“Something wrong?” he asked, which was when Gina realized that she’d been staring at him with who knew what kind of expression on her face.
“You mean besides the fact that I’m trapped in a tent in a blizzard with a complete stranger? Not a thing,” she lied. She was still pushing the memories away, still locking the specter of sexual attraction out of her mind, still resisting the urge to zip her parka back up again and run screaming out into the storm, when he handed the half-full bottle of water back to her.
The prosaic action, the feel of the cool, slick bottle in her hand, steadied her as no amount of self-talk could have done.
“Save that,” he said, and subsided back down into the depths of the sleeping bag, hitching it higher around his neck. “In case the storm lasts a while.”
The suggestion was unsettling. But, like the water bottle in her hand, it gave her something concrete to focus on. She figuratively grabbed hold with both hands. “Storms on Attu usually blow over in a few hours.”
“Thus I said, in case.”
“Okay.” Hating to entertain the thought but knowing he was right, she ate the last of her protein bar, took one more sip of water, screwed the cap back on, and set it aside.
“You say something about bandaging me up earlier?” He nodded at the first aid kit, which was on the floor beside the backpack.
“Yes.” She was still rattled, but she did her best to shrug it off. Mentally squaring her shoulders, she picked up the first aid kit and shifted around until she was kneeling next to his midsection so she could get a closer look. “The one good thing is, being immersed in the sea probably helped to clean it out. And the cold probably kept the injury from bleeding as much as it otherwise would have done.”
He lay on his back now with that one arm tucked beneath his head. His armpit was tufted with black hair. The arm itself was chiseled and strong-looking, heavy with muscle. Aggressively masculine, just like the rest of him. It also sported a large, darkening bruise just above his elbow. She fastened her gaze on that with a feeling very close to relief.
He said, “Kept the bullet wound from bleeding, you mean?”
The tent instantly seemed to shrink around her. His expression was concealed by shadows. Her eyes jumped to his, to discover that they were fixed on her face.
So that he could weigh her response to his words? Her pulse speeded up and her stomach tightened at the thought, along with its corollary: He doesn’t trust me.
She was hit by a sudden wave of apprehension that felt like a million tiny bugs skittering over her skin.
Thanks to her, he had shelter, warmth, food. Which in a perfect world should mean that he was grateful, right? Down in the real world where she lived, what it really meant was that he no longer needed her to survive.
He said he wouldn’t hurt me.
Her chin came up. She met his eyes steadily. “Unless you have another injury I don’t know about.”
“Bruises and scrapes. At least, as far as I can tell.”
“You’re lucky,” she said, remembering the violence of the plane’s explosion.
“Yeah.” There was a dryness to that that told her he didn’t think so.
Convince him that he still does need you. Tend his wound, tend the furnace. Then, when the storm passes, when morning comes, run like hell.
SHE PUSHED back the sleeping bag to find that fresh blood darkened the white cotton of his makeshift bandage. Gina frowned. Clearly the wound was still bleeding. At a guess, the only reason it had bled so sluggishly up until this point was because his circulation had slowed down as he’d gotten colder and colder. Now that he was warming up, the bleeding was worsening.
The sleeves of the turtleneck were knotted around his waist to keep it in place. Untying them, she pulled it off him, picked up the flashlight, and trained it on the wound, which was several inches above where the waistband of her sweatpants bisected his muscled abdomen.
The taut skin just below his waist was marred by a bruise about the size of the rim of a teacup. In the center of the bruise was some swelling, and in the center of the swelling was a puckered hole. A dark crust around the edge of the hole told her that it had begun to clot before something—probably everything he’d done since he’d fallen out of the boat onto the beach, at a guess—had broken open the developing scab. Fortunately, the bright red blood that welled up as she watched seeped rather than poured from the hole.
She didn’t know much about bullet wounds. But she did know that a small entry wound, assuming this was the entry wound, was usually accompanied by a larger exit wound. As in, he should have a bigger, gorier hole in his back.
Since the turtleneck had already done its unsterile worst, she picked it up and used it to wipe away the blood that was starting to trickle down his side. Then she tackled the blood welling from the wound itself so she could get a better look.
“Ouch,” he said as she dabbed at it.
“Can you roll on your side a little? I need to see your back.”