“Oh, for crying out loud! I don’t want to do this!”
“I don’t care. Take it off, or I’ll hold you down and take the damn thing off for you.”
She knew he was right; she was being an idiot about this. She wasn’t sure why she was feeling so surly toward him, but she was and she didn’t mind letting him know about it. Muttering an oath, she jerked the sock off her foot, and threw it at him.
“It’s good to know you can be a mature adult about this,” he said.
She called him a very unladylike name.
He knelt a couple of feet away from her. “Give me your foot.”
Sighing in annoyance, Kelly leaned back on her elbows and offered up the foot in question. With impersonal efficiency, he set her foot on his lap, trained the flashlight on it and checked the blister.
“That was real smart of you not to tell me about this,” he said.
“You didn’t ask.”
He frowned at her. “By this time tomorrow, you would have been flat on your back.”
“I’ll have Eddie back by tomorrow at this time,” she said fiercely.
Buzz didn’t comment. “I’ve got a bandage and an extra sock you can wear. Should take the pressure off.” Reaching into the kit, he removed an individually wrapped alcohol packet and sterilized his hands. He then withdrew a small tube of antibiotic cream and used his index finger to rub it directly into the blister.
His hands were large and dark against her foot. The warmth of his hands felt good against her cold flesh. Kelly didn’t want to admit it, but the contact—however impersonal—felt good. The simple kindness of the act fortified her in a way words couldn’t. Made her feel somehow connected. Not just to him, but to the rest of the world. And for a few short moments, she didn’t feel so terribly alone.
She knew better than to let the rhythmic movement of his fingers relax her. She knew once that happened, exhaustion would follow. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to find Eddie. With the fire raging down from the north, they were quickly running out of time.
Still, her eyes grew heavy as she watched him apply the bandage. By the time he finished, her limbs were so heavy, she could barely move. Buzz must have noticed because he reached for the instant coffee, dumped another teaspoon in her cup and poured steaming water into it.
Kelly drank the coffee down, wondering if she’d suddenly built up some kind of an immunity to caffeine because for the life of her she couldn’t feel it kicking through her veins.
Despite her fatigue, she slipped on her boots and was on her feet before Buzz could get his backpack loaded and on his shoulders. A glance down at her watch told her it was 4:30 a.m. She wondered if Eddie was asleep somewhere. She wondered if he was warm enough. If he’d rationed his food—or if he was hungry.
Worry gut-punched her so hard it took her breath. Feeling the pain seep into her, she looked around. Nearby, an owl hooted. In the distance, she heard the rush of water over rocks. The moon sat on the treetops, watching them like a staring, white eye.
Shivering, exhausted and more scared than she’d ever been in her life, she followed Buzz into the night.
Buzz put one foot in front of the other and tried not to think about the pain that had been creeping up his spine for the last six hours. Of all the times for the old injury from the shooting to trouble him, why did it have to be now?
Muttering a curse under his breath, Buzz removed two of the prescription anti-inflammatory pills from the pill box he kept in a pocket of his jeans and swallowed them dry.
“Are you all right?”
Buzz looked up to find that Kelly had paused and was looking back at him. “Fine,” he grumbled, hoping she hadn’t seen him take the pills. He didn’t need her running off at the mouth about the injury.
“You’re falling behind,” she said.
“You’re going to wear yourself out if you don’t slow down.”
“I’m already worn out. I’m just not going to slow down.” She lifted the water bottle from her belt and sipped, her eyes scanning the surrounding trees. “Is it your back?”
“My back is goddamn fine.”
She handed him the bottle, and he sipped. “I’ve got some ibuprofen if—”
“I said my back is fine,” he snapped.
Buzz wanted to set his backpack down for a few minutes, but his pride wouldn’t let him do it with her standing there, waiting for him to double over in pain. Damn his back, and damn her.
“It looks like the terrain gets a little rugged up ahead,” she said.
Lifting the whistle from the chain around his neck, Buzz blew three times, trying not to wince when the son of a bitch with the knife slipped it between his vertebrae. He listened for a full minute, but the forest didn’t give up any answers.
“It will be dawn in half an hour,” he said.