He gasped. Shuddered. Winced.
Before Murphy could catch her breath his thick, sandy-colored lashes swept up. Her gaze was captured by arresting blue eyes.
He glared up at her. “What are you doing?”
“Waking you up.”
“What happened?”
“You fainted.”
His gaze flashed with annoyance, and his scowl suggested he wasn't pleased by her terminology. Maybe “blacked out” would have been better?
“How long?” he asked.
“How long what?”
“How long was I out for?”
“Oh. I don't know. Two minutes.” She shrugged. “Three at the most. Maybe five. Are you ready to try standing again?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course. If you'd rather you can lay out here until you freeze, or"—her voice rose a shaky pitch, and she averted her attention to the blanket of snow just above the top of his head—"bleed to death. Whichever comes first.”
“Hell of a choice.”
“Yeah, well, this is one hell of a situation.” Her gaze dipped, meeting his. Murphy could have sworn she saw a glint of agreement shimmer in his eyes.
Crouching next to him, she again reached for his arm. This time it was she who detected shivers—emanating from the hard bands of muscle hidden beneath a protective layer of leather and sheepskin. “Let's see if we can get you inside before you, er, black out again.”
It took five minutes to finally get the man onto his feet. Sort of. While at the end of that time he was standing, most of his weight was on Murphy…and she felt every virile pound of it! He didn't faint again, she was thankful for that, although there were a few tense seconds when she had to tighten her hold on him, because the way he grunted and swayed made her think he was about to.
It took ten more very long minutes to get halfway to the cabin's front door. At this rate, she wondered if they'd get across the threshold by Christmas.
At five foot eight, Murphy McKenna wasn't short, yet she felt tiny and slight compared to this man's ruggedly built frame. A shiver coursed down her spine. This time, she wasn't entirely sure it had anything to do with the cold.
The man stopped, forcing her to stop as well. Angling his head, he glanced down. The bottom of his chin scraped the top of her head.
Murphy's heart skipped a beat when she glanced up, and found herself ensnared by his iridescent blue eyes. His breath was coming fast and hard, it looked misty on the moonlit air; she felt the warm puffs of it sear her upturned cheeks, her mouth. Both tingled in response.
She swallowed dryly. Her right arm was wrapped around his waist, her side and hip taking on as much of his weight as she could. Her left hand, she noticed only now, was splayed casually over his chest. Even through the padding of his jacket, she felt the beat of his heart pounding a strong, steady rhythm against her abruptly over-sensitive palm.
He leaned toward her. She grunted as she planted her feet in the snow and took on still more of his rock-solid weight. It wasn't the unwieldy burden she though it should be.
“Are you all right?” she asked, concerned. “You're not going to fai—pass out again, are you?”
He hesitated, as though even he was unsure of the answer. Squaring his broad shoulders, he shook his head. “Not if I can help it.” Tearing his gaze from hers, he again focused on the front door. On a goal that seemed, even to Murphy, to waver several miles away instead of the few feet it actually was. “Let's keep going.”
MURPHY STOOD in the doorway to her nephew's bedroom, her attention rooted indecisively on the stranger.
His brawny body was sprawled over the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bedspread covering the bottom bunkbed. That the man was laying on a bunkbed at all, no matter what the print on the bedspread, looked incongruous and more than a little comical.
She had to give the guy credit; true to his word, he hadn't fainted again…until she'd eased him onto the bed. Then he'd gone belly up.
It was going to take more than a fistful of snow to bring him around this time. Again, she thought that was just as well.
It was time for the hard part. Time to muster her courage and take a look at his injured leg.
Murphy suppressed a groan. No matter how much she stalled, she couldn't avoid it forever. The stranger said he'd been in an accident. He was obviously bleeding. A lot. Since he was unconscious, and probably wouldn't be of much help even if he wasn't, the chore of stopping the bleeding fell to her.
What was the saying from that stupid cartoon her brother loved? Happy, happy, joy, joy.
