Page 37 of Afraid to Hope

She studied Rafiq, who was breathing evenly now. “I forgot to tell you I told her. Oliver had gone to bed.”

“I’m glad you did.” He watched Rafiq as well. “His bleeding has stopped.” Bane checked for a pulse again. It was weak but steady. “Good. We’ve got to keep an eye on his arm and hand, let up if it becomes cool or there is any sign of swelling. We don’t want to chance any tissue dying.” His fingers brushed hers as he turned on the flashlight she held. “Hold the flashlight steady while I take a look. I’m glad you’re here.” His brow furrowed as his fingers tenderly touched and dabbed at the leaking hole in Rafiq’s arm. “They brought you on again less than a month after your last assignment. That’s a quick turnaround.” Bane paused his examination and dropped his chin, regarding Natasha seriously. “I heard Guatemala got really intense and that you did a great job.”

She did not want to talk about Guatemala. “I did my best.”

“That’s all we can do.” He sighed, then looked up, his eyes pinning hers, penetrating into her. “I just want to make sure you’re going to have my back if the time comes.”

“Of course.” She swallowed again and sought some way to tear her eyes from his. “Your medical training surpasses mine.”

“Smooth segue,” said Bane, chuckling. He grimaced as he carefully examined the hole in Rafiq’s arm. “I see it. The bullet is lodged in the muscle, .45. Appears to be in one piece.” Worry coated his next words. “Dammit. It’s sputtering blood. I’m going to have to extract that and close the brachial or he has no chance of making it. Emmet is at least twenty minutes out.”

Natasha brought over the pot and more clean rags. “You contacted Emmet?” The director’s first name felt funny on her tongue. Her parents and grandparents had drilled in into her to address adults and superiors by last name and appropriate titles until she was invited to do otherwise. The executive director had not invited her to use his first name.

“Re-glove, Nat,” he said. “When I got my belt and flashlight. Emmet lives in Bouznika, more or less halfway between Rabat and Casablanca.” He glanced around and found the sterile suture kit. Bane opened it and also ripped one of the empty glove packets open and laid it flat.

“Why the glove envelope?” she asked, re-gloving and adding the discarded gloves to the growing bloody trash.

“For the bullet or fragments. Swab the perimeter area gently with the iodine. Don’t get any of it in the wound.”

Natasha placed the iodine-soaked gauze with the bloody bandages after swabbing, then held the flashlight over the bullet wound, watching as Bane worked, impressed as all hell. His hand was steady despite the hour and the situation dropped into their laps. “You’ve done this before.”

“More times than I can count. In the field and on the farm.”

“Farm?”

“Yeah. Can you get me bullet forceps? Second from the left.”

Natasha’s finger hovered over the instruments, each in a separate vacuum-sealed pouch. “This one?”

“Yes.” He continued to talk while she opened the sterile pouch. “I grew up on a farm. Indiana. Midwest US.”

She placed the forceps in his open palm, the heat between them sparking when their gloved fingers grazed each other’s. Her pulse went into overdrive.Jesus.“I know where Indiana is.”

“Ever been there? Dammit. It’s stubborn,” he groused as he continued extracting the bullet.

Natasha laughed. “I would never attribute stubbornness to an inanimateobject. And no, I haven’t been there. I’ve been as close as Chicago.”

“Got it!” Satisfaction lit his features as he turned the bullet over in the flashlight’s beam. “One piece. Excellent. Give me a glove envelope.”

“I will do better than that.”

She proudly pulled something from the waistband of her pajama shorts, exposing a generous expanse of skin.

Natasha held up an empty Ziploc bag and shook it. “Eyes here,” she said lightly as she opened it. “I found boxes of them in the cabinet when I was in search of clean cloths.”

Bane dropped the bullet into the clear open bag and pinned her with his gaze for a few heartbeats. “Sweetheart, you are full of contradictions. I want to explore every single one of them.”

Her eyes grew big and her lips parted. His ability to slice through her carefully constructed armor was unnerving. “That’s not going to happen.”

“You actually believe that? You appeared turned on when I woke you earlier. And again when you were checking me out. Want to discuss all the other times?”

“I was not checking you out. You have an overactive, sexed-out imagination.” She huffed, looking away.

“Bullshit. You were. I would take your brush-offs seriously if you meant what you said. But you continue to send ‘I’m really interested’ messages.”

“I do not.”

“You do indeed. It must be exhausting to constantly be in an internal argument with yourself about what you desire yet fear,” he said quietly, leaning over Rafiq, whose color was improving.

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