His brows twitched together. “Why?”
“Because if you have a hole like this in your front, you probably have a bigger one in your back.”
He shook his head. “Bullet’s still in there.”
He didn’t sound nearly as worried by that as she thought he should.
“Are you sure?” Gina looked at him with dismay. He nodded. If the bullet was still in him—her chest tightened—it undoubtedly needed to come out.
The idea that she was going to have to dig a bullet out of him—with what, the tweezers in the first aid kit?—filled her with dread. A pregnant moment in which she imagined herself shoving the tweezers into that oozing hole and probing around inside his body in a sweaty, panicky, and probably futile attempt to hit metal while his blood gushed around her fingers made her feel a little woozy. It couldn’t be done. Or at least, she couldn’t do it. Not even to show him how much he still needed her.
The mere thought made her queasy.
“I’m not even going to try to dig a bullet out of you,” she told him, sinking back on her heels.
Something glimmered in his eyes. Amusement? She couldn’t be sure.
“I thought you said you’re a doctor.”
“PhD,” she gritted.
He actually smiled at that, a quick there-and-gone smile, but a smile nonetheless. He was, she noticed sourly, way handsome when he smiled.
He said, “Then I guess you’ll just have to slap a bandage on it and leave it.”
She frowned at him. That was exactly what she meant to do, but . . . he sounded surprisingly okay with it.
“Don’t look so worried. Amateur surgery by flashlight is way more likely to kill me than leaving the bullet in there. Besides, if it had hit anything vital I’d be dead already.”
“Good point.” Seeing as how he wasn’t dead, seemed in no real danger of dying now that they had shelter and he was warming up, and they both agreed that her digging around inside him for the bullet was a bad idea, stopping the bleeding and then covering the wound seemed like the way to go. She positioned the flashlight on top of the backpack so that it would provide the maximum amount of light where she needed it. “One of our group—Keith Hertzinger from the University of Chicago—is a physician. He can look at it tomorrow.”
“A physician, huh? I thought you were here to watch birds.”
“Study birds. He also has a PhD with a specialty in environmental analytic chemistry. As isolated as Attu is, the organizers thought it would be good to include a physician in the group.” Removing an alcohol wipe from the first aid kit, she tore it open and warned, “This is probably going to sting.”
“Who are the organizers?”
“Of the trip? There are several. The National Audubon Society. The Nature Conservancy. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Why?” As she spoke she cleaned the wound and surrounding area, being careful not to dislodge the crust that had formed around the hole. The already taut muscles of his abdomen contracted still more as she swabbed them with alcohol. The wound was a little higher than his navel, which was an innie, and not much more than an inch from the edge of his body. She couldn’t help but notice the narrow trail of black hair that traced down from his navel to disappear beneath the stretched-out waistband of her sweatpants. Or how firm his abdomen felt beneath her fingers. Or how faithfully the cotton-spandex hugged his package.
Annoyed at herself, she glanced away.
“Who paid?” he asked, ignoring her question, and apparently, thankfully, missing where her gaze had last rested. “For your group to come here,” he added when, recovering, she gave him a questioning look.
“We’re being funded by a grant from the EPA.” By this time he was wincing at what she was doing to him. “I told you it might sting,” she added as an aside, in response to his expression.
“Sting? It hurts like a mother.”
“Probably because you’re warming up. And because you’ve almost certainly had an adrenaline rush going and it’s wearing off. Anyway, at a guess, I’d say getting shot tends to hurt.” As she spoke, she liberally applied antibiotic ointment to the wound then placed a small pile of gauze pads over it and used her palm to press down firmly.
He yelped.
Lifting her palm, she said, “Sorry. I was applying direct pressure to stop the bleeding.”
“No, go ahead,” he said through his teeth. “Direct pressure all the way.”
With a frowning look at him she lowered her palm to the wound again. His breathing escalated a little as she pressed, but the underlying rhythm of it was not nearly as harsh as it had been when she’d followed him into the tent. He was no longer shivering, and the sleek skin she was touching was borderline warm.