Such was the price of being a good Samaritan. There was partial compensation in knowing she'd done what had to be done. She'd gone back for the man when she could have driven away. On that score, her conscience was clear. When push came to shove, she'd taken the only course of action she could live with.
That course of action, however, was double edged. It also carried with it a heavy weight of responsibility.
Her unspoken, yet nevertheless real, obligation to this man didn't end with going back for him. Or even with her somehow managing to get him into the house, sheltered from the storm. Oh, no, she wasn't that lucky.
That had been the easy part.
The hard part was still ahead.
Did she have the stomach—never mind the resolve and skill!—to staunch the bleeding in the man's thigh? Maybe. One thing she didn't have was the tools.
Packed in the trunk of her car was a first-aid kit that she'd never used. Murphy was only sketchily acquainted with its contents. There was a rudimentary emergency care pamphlet, but if she remembered correctly, the booklet was only twelve pages long.
She doubted Johnson & Johnson had gone into detail about what to do when one encountered a stranger in the middle of a blizzard who'd been in a car accident and was bleeding to death.
Still, profuse bleeding was profuse bleeding, right? Every emergency handbook worth its copyright covered that.
The man grunted.
Murphy's gaze snapped to him. His face was alarmingly pale. The hollows under his cheekbones were more pronounced. His lips were thinned, rimmed white, and his sandy brows were furrowed in a pain-pinched frown. His breathing was still ragged, but a bit more even. As far as she could tell, he was still out cold.
With a sigh, she turned on her heel and left not only the room, but the house. In less than a minute she returned with the first-aid kit in one hand and, draped over the crook of her other arm, a loudly purring Moonshine.
The latter was deposited on the living room sofa, the former she carried with her over to the phone. She picked up the receiver, held it to her ear. The dial-tone buzzed in her ear.
That was the good news. It took less than half a minute for a husky-voiced male operator to assure Murphy that a rescue team would indeed be sent out. The bad news, he said, was that in this storm there was simply no way to tell how long it would take the rescue workers to reach the cabin.
Still, knowing help was on the way made her feel better.
Murphy brought the first-aid kit into her nephew's bedroom. She flipped the wall switch. The combination light-and-brown-wicker-and-wood, five-blade ceiling fan overhead bathed the room in a soft white glow. That, mixed with the vibrant blues, greens and yellows of the pillowcase beneath the man's sandy-blond head, made his face look even paler.
He moved.
Murphy's gaze narrowed as she watched him drag the tip of his tongue over his lips. The muscles in her abdomen convulsed, and she chastised herself for the inappropriate reaction even as her attention traced the broad shelf of his shoulders, his flat stomach, lean hips, lower…
A whimper trapped in her throat.
The cartoonish pattern on the bedspread was no longer visible; it was obscured by dark, wet bloodstains.
Her stomach flip-flopped, and her fingers tightened around the white plastic first-aid kit. Her knees threatened to buckle as her mind raced backward to the last time she'd seen this much blood…
>
No, she was not going to think about that! Not now. She couldn't. Instead, she'd concentrate on stopping the man's bleeding as best she could until the rescue workers arrived. Until then she wouldn't allow herself to concentrate on anything else.
Murphy jerked her gaze from the bloodstained bedspread, her stomach churning. Her mouth set in a grim, determined line, she closed the bedroom door and slowly approached the bed.
Chapter 3
Murphy's Law #3: Just when things are looking up…
HE COULDN'T breathe.
There was a tightness in Garrett's chest that felt like a steel fist had clamped around his heart and lungs, squeezing the breath out of him. His eyes were closed; the inside of his eyelids felt like they'd been scrapped with sandpaper. As for the agony in his thigh…he didn't want to think about that.
He cracked one eye open. Had his throat not felt so dry and tight, he might have screamed.
Something was sitting on him.
Something big.
Something hairy.
Something that's brick-red nose was only a fraction away, and that's big blue eyes were only a scant bit farther.
Whatever it was, it was staring at Garrett intently.
