“I think that might be a little awkward.”
“Hey, I’m a doctor, remember?” He grinned. “You can wrap Jack’s blanket around you until your sweater is dry. He’s got my jacket to keep him warm.”
She had absolutely no desire to walk around with nothing more than a threadbare blanket to cover her. But Lily knew it would be silly to spend the night in wet clothes and risk hypothermia when she could dry them over the fire.
“I brought some dried fruit and nuts,” Robert said. “Let’s get your clothes hung and then we’ll eat.”
“We’ll eat after that wound on your shoulder is cleaned and bandaged,” she said firmly.
Robert smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
At that moment he looked very much like the man she’d fallen in love with two years earlier. So much that it frightened her.
Moving away from him, Lily stooped and eased the blanket from Jack, replacing it with Robert’s jacket. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”
Blanket in hand, she left the warmth of the fire and walked to a dim corner where the air was cold and damp. In her peripheral vision she saw Robert rummaging in his backpack with his back to her.
“Stay right there and don’t turn around,” she said.
Robert straightened, but kept his back to her. “No problem.”
Never taking her eyes from him, she swiftly lifted the sweater over her head, then unhooked her bra. Her skirt was wet, too, so she stepped out of it. Shivering against the cold, she withdrew the mini Magnum and unbuckled the holster from around her thigh. Wearing nothing except her panties, she wrapped the blanket around her and started toward the fire.
Aware that her heart was beating too fast, she risked a look at Robert—just to make sure he still had his back to her. But the sight of his muscular back and broad shoulders stopped her cold. The fire cast a warm glow that turned his skin golden. His jeans were wet. He hadn’t yet removed them, and the wet material hugged every toned muscle of his backside. She tried hard to deny the sharp zing of awareness that crept over her, but she didn’t have much luck.
Lily reached the fire and looked at the soggy clothes in her hands. “Where’s a clothes dryer when you need one?” she said, trying not to feel awkward.
Robert turned. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but she felt his gaze sweep over her as surely as if he’d touched her.
“I’ll hang them for you,” he said.
She did look at him then, and the contact was as shocking as the snap of a bullet through the air. She saw the quick flex of his jaw. The jump of heat in his eyes. She was aware of that same heat jumping through her blood, warming her from the inside out. Aware that her knees had begun to shake, that neither of them had made a move to close the short, dangerous distance between them, she looked away. “I can do it.”
She concentrated intently on draping her sweater and skirt over the wire, but she was starkly aware that he was standing just a few feet away. That he was watching her every move. That he hadn’t said a word. And that if they didn’t do something about the tension, the air around them was going to shatter.
As she smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt she heard Robert move away. Her nerves settled a bit when she looked over her shoulder and saw him spreading a second tarp on the ground.
Leaving her clothes hanging, she crossed to him. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Flesh wounds always hurt the most.”
“It’s going to be stiff tomorrow.”
“I don’t think I’ll be playing basketball for a while.” He rolled the shoulder in question as if testing it and ended up grimacing. “It could use a bandage if you’re up to it.”
Bandaging the wound wasn’t the problem. Standing scant inches from a bare-chested man to whom she was incredibly attracted while she was wearing nothing more than a threadbare blanket was the problem. “I’m up to it.”
He sank onto the tarp and dug into his medical bag. Lily watched as he removed a roll of gauze, first aid tape, antibiotic cream and a small container of peroxide.
“Unless you’ve got really long arms, you might try coming over here,” he said. “I don’t bite.”
Feeling herself flush, she stepped over to him and knelt. “I think we both know your biting isn’t the problem.”
He frowned at the wound. “Clean it up with a little peroxide, add a thin glaze of the antibiotic ointment, cover it with a bandage. Think you can do that?”
“Of course I can.” Lily hoped he didn’t notice that her hands were shaking when she tore open an alcohol pad and sterilized her hands. Robert didn’t so much as wince when she drizzled peroxide over the wound. She twisted the cap off a tube of ointment, then applied it directly to the wound. The graze wasn’t deep, but the bullet had definitely done some damage. He would have a permanent scar. If the bullet had been a couple of inches deeper, it would have shattered his shoulder.