Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(51)
Wow. And will you look at that? The man obviously missed his calling. With that gorgeous face and those acting chops, he should’ve graced the silver screen.
Yonus pursed his lips, glancing at the weapon strapped to Carlos’s thigh, then over at Abby. “You look familiar to me. Why is that?”
Well, hmm, perhaps because she was the youngest daughter of the president of the frickin’ United States. Although, in accordance with her father’s wishes and her own, she had remained mostly out of the limelight, only allowing the press to film or photograph her on the very rarest of occasions. Still, her face did get the occasional airplay.
Having no idea what she was going to say, but deciding that taking a page from Carlos’s book and winging it was better, and far less suspicious, than sitting there like a mute, she cleared her throat. “I suppose I have one of those faces, you know? All-American. You’ve probably seen a hundred girls who look just like me on Coca-Cola commercials.” And, huh. That didn’t sound half bad, did it? Booyah!
Her celebration didn’t last long when Yonus’s frowned deepened. Okay, maybe not such a slam dunk after all. She opened her mouth to elaborate, but Yonus beat her to the punch by shrugging and waving a hand through the air. She suspected he wasn’t really buying their explanations, but neither did it look like he was going to press them further. She wondered if he assumed they were part of the heroin trade that was so lucrative in this part of the world and, as such, had decided it was better not to ask too many more questions. Considering drug offenses were punishable by death, the locals tended to avoid the illegal enterprise at all costs.
And on that note, she started to thank him for the hospitality and to tell him they were going to continue on their journey when the little girl tugged on her hair again, leaning in to jabber something in her ear. She glanced at the wild-haired cherub, then frowned when she noticed the girl rubbing her eyes. Upon closer inspection, the thin layer of fluid coating the conjunctiva surfaces looked milky.
“What’s wrong with her eyes?” she asked.
Yonus glanced at the little girl, making a face of regret. “It is an illness that runs in her family,” he explained. “In the elderly, like her grandmother, it sometimes causes blindness.”
Abby may not have finished her premed degree, but she didn’t for one minute think this was some sort of genetic mutation. “Carlos,” she said, turning to him, “will you look at her eyes?”
Carlos dropped a bunch of rambutans, dusted off his hands, and slid her a speaking glance. It said, it’s time for us to get the hell out of here.
Her expression and the subtle little tilt of her head toward the girl replied, well, duh, but first…the girl.
He sighed and turned to crook a finger at the child. The scamp immediately grabbed Abby’s arm in a death grip, adamantly shaking her head. Abby couldn’t really blame the little girl for her fear. Carlos pretty much looked the part he played. Big, mean, and threatening. Especially with those black tattoos running along the insides of his forearms and peeking from the back collar of his tank top.
Taking the sweet bit of adorableness onto her lap, she nodded and leaned over to pat Carlos’s muscular shoulder, showing the girl without using words, see, he’s a super nice guy. “Will you explain to her that Carlos is a doctor?” she asked Yonus.
“Are you?” Yonus turned to Carlos, his surprise evident both in his tone and his face.
“Sí. In a manner of speaking,” Carlos admitted, leaning toward the girl who was wriggling on Abby’s lap. The minute he got close, the little cherub went as still as the large gray stones the villagers had used to line the stream’s edge.
Yonus uttered a string of incomprehensible syllables to the little girl, and Abby twisted to the side to see if she understood what Yonus was telling her. Those big, black eyes blinked a couple of times before that cute chin tilted up and down in a jerky nod.
Carefully, gently, Carlos pressed her eyelids wide. Abby could feel the girl stop breathing, every muscle in her tiny body quivering like a jungle leaf during the height of monsoon season.
“Quickly, Carlos,” she whispered. “She’s about to bolt.”
“Just a second more.”
“And it would probably help matters if you weren’t wearing a frown that says you munch on little girls for an afternoon snack.”
He looked at her, pulling a face, so she flattened her expression. One corner of his mouth twitched. This time he smiled at the girl before bending close to peer into her eyes.
Slowly, hesitantly, the girl raised her arm and pressed a timid finger into his dimple, proving the damned thing was irresistible to anything with ovaries. She squirmed and giggled with delight when Carlos winked at her before quickly turning his head to kiss the tip of her little digit.
Right on, sister, Abby thought, I know just how you feel.
“Bacterial infection,” he murmured, sitting back. “Not river blindness.”
She waited for him to go on, but it quickly became apparent he had no intention to.
“Carlos,” she admonished him, “would you care to elaborate?”
He grumbled something under his breath.
She raised an eyebrow.
He pursed his lips.
She lifted her remaining eyebrow.
Sighing, he said in a harried rush, “I don’t see the telltale nodules on her upper lids. And considering it runs in her family and isn’t present throughout the entire village, I’d say it’s spread through repeated contact with infected persons and their belongings, or perhaps it is some sort of genetic predisposition to that specific type of infection. But it is definitely not caused by the bite of the black fly, which is how river blindness is contracted. Besides, river blindness is rare in this part of the world.”