Sadie laughed, then smothered it with a haughty look. “As a former person of interest in Denver society, I can assure you that my personal hygiene is above reproach.”
“As a current person of interest in the boondocks, I can assure you that you smell like some animal’s ass.”
“Deer,” Sadie nodded her agreement. “We clarified that confusion a while back.”
He leaned over and gently captured her smile with his lips.
“Water,” he repeated, as he forced himself to break the kiss. “Before I’m forever destined to think of the smell of manure as some kind of aphrodisiac. Grab one of those bricks from that fire pit, would you?”
He threw the brick she retrieved through one of the windows and reached through to unlatch it. But while he tried to figure out how he was going to crawl through without breaking down and weeping, Sadie told him to stop being ridiculous. She pushed him aside and levered her torso through the opening, which Declan truly appreciated. He appreciated her cute behind shimmying through even more.
“If you’re done looking at my butt like it’s up for sale, you’re welcome to come in now.”
He blinked, realizing Sadie had opened the door while he’d been busy ogling. With an imaginary SOLD sign in his hand, he stalked over to join her.
Then she edged past him toward the rudimentary kitchen. He followed along like the dog he was, ready to pounce on any scraps she might toss him.
But when he saw her begin searching through the crude plywood cabinets for supplies, he chained his libido and crated it. They’d have time to play fetch later. He’d even bring his own bone.
And okay, enough with the dog imagery. It brought too many possibilities to behind.
To mind, he corrected himself silently. Too many possibilities to mind.
He found himself presented with a glass of water.
“Here’s to hoping the water is potable.” She clinked her plastic cup against his.
“Brackish water reverse osmosis,” he said. “There’s a Pure Aqua magnet stuck to the fridge.”
She glanced at it as they both drained their tumblers. “Tastes good.” She started with the refills.
“At this point I wouldn’t care if it tasted like piss.”
AFTER they’d slaked their thirst, taking care of some of their injuries became paramount.
A check in what passed for a linen closet produced a couple towels and a bar of soap. And – eureka – a small emergency first aid kit. Popping the lid, Sadie quickly scanned the contents. She wouldn’t be doing any field surgery with these supplies, not that she would have any clue even if she’d discovered an entire operating room behind the Band-Aids. But there was some acetaminophen, which was good, because she knew Dec was hurting despite his woo-woo or his oversized ego, and they both needed antibiotic cream on numerous places where they’d broken their skin. She hadn’t wanted to complain earlier, but her feet felt like they’d been through a shredder. The slice she’d incurred was the worst of it, but her other cuts and scratches were too numerous to mention. The pine needles blanketing the ground had sharp, stinging points that lent credence to their name. And just the thought of the germs that had no doubt found their way into her bloodstream made her really glad she’d recently been on antibiotics.
As she turned from the closet with the bounty in her arms she caught Declan examining the bare-bones toilet and pedestal sink that passed for a bathroom. He was looking pretty green about the gills. With an order to “Sit” she pointed to the closed toilet, where he lowered himself without a fuss.
She immediately produced the acetaminophen. He gulped down three without the benefit of water.
“Thanks,” he wheezed, good hand straying toward his temple. “My ribs finally settled down but my head picked up the slack. It feels like it’s been invaded by a bunch of midgets wielding ice-picks.”
Sadie hated to ask him to take off his shirt, but she wanted to get a look at his side. And to help him with the icy sponge bath for which they both were destined – even if they risked cranking up the generator, the water wouldn’t be heated for quite a while.
Understanding what was needed, Declan inched the dark green T up before she could ask him. Sadie sucked back a gasp when she caught sight of the ugly garden of bruises that bloomed like blighted roses along his torso. If she had a gun, she’d have no compunction against shooting Billy right now.
The bastard.
