WILD MEN OF ALASKA

chapter EIGHTEEN

Eva heard Lynx’s truck pull up outside and tried to calm the beating of her heart.

What was she, sixteen again?

She rushed to the front door and forced herself to slow to a moderate pace. It wouldn’t look good for her to swing open the door and greet him before he even got out of his truck. That would give away too much of what she was feeling. Give him more power over her. She stood on the inside of the door, waiting instead. Hearing him shut the door to his truck and walk up to the path to her door, his gait sounded tired, and she wondered for the umpteenth time what he had been out doing all day. She glanced at her watch. It was headed on eleven. With this crazy sun, there was no way she’d be able to tell night from day without her watch.

As Lynx shuffled up the stairs, she couldn’t wait anymore to see him. She swung open the door, and found herself staring into the barrel of a gun.

“Hey, blondie,” the man greeted. “Do as I say and you won’t get hurt. Now, back up. Slow like. That’s my girl.”

Eva’s heart skipped and then lurched with panic. “Where’s Lynx?” That was Lynx’s truck this dirty, gun-wielding bastard had gotten out of.

“Don’t worry about him. Worry about yourself and what I’m going to do to you if you don’t follow my instructions.”

Eva swallowed her panic. She needed to keep her head about her, somehow deal with this piece of trash, find Lynx, and make sure he was okay and that this a*shole hadn’t hurt him.

“What do you want?”

The man smiled, kicking the door shut behind him as he continued to back her up with the gun in her face. “Let’s start with the more pressing issues.” His smile turned creepy as he looked her up and down, licking his lips. “Then we’ll move on from there.”

She read that look. No way were they moving into that territory. Blood coated the side of his shirt.

“Let’s go into the clinic,” she said, “and I’ll take a look at your injury.”

“I do like an agreeable woman.”

Agreeable? She couldn’t wait to go all psycho bitch on his ass. If he hurt Lynx, she’d do worse than that. First, she needed to get the gun out of her face.

“Can you lower that thing?” she asked, as she backed up to the door that entered into the clinic.

He sized her up and down again, and lowered the gun to his side, seeming to find her harmless.

His mistake.

She showed him into the exam room across the hall from where Lynx had removed her stitches. No way could she use the same room, not with the memories still floating around in there from the night before.

“Get up on the table, and take off your shirt,” Eva said.

He climbed up, setting the gun next to his hip and slowly unbuttoned his shirt. The man was packed with muscle, not as much muscle as Lynx, but enough to render her useless in a struggle. He winced as he pulled the bloody fabric loose from his left side.

“Ooh, that’s nasty,” she said, carefully inching in for a closer look. Blood bubbled out from the wound. “I’m surprised you made it here without passing out.” Now there was a thought. She prayed he’d lost enough blood to do exactly that.

“It’s fine. Just close it up.” He took his eyes off her to look at the wound, his skin paling.

She reached for a drawer and the gun came up in her face lightning-quick.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She had to swallow past the fear in her throat in order to respond. “Getting gloves and supplies so I can assess the situation.”

The gun wavered, and then he dropped it back to the exam table. Was it getting heavy for him to hold?

“Tell me everything you’re doing before you do it, and we’ll get along just fine.”

“Okay. Just relax.” Stupid Neanderthal. She snapped gloves on, never happier than right now not having actual skin to skin contact with someone, and grabbed a handful of gauze pads. She held up the gauze for him to see before wiping blood from the wound for a better look.

“Tell me how you got this wound.”

“No.”

Her eyes flicked to his. “You realize I need to know what happened so I can figure out the best way to treat you.”

“Just patch me up and stop the pain.”

She tightened her lips and examined the wound. She’d only seen a bullet wound once, but that was enough to know exactly what this was. She hoped to God, Lynx had been the one to shoot his sorry ass. But what if he’d gotten to Lynx first and he lay bleeding to death out there right now while she was wasting time nursing this guy?

“Ouch! Watch what the hell you’re doing.”

She jumped back when he’d hollered. “There is no exit wound.”

“So.”

“I know this is from a bullet. You need to go to the hospital.”

“I’m not going to any f*cking hospital.” His hand tightened on the gun, and he pointed it back at her, resting the butt of the weapon on his thigh. “Now fix me up.”