With effort, Garrett traced the tightness in his chest to the weight of the creature lying on his chest, pinning him to the bed like a paperweight.
A sneeze tickled the back of Garrett's nose. His eyes began to water. The last time he'd felt like this had been six months ago, while visiting his grandmother's summer house. Unbeknownst to him, the old woman had acquired a kitten. Since Garrett rarely found his way up to Maine to visit her, Ruth Thayer hadn't felt compelled to worry about her grandson's allergies.
A cat.
Oh, Lord…that's what this thing is!
The thought had no more shot through Garrett's mind when two loud, hard sneezes exploded from his lungs. His sinuses filled, and he could barely see out of his puffy, watery eyes. Pain sliced like a knife up his right thigh when he attempted to roll to the side, and at the same time yell, “Help!”
His voice had no more bounced off the painted white walls of the small bedroom when he heard running feet in the hallway.
A shape filled the doorway, but he couldn't make it out, his vision was too blurry. “My bag,” he croaked, his voice hoarse and scratchy.
“What bag?”
That voice. It was familiar. Garrett didn't waste time trying to place it. Instead, he gestured impatiently with his hand and said, “Green. Nylon. Duffel—aaaaaacho!—bag.”
It took a second before the voice came again. High, cautious. “What do you want it for?”
“Just get it.” Sneeze, sniffle, sneeze! “Please. And a glass of water. Hurry!”
He could feel the woman's curious gaze rake him. While Garrett would like to have explained what he wanted, needed, he couldn't. He was rocked by three sneezes that were so violent they made the cat, who'd apparently been using his chest as a bed, yowl indignantly and jump to the floor.
It was an excellent start.
After a beat of hesitation, he heard the woman's footsteps retreat from the room. She was back almost immediately.
The mattress beneath his hip dipped, the springs creaking as she perched on the edge. He winced, and gritted his teeth to stifle a groan. The pain that cut through his right thigh was incredible.
“Here,” she said, and pushed something into his hands.
His fingertips recognized the scratchy nylon as his beat-up duffel bag. The rasp of the zipper sounded unnaturally loud against the backdrop of tense silence.
Garrett sneezed, twice in quick succession, then sniffled loudly. Since his eyes were too watery to see, he searched the bags contents using only his fingers. What he was looking for had been purposely stored in a small, zippered compartment on the inside, making it easy to find.
His fist closed around an amber prescription bottle with a white top. The pills inside rattled dully when he pulled it free.
“Oh, no,” the woman said. Judging by her tone, she'd just guessed what was wrong with him.
Before Garrett could react, she'd yanked the bottle from his grasp. Again, he heard the rattle of pills against plastic. The sound was quickly replaced by the creak of bedsprings as the woman leaned closer to him.
Garrett opened his mouth when she pressed two pills against his lips. One of her arms slipped beneath his neck, and his wounded leg screamed a protest when she angled him up and touched the rim of a cup—also plastic, by the feel of it—to his mouth.
Water trickled over his parched lips, down his equally parched throat. It tasted delicious, cold and sweet.
“Drink slow,” she instructed, letting only enough water for him to swallow the pills dribble into his mouth.
His breathing was labored; the harsh wheeze of it echoed in his ears. A palm stroked the hair back from his brow before turning inward, angling over his cheek, tracing the line of his shadow-stubbled jaw…
Garrett blamed his wound, the cat, his adverse reaction to the cat…he blamed anything he could think of for the tremor that coursed like sun-warmed honey down his spine.
“How long before they take affect?”
He shrugged tightly. It was all he could manage.
“You're allergic to cats, right?”
He nodded, and noticed—vaguely at first, then with mounting accuracy—that his head was being gently held. His left cheek nuzzled her breasts. As though being splashed by an invisible wave of heat, he felt her warmth radiate from that point throughout the rest of his body.
“A wounded stranger who's allergic to cats. Isn't that just my luck? Okay, Moonshine, visiting hours are over.”