With a shaky hand, Sadie wet the towel and lathered it with the bar soap. And cursed the tear that slipped between her lashes when she placed the rough cloth against Declan’s skin.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, reaching up to wipe the tear away. “Now that we’re not moving around so much, they don’t hurt nearly as bad.”
Not trusting herself to let words past the lump of outrage clogging her throat, Sadie concentrated on cleaning him gently, rinsing the threadbare towel frequently in the frigid water. She wished it were a warm Jacuzzi bath and Egyptian cotton with some kind of obscenely expensive liquid shower gel. Lavender, she thought, ridiculously. Something soothing that would calm them both.
After cleaning his scalp as best she could, she applied antibiotic ointment to the split skin. There was nothing to do for his ribs or his hand, so she stepped back, feeling small and useless.
“It’s okay,” Dec repeated, sensing the bleakness of her mood. “We both agreed that we weren’t doing the whole guilt thing. Remember?”
“How about the whole pissed-off thing?” Sadie asked.
“That, I can do very well.”
“I want to hurt them,” she said viciously, the words leaping from her like something with claws.
“I know, honey.” He levered himself up, taking care not to jar his ribs, gathered her gently in his damp arms. “I promise when we get back to civilization we’ll catch them and fry them in oil.”
Sadie found herself smiling against his chest. His very naked chest.
Which currently resembled an industrial waste accident. Not something that you wanted to get too close to.
“You go sit at the table,” she told him, wanting to hold him but suddenly afraid. What if his ribs were broken? Couldn’t a cracked rib sometimes puncture a lung?
So she handed him his shirt as she shooed him off, closing the door so she could wash herself. The soap and water, though freezing, felt like bubbles from heaven against her skin, and she stripped off everything including her underwear and scrubbed until she was pink. Then she doctored her soles and her breast with the antibiotic ointment, found a couple ace bandages to wrap her feet. It stung like hell but with no boat and no phone she figured there was some more walking to be done in their future. The bandages would have to do.
Replacing her clothes – except for her torn bra and her thong, both of which she considered burning – she opened the door to an empty room.
The front door was standing open, and her heart kicked against her ribs. Could the men have gotten to Declan while she was bathing?
Then she caught a flash of light skin moving through the trees, skin partially encased in a green Murphy’s shirt. Swallowing a terse comment about stubborn men who refused to stay put, Sadie walked gingerly across the linoleum. Funny how injuries didn’t hurt too badly until you started to treat them. Up ‘til then they just slowly festered.
Emotional wounds worked pretty much the same.
She thought about what Declan had told her. It must have been incredibly painful for him to finally come to terms with his feelings of guilt. And to risk handing her his heart when it was yet so fragile made her consider her own feelings. She’d been so surprised when he said he loved her, so in fear for their lives that she hadn’t been able to examine them properly. But they went past lust, beyond friendship. She was cautious, after what happened with Rick, skeptical of how quickly she’d rebounded. How quickly her feelings for Declan had bloomed.
But as she watched him move toward what appeared to be some kind of storage shed – a shed they hadn�
�t previously noticed – something warm unfurled in her chest.
This was the boy who’d tormented her in childhood. But the man she loved as an adult. After all they’d been through, surely she could be courageous enough to admit that.
She stepped onto the porch, wanting to tell him.
Just as Billy stepped out of the trees.
Sadie froze, the proverbial deer, the helpless creature too frightened for movement. But when she saw the pistol on the end of his arm lift in Declan’s direction, rage blasted the fear out in a wave of heat. She screamed, launched herself, watched the gun swing back toward her, and heard the shot that surely had blown a hole in her chest. But she felt nothing, kept flying forward. Landed on top of the man who was now on the ground.
“Sadie, no!”
She found herself unceremoniously flung to the side. An elbow hit her square on the cheekbone, white light exploding in a shower of sparks like pain-filled pyrotechnics. She rolled, realizing she wasn’t the only one who’d spotted Billy. She shook her head to clear the fog as Declan grappled with the other man.
