Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(65)

“Y’gonna hurl again?” he asked.

“No,” she assured him, lifting her chin and motioning him toward the toilet seat. “I’m going to cut away your shirt, clean your wound, and hopefully convince you to take yourself to a hospital.” And try my darndest not to puke my guts up.

“Negative on the last part.”

“Fine,” she growled. “But the first two are definitely going to happen. So take a seat, bucko, and let’s get started.”

He grinned and, like always, the sight left her breathless. Breathless was good, breathless made her momentarily forget the urge to blow chunks.

With a grace so unusual in a man of his size, he lowered himself to the toilet seat. Facing the tub, he presented her with his back, a move for which she was silently grateful. She may be talking the big talk, but she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to walk the big walk once she got going.

She’d never been very good with blood. And there was a lot of blood.

Her hands shook as she rifled through her purse and pulled out the little scissors she used to trim loose threads and the occasional wild nose hair.

Nate glanced at her over one large shoulder. “Y’plan to cut my shirt away with those?”

She looked down at the teensy silver scissors and frowned. “Yeah. So?”

“So, I don’t wanna be here all night.”

With one swift move, he slid the huge knife he kept secured at his waist out of its leather sheath and flipped it in the air, neatly catching it by the wickedly sharp blade to offer her the handle.

“Uh,” she gingerly accepted the menacing length of the knife.

“Just make sure the only thing you’re cuttin’ is my shirt,” he said and turned back around. He seemed blithely unconcerned that a woman with shaking hands, who was prone to barf at the slightest provocation, was going to come at him with a seven-inch blade.

She eyed the giant knife for a good long while, silently begging it to do her a huge favor and cut clean and true despite her palsied hands.

“We gonna do this or what?” he asked, still facing the chipped Formica tub.

“Yes,” she huffed, don’t rush me implied in her tone. Taking one deep breath and two steps forward, she grabbed the neck of his undershirt. “I’m just going through the steps in my mind.” And trying not to run out the door screaming.

“It’s easy,” he told her. “Just pull the shirt out and slice it.”

Uh-huh. Easy. She briefly closed her eyes and, before she could change her mind, pulled the material away from his body and sliced.

The blade cut through the cotton like a hot knife through butter. The two halves of his ruined shirt fell away.

And the ragged wound atop his shoulder waved hi-how-are-ya?

Oh cripes.

She dropped the knife and retched into the sink. Twice.

Wow, she was such a loser. He was the one shot, and she was the one losing her lunch.

“You must think I’m a real piece of work,” she told him as she turned on the tap to wash the foul taste from her mouth and the evidence of her rather humiliating little reaction straight down the drain.

Sweating, trying to breathe through her mouth so the metallic scent of his blood didn’t swirl around in her nostrils, she straightened and found him smiling gently.

“Some people’r’cut out for this kinda thing. Some aren’t.”

“Well, I definitely fall into the aren’t category, don’t I?”

He reached for her hand. “That’s not a bad thing.”

She grimaced. It was a bad thing when the person who was shot was consoling the person who was perfectly healthy.

She squared her shoulders and said, “Okay, what next?”

“Y’don’t have to do this. I can take care of it myself. It’s really not that bad.”

Not that bad? Not that bad?

He had a hole the size of dime through the thick muscle over his collar bone and one the size of a quarter high up on his back shoulder, and it wasn’t that bad?

Yeah, she’d speculated about it before, now she was convinced. He was crazy. Certifiable. Had to be. Sane people were not so nonchalant about extra holes in their bodies, especially ones that big and bloody.

“It’ll be easier if I help you,” she told the insane man sitting on the toilet. “So tell me what to do next.”

He offered her another grin, and she could only shake her head. Of all the times to break out that elusive smile…

“In the smaller saddlebag there’s a first aid kit. Grab the disinfectant, the squeeze bottle, the pack of QuikClot, and the gauze bandages.”

She nodded and hurried into the room to do as instructed.

“There’s an extra toothbrush in there, too, if y’need it,” he called.

Oh perfect. Here he was, bleeding down his back and into the waistband of his jeans, and what was his biggest concern? The state of her vomit breath. The night had careened from simply being frightening and bizarre into downright unbelievable. She felt for sure she must’ve somehow become a character in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Grabbing the first aid supplies—she snagged a bottle of ibuprofen for good measure—she turned to head back to the bathroom.

On second thought…she swung around and snatched up the toothbrush and little tube of toothpaste as well.