Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(96)

Dark eyes, dark lashes. She had freckles on her cheeks, and her lips were a natural sort of rosy pink.

Her face was shaped like a heart, her hair sleek and glossy.

She smelled like something sweet and nostalgic he couldn’t name, along with soap and skin.

She pushed his shirt up and he could tell that her hands were shaking. “Sorry,” she said. “Never undressed a man before.”

He sat up as best he could to help her get the shirt up over his shoulders and he groaned as he lifted his arms to get it off the rest of the way.

But getting the shirt off exposed the wound fully, and he let out a vile curse when he saw it.

She looked... She looked terrified.

She pressed a towel to his side. “Can’t do anything till we get this stopped. I wish you’d let me call someone.”

“Can’t,” he said, through gritted teeth. “My brother is fixing to disappear. So he’s doing his best to pin everything he’s done for the past twenty years right onto me. He can’t do it if he can’t find me, if they can’t find me.”

“What is it your brother does?” she asked, pushing harder into his side. “Other than shoot you?”

She was asking questions, and thinking of answers was irritating when what he wanted to do was let unconsciousness win and let the darkness pull him under. Which meant he couldn’t. Which meant he was going to not only listen to her questions but answer them. To keep from blacking out. To keep from letting the pain win.

“He’s a drug runner, primarily. But he dabbles in weapons too. I’m sure lately also in people. He’s a bad dude. But our dad was a pretty bad guy too. Though he was a gentleman about it. Didn’t like for there to be any blood if there didn’t have to be. And he ran a pretty tight ship that way. People knew you didn’t want to piss Dad off, and that if you did, you’d messed up. But Jake... Jake’s a loose cannon. He spends all his life half-cocked and ready to go off.”

He looked up at her angel face. “For the record, I haven’t been involved with them for years, and the only reason I ever was was that I was born into it. Family business. You don’t question it when it’s all you see, and when everything you learn is so...twisted.”

She nodded slowly. “I understand that. My mom isn’t a drug runner but she’s...not conventional. She’s very scared of the world. And everything in it. Afraid of what will happen to us. It got worse when my dad left. I don’t even remember him. But he left and she was blindsided. It made her fear turn into outright paranoia. If she couldn’t trust her husband, who could she trust? I understand it, in a sad way. But I couldn’t live like her either.” She laughed. “But then, I have a bleeding man on the run from the law lying on my couch, so maybe she had a point. Maybe the world is scarier than I gave it credit for.”

“Are you scared?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and husky even to his own ears.

She looked mystified. “No. I’m not.”

Something she’d said a moment before echoed in his head, something that had passed by because he’d been so focused on his pain.

“You’ve never undressed a man before?”

Her cheeks went red. “Well. Now I have.”

There was a story there. But then he imagined she’d already told it. Her mom was afraid of everything. There was no way some of that hadn’t filtered to her daughter.

Her daughter who was now stopping him from bleeding out.

And he decided then and there he wouldn’t ask any more questions about it. Because if she was concerned about helping him, about him being in the house, he wanted to ease that. He didn’t want her to be afraid.

She moved the cloth and sighed. “You aren’t bleeding now. Is there a...is there a bullet in there?”

“No,” he said. “Thank God. It grazed me, didn’t go in.”

“You’re sure? I don’t want to miss it if it’s in there.”

“Sure as I can be.”

She nodded. “I’m going to have to sterilize the wound and...stitch it.” She looked green.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“No,” she said. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t stitch your own bullet wound.”

“Sure I can. Can you make it sterile? Make sure that’s good to go?”

“Yes,” she said, swallowing hard.

“Then get the needle threaded for me. You got a curved one for sutures in that kit?”

“Yes.”

“I can use it. I used to ride bulls on the circuit. I’ve stitched buddies up a time or two—it’s okay.”

She nodded. She dug around in her kit and pulled out two different tubes of medicine. “One is for germs. One is for...to numb.”

She put some cream on her finger and spread it around the wound. Numbing cream. He could feel it start to work, his skin getting warm and fuzzy.

Then she poured the disinfectant right into the wound.

“Hell!” He growled.

That sucked.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s all right. It’s all right.”

She threaded the needle, her fingers shaking, then handed it to him. He looked up at her. “Hey, why don’t you go in the other room.”