Garrett felt an odd stab of disappointment when the woman lowered his head back to the pillow. The bed jostled when she stood. He groaned. A few seconds later, he heard a disgruntled meow, followed by the soft but firm closing of the bedroom door.
Moonshine, he thought. Hell of a name for a cat.
“Feeling any better yet?” she asked. While her voice was close, there'd been no tell-tale jostle to let him know she was again sitting on the edge of the bed, no wave of her body heat, no jarring bolt of pain in his right thigh.
A stronger pang of disappointment arrowed through him, but it was short-lived. Her fingertips—soft and cool and gentle—were feathering his brow again, pushing back another wayward strand of hair. Garrett thought he could very quickly learn to like the feel of her skin against his. “Getting there,” he said, his voice hoarse and nasally. “What was that thing, a mountain lion?”
“No,” she said, then laughed.
The sound tickled Garrett's ears, seduced him into opening his eyes to catch a glimpse of the face and body it belonged to. His eyes were still puffy and watery; he couldn't see much more than a vague hint of curly brown hair and creamy white skin.
“Although,” she added, “he probably weighs as much as one. Moonshine is a Himalayan cat, born and very expensively bred. A chocolate-point one, to be exact.”
“Moonshine,” he repeated, still thinking the name odd.
Apparently, he wasn't the only one. The answer she supplied to his unasked question sounded like it had been said often. “I picked it up from a soap opera I watched in college.”
The antihistamine was beginning to work. His throat was starting to loosen and didn't feel as scratchy and dry. “Funny, where I went to college,” he said huskily, “we studied.”
“Poor guy.” Her tone was one of mock conciliation. “I'll bet you wish you went to URI then.”
“URI?”
“University of Rhode Island.”
“Nope, never did. Wish I'd gone there,” he clarified. His vision was starting to clear. The woman with the high yet authoritative, school teacher voice was now only a little fuzzy around what looked to be very attractive edges. Despite the pain in his leg, and the fact that his allergy medicine had yet to kick in full strength, Garrett grinned. It was a tight grin, but a grin all the same. “Until now.�
�
He couldn't decide which was her most attractive feature, her smile or those vaguely slanted, velvet green eyes. Both were intriguing enough to take his mind off the pain…if only for a few seconds.
“I put your medicine back in the duffel bag,” she said. Did he detect a hint of wariness in her tone? “And speaking of your duffel bag…I, um, think we need to talk.”
Garrett's lips thinned. “If you looked in my bag then, yeah, I'd say we do.”
“I've looked.” Her tone was wary. “I checked, but there wasn't a scrap of identification for you in it.”
“I know.”
“What I did find, on the other hand, was—”
“Money,” Garrett cut in, and she nodded. “About two thousand dollars, all in small bills.”
“Right…”
“And a bottle of antihistamine.”
“That, too…”
“Jewelry.”
“Lots of it. Mostly antique. And…”
Garrett sighed. There was no use lying to the woman, or denying it. She'd already looked inside the bag, already knew what else was in there. He decided to fill in the word her tongue stumbled over. “A gun,” he said finally. “You found a gun.”
“Yes,” she replied on a swift exhalation, as though his admission had punched the word out her lungs.
She'd been crouching next to the bed; she now plopped down on the floor beside it and, crossing her slim, denim-clad legs yoga-style, stared up at him. The baggy, cream-colored sweater pooled in softly knitted folds around her hips. She was in stocking feet, not a trace of the Reeboks he remembered from earlier in sight. Her feet, he noticed, were touchably small.
“I'm sure you have a good explanation.”
Garrett eyed her speculatively. “Are you asking me, or telling me?”
“Darned if I know. Right now, I'm just hoping you'll say yes, I have a very good, very plausible explanation as to why I'm wandering around in a blizzard with a torn up thigh, carrying an old green duffel bag crammed full of small bills, prescription strength Benadryl, more antique jewelry than I've ever seen in a lifetime…and a gun. Please, if you don't have a good explanation, feel free to make one up. Really. I won't mind.”
Murphy's Law Page 3