Grunts echoed, curses flew, the dull thud of flesh striking flesh made nausea churn hard in her belly. Dec was holding his own, the force of his anger driving him. But despite the numbers, it was she and Declan who were disadvantaged. Sadie scrambled back toward the pile of bricks that she’d pilfered from earlier, dislodging one and taking aim at the shape of Billy’s dark head.
The years of playing backyard softball with the Murphys paid off, as the brick connected with an audible thunk. Stunned enough to loosen his hold on the weapon, the bigger man sagged briefly, his weight falling on Declan. And despite the pain which leached all color from his cheeks even with the heat of the battle upon him, Declan’s good hand closed around the gun. Billy rallied, Sadie panicked and cocked her arm to let forth with another brick, just as a second shot exploded.
When the echo faded the only noise left was the thundering of Sadie’s heartbeat. Denial rumbled through her in a messy and violent surge.
“No. Declan? No, no, no.”
Neither man was moving. Nor was there any answer – they were a tableau of violence in still-frame, two heavy, sweaty male bodies sprawled in a heap of torn clothing and blood.
Heart in her throat and with lead for her limbs, Sadie lurched forward with the jerky gait of shock.
Not now, she prayed, quickening as panic lent momentum. Not when they were so close to leaving this waking nightmare behind.
Anxiety overriding all other concerns, Sadie ran toward the mound of their entwined bodies. The smell of cordite overlaid with blood was anguish waiting to happen.
She yanked furiously at Billy’s bulk.
Beneath him Declan lay silent as death, eyelids shut in repose. His lashes formed crescents, dark and still against skin that gleamed white but for the splatter of blood.
“No,” she whispered again, dropping to her knees in the loamy soil. With another push at the loathsome weight that pinned him, Sadie scanned fear-bright eyes over his chest.
It rose and fell, very gently.
Hands forming a steeple against her lips, she shot a quick glance toward Billy, whose eyes were open, but blind. And there was a hole in his shirt where the heart would be if he were the type of man who had one.
Relief flooded her, even messier than the denial, and with some crying, blubbering and a good bit of trembling she started checking Declan for obvious wounds.
The blood seemed to be mostly Billy’s. It coated her fingers, turned her saliva to bile as she fumbled with the edge of Declan’s shirt.
He sputtered a curse when she touched his ribs.
And rolling over, wrecked and weak, lost two glasses of water on the churned-up ground. Sadie stroked his hair, soothed him. Thanked God for finally cutting them a break. The muscles in his back spasmed beneath her hand as he dealt with the aftershocks of adrenaline.
“From now on,” he gasped, voice thin and reedy as the breeze rustling through the trees behind them, “there will be no more barfing in this relationship. It’s a BFZ,” he added, gesturing emphatically with his good hand.
Barf Free Zone, she gathered, after a pause.
Even half dead, the man still had a sense of humor.
Sadie had to smile, though it was wobbly around the edges. Her nerves were so shaken that she felt a little mental, just like she’d once suspected of Dec. She wanted to both leap for joy and curl up into a ball and weep.
“You scared me,” she said, laughing and crying simultaneously so that snot dripped inelegantly from her nose. She wiped it on the flannel Dec had loaned her and thought ridiculously that if only Rick could see her. Dirty, blubbery, in love. Completely indecorous, and uncaring of the fact. Not precisely Carlisle material.
But the thought passed quickly as reality intruded in the form of one very dead bad guy lying in an ever-increasing pool of blood.
“Come on,” Sadie coaxed, loathe for any more of Billy’s fetidness to soil either one of them. She batted at the detested work boot that was still tangled up with Declan’s own. “Can you move? Let me help get you away from him.”
“Is he dead?” Declan coughed, hauling himself to his knees with obvious effort.
“Not nearly enough, but he’s not breathing.” But just to be cautious, just to be safe, she made sure to palm the gun. His brother was probably still out there.