Oh, she’d do that all right. “You want me to dig the bullet out, or sew you up with it still inside?”

The direness of his situation finally dawned on him, and he swore.

“You could have internal bleeding,” she said, piling on the bad news. “I’m not equipped for surgery here.”

He swore some more. “I’m going to kill that f*cking bastard.”

Did that mean Lynx was still alive? Her heart swelled, and she had to glance away or chance revealing the rush of feelings coursing through her.

“Can you tell where the bullet is?”

She met his eyes. “It’s going to hurt if I probe in there, but I’ll be able to tell fairly quickly if it’s something I can treat or not.”

He studied her for what felt like another endless night. “Do it.” He released a deep breath out of his nostrils.

She placed gauze pads over the wound to help with the bleeding. “Here hold these in place, and could you put the gun somewhere else? I don’t want you to ‘accidently’ shoot me if I hurt you.” And she planned on hurting him.

“Don’t hurt me, and I won’t shoot you.”

“Seriously? What’s your name solider?” She’d recognized the marine tattoo. That seemed to get her somewhere with this redneck.

“Pete.”

“Okay, Pete. How about you let me give you an injection. I have locals here for stitches and such. Nothing stronger than that.” She lied when he went to shake his head. “This is a small clinic. I can’t have hard drugs here. People would be breaking in all the time.” She said that with enough deadpan that he bought it.

“Do it.”

She pointed to the cupboard above her. “I’m going to open the door and grab medicine. I should give you a shot of antibiotics too.”

“Yeah. Good idea.”

She relaxed her breathing, trying to show a calm she didn’t feel as she turned and opened the door, slowly going through the vials of medication, looking for something that would knock this douche bag on his ass. She couldn’t go for anything that he’d recognize or anything that would take too long, since he’d feel the results and probably shoot her dead before the drugs completely took affect.

“Nice ass,” Pete hummed. “The higher you reach the better your ass looks.”

Oh yeah, he was going down. In the back, she found what she was searching for.

Ah, that would do nicely. She opened the other cupboard and pulled out a vial of penicillin. “Are you allergic to anything?”

“No.”

It seemed the more medical in nature she kept the conversation, the more he lowered his guard.

“I’m grabbing a syringe.”

“Let me see the meds.”

Holding her breath, she carefully picked up the bottles and showed them to him. He studied the bottles, barely glancing at the penicillin which was clearly labeled. “What’s this?” He pointed.

“A common local, used to deaden the area so that it doesn’t hurt when I dig into you with tweezers looking for that bullet.”

He winced at her words, and then gestured with his hand. “Get to it then.”

She turned back to the cabinets as relief flushed through her in a hot rush. Her hands shook, readying the two syringes. She faced him again, placing the full syringes on the tray next to the table. She carefully peeled back the gauze pads to see the angry wound. Yeah, this wasn’t going to be pleasant for either of them. Him, it was going to hurt, and if she wasn’t careful, he’d kill her for hurting him. Talk about a sticky situation. She bit her lip and wiped the area with alcohol. “This is going to pinch,” she warned before sticking him with the needle.

He hissed through his teeth.

She depressed the syringe watching the narcotic disappear into his body. She’d doubled the dose not taking any chances on it not being enough. He was a big man, probably tipping the scales at over two hundred with the amount of muscle on display. The double dose might kill him. But, surprisingly she was okay with that. Served him right for hurting Lynx and threatening her, besides if she didn’t get him under control, he’d kill her or worse.

She finished injecting him and set the empty syringe on the tray. “I need to inject the penicillin in your behind.”

He grunted and leaned over so she could reach his ass.

She stabbed the needle into him, really loving her job when he swore.

“Shit, woman.”

“Sorry.” She pulled out the needle and didn’t rub the injection site like she usually did with any other patient. No way was she touching him any more than she had to.

“Now what are you doing?” he hollered, when she turned back to the drawers.

“Sorry, gathering instruments to probe the wound.”

He winced at her choice of words, which is why she’d chose them. No reason to sugarcoat anything.

She took pleasure in dropping the wicked sharp, long tweezers on the tray and enjoyed his skin paling when she next picked up a scalpel.

“Whoa,” he said, the gun rising again. “Is that a knife?”

