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The silver eyes meet mine once again, then lower to my extended hand, regarding it as if it’s going to bite him. Slowly, he raises his arm and wraps his fingers around mine. Pushing off the ground with his other hand, he starts to rise. Up, and up. When he’s finally vertical, I have to tilt my head to the heavens to be able to hold his gaze.
“No hospital,” he says, releasing my hand. “I’m parked several blocks away, just drop me off.”
“Sure,” I croak. “Um . . . Do you need help?”
His lips quirk at the corners as he surveys the entire five feet and four inches of my body and shakes his head. I might be an average height for a woman, but he has more than a foot on me.
“Isn’t this a school night?” he asks as he heads toward my car, supporting himself on the wall of the building to his right.
“Not since my senior prom over a year ago,” I retort, hurrying to open the passenger door for him.
I watch as the mountain of a wounded man shuffles across the sidewalk and grabs the edge of the car’s door. His face is pale, and the scarf I tied around his thigh is completely saturated with blood.
“There’s no way you can drive yourself anywhere in that condition.” I head around the vehicle while he practically drops onto the seat. “Knife fight?” I ask, starting the engine.
“Bullet.” He throws his gun onto the dash. “My car is about a mile down the street.”
I try my best to keep my eyes focused on the road, but they keep sliding to the stranger at my side. Who starts unbuttoning his shirt!
“What are you doing?”
He ignores my question and takes off his button-down, groaning in the process.
“Dear God!” I yelp, staring at the bloody mess on the side of his upper body.
“Eyes on the road, cub.”
“I’m driving you to a hospital.”
“No, you’re not,” he says as he presses the bundled garment to the bloody wound above his hip. “I have a doctor waiting for me at . . . home. I just need to get there.”
“I’ll take you home, then.”
“No.”
I squeeze the steering wheel and steal a look at him. Wherever that home of his is, he’ll bleed out before reaching it. Not my problem. I’ve already reached the boundary of “extremely stupid” by allowing an armed stranger with gunshot wounds into my car. Doing anything more is aiming for “astronomically idiotic” level. I curse under my breath and take the next right.
“I’m taking you to the vet clinic where I work. I’ll try to stop the bleeding, and then you can be on your merry way.”
* * *
“Can you get on that?” I nod toward the metal table in the center of the room.
When I turn around, I find my wounded stranger leaning on the doorframe with his shoulder, holding a gun in his hand while scanning the space with his eyes.
“It’s just us,” I say. “The clinic won’t open until eight tomorrow morning.”
He assesses the room one more time, and then he pushes off the jamb and limps toward the surgical table. He’s almost reached it when he suddenly stops and grabs onto the cupboard to his left.
I dash to him and seize his arm, swinging it over my shoulder. “Come on, a few more steps.”
The heat from his body seeps into me as we slog across the room. My left palm is pressed to his bare back, just above the gun he’s tucked into the waistband, while I grip his forearm with my right. I have several male friends with whom I’m moderately close, and random hugs are a regular occurrence.Thismay not be an actual hug, but with my body basically tucked into the stranger’s, I’m hyperaware of every single point of contact between our bodies. The weight of his arm on my shoulders. A slight brush of my hip against his thigh. The corded muscles of his forearm under my fingertips. His warm breath as it tingles the top of my head. It’s as if he’s surrounding me with his presence, and everything else seems to fade away. I’ve certainly never feltthatwith any of my friends.
We somehow manage to get to the table. I help him up, then I pull the cart with the surgical instruments and supplies closer.
“Okay.” Trying to gather my courage, I take a deep breath as I rummage through the first drawer. “We’ll do your side first. There should be a pack of pressure bandages somewhere around here.” My fingers finally curl around a familiar tubular shape, and I set the roll on top. Straightening out, my eyes snag on a box of nitrile gloves on a nearby counter. My hands shake while I tug two out and pull them on.
Crazy. Everything about this is crazy. This idea didn’t sound so complicated when I came up with it in the car, but now, I’m slowly sliding into panic.Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.