Page 12 of Leif

“I could have done that,” I said.

She glanced at me, an eyebrow rising. “So could I.” With that, she lowered him onto the couch. I watched her unfold a throw blanket and cover him up before straightening up and staring at me.

“He doesn’t look like you.” The meaning behind her words was clear; she didn’t think he was actually mine. She was right, of course, but I didn’t like betraying his trust. His story was his to tell, but I worried I needed to say something, or she could become our biggest enemy really quickly.

With an apologetic glance at his sleeping form, I took the liberty to explain myself to her.

“He lost his mom and dad, so I’m taking him under my wing.” It was that simple. I was going to take him under my wing like he’d begged me to do.

Her expression softened, and she glanced down at him before walking toward me again. “Let’s get you stitched up. Is there a needle in the first aid kit?”

I nodded.

In the bedroom where we’d be out of sight of him, if he woke up again, she took the needle and thread from the first aid kit and threaded it on the first try.

“You’ve done this before.” Her deft motions were graceful and betrayed her comfort with this whole situation. Which told me she’d done this before.

She glanced at me out of the corners of her lovely brown eyes. “Yeah. Once or twice. Don’t get too excited, cowboy.”

With a deft motion, she pulled the gauze from my wound. “It’s a bit ragged. But I don’t want to trim it smooth without a better workspace. Do you mind a scar?”

I shook my head. One more scar wouldn’t matter that much.

“It’s going to hurt,” she warned in a gentler voice before shoving the metal through my flesh.

I didn’t so much as flinch as she began to sew the wound closed as best she could around the ragged edges. “Have you been shot before?” she asked, her eyes focused on my bleeding shoulder. I grabbed the red rag I’d picked out just for this and held it below the wound to keep from dripping blood everywhere.

“Yep.” A through and through on my calf. Not that it mattered. She was talking to keep me distracted, and I knew that.

“You’re a talkative one.” Her lips curved into a warm smile.

“Why did they ambush you?”

My question stopped her up short, and she stared at me for a moment. “They didn’t ambush me. I hit a deer.”

“An elk, actually. But this was planned.” I knew that deep down, I just didn’t know how she fit into things. But from the outside looking in, she was traveling alone, the criminal obviously had a thing for her, and logic told me that she was either in on this whole thing or she was the unluckiest woman alive.

Her eyebrows shot up and a smile twisted her lips. “They planned for me to hit a deer? Sorry, an elk?” She seemed unable to hold back her amusement.

Her genuine response told me that she wasn’t part of this. “They didn’t plan for the elk. I think that was a lucky break for them.”

Her hands went still.

“You thought it was planned too.” I could see it in her face and feel it in her hesitation.

She sighed and continued sewing me up. “Something didn’t sit right when they were on the highway behind me. They kept a perfect distance behind me for a while, and then they started getting closer. Nothing suspicious.” Her eyes focused on the wound as she pulled the needle and thread through. “But it didn’t feel right, you know?”

I knew exactly what she meant. That unsettling feeling that something was wrong. I always trusted that feeling, and of course, she did too; she was a cop. I nodded.

“When they pulled up behind me, I expected them to call 911. You know, that’s what people do when they stop at the scene of an accident. Except these guys didn’t.” She focused, pressing the needle through my skin and pulling the thread tight. The lips of the wound met, angry and red, but where she’d already stitched, the bleeding seemed to have eased up.

“But then the airbag deployed, and I came to tied up.” She let out a shaky sigh, and I sensed her mental distress. I’d searched her for signs of physical damage, but never once had I given thought to her mental state. What had they done to her while she was at their mercy?

“Do I need to take you to the hospital?”

Her eyes met mine. “No! No. I don’t want to go in. Not yet.”

She said it just a bit too fast. “Why?” I asked, curious about her reasons.

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