with someone?”
“No, why—ow!” She tried to swat his
hand away from where he was carefully poking at her
cheekbone.
“I’m certain your face was a different
shape when I last saw you. I’d say there’s some swelling going on
here. Definitely a lot of bruising.”
“Goddamn air bag went off in the
truck,” she muttered, wishing he’d stop staring at
her.
His eyebrows shot up. “The air bag did
that? I thought they were supposed to protect people, not beat them
up.” James reached for the top of her head then, and she flinched
before he’d even made contact. He withdrew his hand without
touching her. “Okay, enough with the show and tell. I was just
going to point out that your head’s cut in at least two different
places, possibly three. Worse than that, I have to say I don’t like
the way you’re coherent one minute and confused the next. You’re a
doctor for God’s sake. You know you’re
injured. At the very least we need to stop the bleeding. Now will
you please let me help you?”
She frowned. Wavered. “What about my
clothes?”
“I’ll get you some clothes, doc, I
promise. Truce?”
She nodded and the sudden movement made
her head throb viciously. She could see the sense in what James had
said—a hot trickle down the side of her face told her she was
bleeding—but she dared not let any truce continue for one minute
longer than necessary. She needed to be mad, needed her anger.
Various parts of her body throbbed with pain—but it was nothing
compared to the growing pain in her heart. She couldn’t explain to
James that to be so close to him, able to see him and feel him and
touch him, was turning into slow torture. She wouldn’t tell him how
much he had hurt her, what a disappointment it was to know that he
didn’t want her.
“I’m going to put some butterfly
closures on these cuts, just to stop the bleeding until we can turn
you over to a professional. Okay?”
“Okay. Don’t forget my
clothes.”
“I won’t forget.” James knelt beside
her and began gently blotting the cuts on her head with gauze.
“These are bleeding pretty freely, but there’s a lot of gunk in
your hair.”
“Gunk? Is that a technical
term?”
“Debris. Flotsam. Leaves and mud plus
God only knows what kind of bacteria live in that creek. There’s a
lot of runoff right now from rain in the hills, and that means the
water is full of all kinds of garbage from upstream. You don’t need
some damn infection on top of everything else, so I’d like to use
some peroxide here. Okay with you?”
“Hey, I’m already a blonde so it can’t
hurt.” Tilting her head back made her horribly dizzy, and Jillian
was grateful for the steady supporting hand that cupped the back of
her neck. She stifled a groan as the cold stinging liquid fizzed on
her scalp.
James continued to work on the area
until he was satisfied the adhesive closures would stick. Once he’d
patched up her scalp, he turned his attention to her hands. She
held them out in front of her, prepared to be stoic again. But a
loud yelp escaped her when he poured the peroxide over her cuts and
scrapes.
“Sorry, doc.”
“My head didn’t hurt like this,” she
hissed through gritted teeth. Her hands trembled as the fiery
liquid bubbled and foamed, but she kept them outstretched so James
could work on them.
“Your head just had a couple of cuts.
It wasn’t scraped all to hell.” His touch was light as he bandaged
the worst of the damage. He paid particular attention to carefully
wrapping the ends of her fingers that had split nails. “We don’t
want you to snag these on anything or they’re going to hurt a lot
more.”
“I don’t understand what happened to my
hands. I don’t remember them being in this condition.” She’d always
kept her nails trimmed as short as possible. How could they
possibly have gotten so horribly broken?
James finished another fingertip,
started wrapping the next. “I imagine you did this on the underside
of the truck.”
“The truck? I—omigod.” For a horrifying
moment she was under the water again, struggling in the icy
darkness with the unyielding thing that held her under. Terrified
as she tried to claw her way through it—
“Stay with me, doc.”
“What?” The nightmare dissolved, and
she was sitting on the ground, dry ground. There was a fire at her
back and a Viking was putting things into a first-aid box. The box
looked ridiculously tiny next to his big hands, but his movements
were competent and sure. Then the Viking looked at her with blue,
blue eyes. He frowned and gripped her chin with his fingers,
forcing her to pay attention.
“Jillian, you’re scaring the hell out
of me. Breathe.”
Startled, she complied. Breathed in and
out several times until her head cleared. And relaxed a little as
she surveyed her wrist, her fingers. Although she was a medical
professional, Jillian hated being doctored herself. But she had to
admit, grudgingly, that this man was pretty good at it. “I’m
surprised you’re not a veterinarian like Connor,” she blurted at
last.
“Me? Too much of a farmer at heart. I’d
rather raise animals than patch them up all day long. But you end
up having to learn some of this stuff because a vet’s not always
handy. Neither is a doctor.”
“Well, thanks for patching me up. And I
guess I should thank you for not letting me drown.”
“I’m just glad I was in
time.”
He got up, rather abruptly she thought,
and checked the fire. As if he suddenly didn’t want to look at her.
Jillian felt her face heat and pain stabbed her heart again. She
sighed and tried to change the subject. “How did you get all the
way out here, anyway? You said you didn’t have a car.”
James didn’t answer. Just as she
decided to repeat the question, he knelt by the duffle bag and
started rifling through it. “I promised you some clothes, doc.
Let’s see what we can do.”
By the time help arrived, Jillian was
dressed. Sort of. All the clothing in the duffle bag belonged to
Connor. The jeans were far too large to be of any real use, so she
ignored them. The thick flannel shirt hung just past her knees once
she had struggled into it. She’d been forced to let James fasten
the buttons and roll the sleeves while she fumed. Her wrist was
throbbing and her usually slender fingers felt as thick and
ungainly as bananas, useless for anything requiring fine motor
skills. She tried to put socks on herself but soon threw them down,
swearing.
“Here, let me.” James picked up the big
pair of woolen socks and eased them onto her as if she was a child.
They went up to her knees, meeting the shirt. He pulled a sling
from the first-aid kit and arranged her arm more comfortably, then
tucked the blanket back around her just as Connor and Zoey drove up
with Birkie.