Declan swayed, stared at the corpse. “I should probably feel something,” he concluded. “Other than satisfaction.”
Sadie suspected he’d feel it later, and hated Billy for causing more guilt. Unlike the bastard bleeding out next to them, Declan had a conscience that would give him trouble. “You did what you had to,” she told him. “You saved yourself, saved me.” She helped him climb awkwardly to standing, supported his weight as he started to lean.
“What were you thinking?” he suddenly yelled, even though he wobbled and winced from the chore. “Tackling a man more than twice your size? Not to mention the nine millimeter. I nearly had a heart attack on the spot.”
“I was thinking that I love you,” she just came out and said it, with a little bit of defiance mixed in. He wasn’t the only one who’d suffered heart palpitations. That gun had been aimed at him. “And if you insist on hollering and throwing your Y chromosome around, how about waiting ‘til we get inside to do it. I don’t feel real comfortable out here in the open.”
He stopped lurching forward and simply stared at her, unblinking. Somehow managed a cocky, delighted grin.
“Was it my charm or the manly vomiting that convinced you?”
He was talking about her I love you, she knew. “If you must know it was your facile mind that did it. Any guy who can use the phrase brackish water reverse osmosis in the same breath as wouldn’t care if it tasted like piss is a man with many layers of interest. And you told me I smelled like ass. How’s a girl to resist?”
She shook, nerves trying to settle, as she helped him up the porch stairs. His balance was off, unsteady. Despite the banter keeping the horror at bay, they both still reeled from shock. A man lay dead not twenty feet away, and both of them wore his blood.
“We’ll get you cleaned up,” she told him. “We have a gun now for protection, in case Doug decides to show up. Maybe we can rest a while, then set out.”
“It hurts now,” Dec admitted. “The bastard went right for my ribs.”
“I’m so sorry,” she told him. “I’d be happy to shoot him again, if I thought it would do any good.”
“You did enough. That’s a damn good arm you’ve got, honey.”
Sadie helped him lower himself into a chair pulled out of sight of either window. Then she locked the front door. Grabbed the first aid kit, and more water. When she came back, arms burdened with loot, it was to find him fishing around in his pocket.
“You ever operated a four-wheeler?” he asked.
“Once.” She dropped the kit onto the table. “Any particular reason you asked?”
“You can drive, then.” He laid some kind of key on top of the red cross emblazoned on the kit. “This was hanging on the wall in that shed. The machine it operates is big enough to fit two, but at this point I wouldn’t trust my navigation.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
WORRY was a nasty pill that Kathleen tried to swallow as Anthony came into the observation room. Miller was on the phone organizing the surveillance teams for the Mayhew homestead and working on accessing the GPS chip in Sadie’s cell. Josh was busy getting a positive ID on their John Doe at the morgue, Anthony had just finished up his interview with Sadie’s security guy, and she was going crazy.
Not outwardly, mind you. Outwardly she was cool. But inside she was wound like a corkscrew. Kim had just called with the news that Rogan had been officially released from the hospital, that he’d suffered no more pain of any sort for the past half hour, and Kathleen was a head case over what exactly that meant.
That Declan was okay?
That he and Rogan’s… thread, or whatever had broken?
That there’d been no connection between the two to begin with, and this was all just coincidence?
That shit, Declan was dead?
She looked at Anthony, willed herself not to panic. She absolutely could not afford to lose it now.
“So what’s happening?” the other detective asked as he came over. And the warmth in his gaze was a comfort.
Kathleen took a deep breath and then filled him in on the John Doe. He nodded, scrubbed a thoughtful hand across his forehead, then slid that hand into his pocket. It came out with Doug Johnson’s business card.
“You have any idea how your friend came across her contractors?”
“Uh… the Yellow Pages, I think. Why? You got something?” She looked through the mirror, into the room where the man in question sipped a bottle of Coke.
The Southern Comfort Series Box Set Page 115