She glanced down at the scalpel in her fingers. “I guess you could call it that.” She looked at him as innocently as she could, praying she was pulling it off. “I might need it to make the entry site bigger in order to dig out the bullet.”

“Shit.” He nodded, and she noticed his head seemed to flop more than it should. “Put it on the tray, but don’t reach for it without asking me first.”

“Okay.” Slower, she added disinfectant, sutures, needle and bandages. “I’m going to need you to lie on your side.”

He looked at the door and around the room, much like a cornered animal who wasn’t willing to lower his guard. “No.”

“Listen, Pete.” She used her most convincing nurse-maid voice. “I need the light in order to investigate the wound. Your body creates a shadow. It will be more comfortable for you to lie down, and I’ll be quicker.”

He seemed to war with himself, and then gave in and lay on his side, keeping his arm free with the gun still glued in his hand. She noticed his eyelids dip and stay closed longer than normal.

Come on drug, do your thing.

“What are you looking at?” he demanded, when he opened his eyes to find her watching him.

“Nothing.” Keep working, Eva. Don’t give him a reason to suspect that you shot him up with narcotics. He was feeling the effects. She needed him to think of another reason to explain the tiredness that would hit him any minute. “We really need to get you to a hospital. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

Maybe she’d taken it too far or he’d finally wised up. “You bitch. Whatdaya give me?”

The gun came up, and she knew she was toast. With nothing to lose, she made a grab for the gun. It went off, putting a nice hole in her ceiling, and had plaster raining down on them. They struggled, and she fell on him, making sure her elbow dug into his wounded side. Pete screamed, and she freed the gun from his hand.

The door to the room slammed open against the opposing wall, and Lynx rushed in, his gun raised with another armed man in a navy and gold trooper uniform right behind him.

Reflexes had her swinging the gun toward the new interruption.

“Eva, honey, hand me the gun,” Lynx soothed, reaching out his hand.

She stood frozen for a moment, the gun still trained on Lynx as Pete threatened and cursed her heritage.

“Eva, hand me the gun.” Lynx slowly inched toward her, letting the guy standing behind him cover Pete in case he decided to give them any trouble. Lynx’s hand enclosed hers. “That’s it. Let go. I’ve got it.” He talked to her in a calming voice, like he was talking down a jumper.

She didn’t realize how tight she was strung until Lynx had Pete’s gun and yanked her into the warmth and safety of his arms. Then she started to shake like a dried, golden birch leaf ready to fall.

“You got this?” Lynx asked the uniform over her head.

“What’s to get? Your woman took him out.”

Eva disengaged herself from Lynx’s comforting arms. She wanted to stay and never leave the protective circle, but she still had a patient.

“I drugged him up. We need to call an ambulance or air flight him to Fairbanks. I might have overdosed him.”

“You are quite the woman,” the uniform said with an appreciative look. “No wonder Lynx is ready to call bachelor life quits.”

“Nate,” Lynx growled the warning through his teeth.

“What? You haven’t finalized the deal yet?” Nate turned toward Eva and gave her a smile that twinkled. “Hi, I’m Nate Lewis. And if you’d like to have dinner with me, I’d love to feed you.”

“Back off. She only eats dinner with me.”

“I’ve yet to eat dinner with you,” Eva said. “You stood me up, remember? Besides, I don’t belong to anyone.”

Nate choked on his laugh, and Lynx’s expression darkened. Then he grasped Eva’s arm turning it to see better. “Are you bleeding?”

She shook her head. “It’s not mine.”

“Nice,” Nate said.

“Let’s get this dirt bag out of here,” Eva said. “He’s mudding up my clinic.” Eva turned back to Pete. He was out cold but still bleeding. She moved to stanch the blood, but Lynx grabbed her arm.

“You don’t have to do this. He held you hostage.”

“I’m okay.”

“You might think you are.” He held up his hand when she went to interrupt. “I can bandage him until the paramedics get here. I’m a registered veterinarian, and he’s basically an animal.”

“Let me help. I’ll be fine. Seriously. I can do this.”

He smiled at her with what she interpreted to be pride, and it made her heart swell with that teenage excitement. She did her best to tamp it back. There was too much going on to let an infatuation with this man stay in the forefront. “After we take care of him, and you get him out of my clinic, I need an explanation on what the hell this was all about.”