In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(21)

“Nothing to shed tears over, woman,” he told her, wincing when she lifted the gauze to check on his cut. The bleeding had slowed. Angel handed her another pad, and she pressed the fresh gauze to his forehead. “You lived, didn’t you?”

“I’m not crying over my near face-plant into the ocean, you big, dumb dill-hole. I’m crying because you scared me to death when you fainted.”

His lips twisted. “Men don’t faint. I just…I…uh…lost consciousness.”

“God, whatever,” she huffed, but inwardly she was smiling.

It didn’t matter that he was determined to keep their relationship on a strictly professional level. It didn’t matter that most times she irritated the ever-lovin’ hell out of him and he had no qualms about letting her know it. It didn’t even matter that he kept a girlfriend up in Lincoln Park. What mattered, all that mattered, was that he was alive. Because she couldn’t stand the thought of a world without him…

“My point is,” she continued, smoothing some hair back from his forehead, reveling in the fact that she was able to touch him like she’d always dreamed of doing, even if it was only because he’d been knocked silly and didn’t have all his faculties about him, “you went nose first into the deck and were out for nearly thirty seconds. That combined with the fact that you look like a piece of meat that’s been through the garbage disposal frightened me. And yes, when I get really frightened, sometimes I cry. Just deal with it.”

He blinked at her for several seconds like he was having trouble focusing. “No need to be scared for me. Imokay.” He crushed the last two words together as he struggled to sit up.

Testosterone. God save her.

“No, no.” She laid a palm on his uninjured shoulder. “Just be still.”

“Can’t,” he said, pushing past her restraining hand and into a sitting position. “Hafta finish the mission. Hafta get going.”

“It’s finished,” she assured him. “You saved us.”

“Yeah.” He shook his head like a dog shakes off water, dislodging the gauze pad and causing little drops of blood to splash across her tank top. “Sorry ’bout that,” he said as he pushed to a wobbly stand—as if a little blood on top of all the grease and grime was anything to worry about. No amount of washing was ever going to get her tank top and shorts clean again. The only logical future for the garments was an up close and personal introduction to an incinerator. “But now we’ve got to ghost it out of here,” he finished, swaying slightly.

“What?” she swung toward her brother. “What’s he talking about?”

Billy’s lips curled in as his hard jaw sawed back and forth. It was his classic you’re-not-going-to-like-what-I-have-to-tell-you expression. He’d donned it fairly regularly since they were kids, and it never boded well.

“Out with it,” she demanded, hands on hips.

“He’s right. It’s the only way to maintain our cover,” Billy explained. “Besides you and Eve, no one on board the Hamilton knows who we are. It’ll be hard to keep it that way if we don’t get out of here now.”

“Okay, but…but where will you go?” They were all certifiably nuts. Frank was in no condition to—

“Back to the USS Patton, the destroyer we arrived on. She’s anchored a few miles out. Once on board, we’ll sail over here and pick up you and Eve and any of the Hamilton’s crew that needs medical attention.”

“He needs medical attention!” she yelled, pointing at Frank’s freaky-looking arm.

“Just need to pop it back into place,” Frank said, his tone similar to the one he might use for pass the potatoes. She spun to glare at him, letting him read in the her face exactly what she was thinking in her head—which was that they were all frickin’ frackin’ crazy.

That arm was…well, it was not right. He should be medevacked to the nearest hospital, raced into surgery and—

“Will you do the honors?” he asked, turning to Angel and completely ignoring the fact that her head was threatening to explode.

“No, he most certainly will n—”

That’s all she got out before Angel grabbed his arm and with a twist and a shove snapped the appendage back into place.

Oh, sweet Jesus, the sound it made. She figured she’d hear it in her nightmares.

“Once on board the Patton,” Billy told her, drawing her attention away from the makeshift sling Angel started fastening out of bungee cords, “you can’t let on that you know us, or that we’re the ones who facilitated the rescue. Except for the captain and the commander, the entire crew thinks we’re simple K&R specialists hired by Eve’s father to secure your ransoms.”

“Okay,” she said absently, sneaking a peek over at the slapdash field dressing that was going on, “but I still think—”

“Let’s do it,” Frank said, wiping the blood out of his eyes with the hand that wasn’t secured in the temporary sling.

“You can’t possibly think to—” she began, but none of them were listening to her. They all started jogging across the deck, making their way toward the aft of the drifting ship.

She raced after them. “Stop!” She tried pulling on Billy’s arm, but with the disparity in their weights, it was like trying to halt an elephant. “Billy,” she pleaded, “he can’t make—”