Page 66 of Hot Commodity (Banks/Kincaid Family 1)

Without saying a word, he grimly marched into the bathroom and went to work. Snatching a white hand towel, he pressed it against the wound on her wrist, mummifying her entire arm as he wrapped her. When blood instantly soaked through the terrycloth, Olivia let out a gasp, and her knees gave way.

Cameron cursed and caught her before she hit the floor. She grabbed his shirt and held on for dear life.

He took her free hand, manually setting it over the wound. "Hold this," he said. "Press it tight."

Olivia followed his directions but looked away as she did, tucking her face against his chest as if seeking comfort.

Not wasting a second, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her downstairs and out to his car. Refusing to feel anything, Cam set her in the passenger seat and buckled her in.

Other than his two gruff instructions, he didn't speak to her. He merely drove fast all the way to the hospital. Looking too scared and pale to talk either, Olivia held her hand over the towel, trembling, and refused to look at all the blood. Cameron glanced over once to see the sticky, red wetness seeping between her fingers. He pressed his foot harder on the gas.

All the while, he shook his head and gnashed his teeth. Explosive words bubbled to the surface, but he kept swallowing them back down. This woman wasn't his problem. He wasn't going to waste any time lecturing her. It didn't involve him. He kept repeating that to himself even as the anger turned to panic, and he felt like crying for the fate that had been handed to him.

Why? Why had she done it?

~ * ~

Olivia felt like a complete nimrod. She'd never been so foolish and asinine in her entire life. She was just lucky Cameron had been there to keep a level head and get her to a hospital.

Like a knight in shining armor, he'd swept into the bathroom and taken control of the situation. And now she was sitting in an emergency room, waiting for someone to come back and release her. Eight stitches had patched her wrist back together.

Glancing down at the gauzy square bandage, she shuddered. It was amazing that such a tiny suture held together what had seemed like a huge gaping hole only an hour ago. Just thinking about all the gore that had come out of that hole made her woozy all over again. She reached out a hand to brace herself against the wall just as a nurse walked in.

"Whoa. You okay there?" The nurse caught her shoulder.

"I'm good," Olivia murmured. Considering.

"Well, don't try to stand up so fast. You haven't quite got your land legs back yet."

She hadn't been trying to stand, but Olivia didn't mention that. Slowly, she eased off the cot, hating the sound of the sterile padding crinkling under her as she stood. She'd never been a fan of hospitals. They reminded her of death and sickness, and thinking of death always brought up a picture of her father slumped in a bloody pile on the floor.

She winced and swallowed down more nausea.

"So…" The nurse asked curiously, glancing down at Olivia's bandaged arm. "How in the world did this happen?"

Olivia nearly groaned. What could she say? Well, you see, I was throwing a fit because the man I want to stay married to refuses to give me the annulment I've been demanding. So, I was slamming doors and flinging shoes left and right. When I shut the medicine cabinet too hard, glass went flying and voilà...

"The mirrored cabinet door in my bathroom broke when I was closing it."

"Hmm." The woman's stare was dry. "Fragile door," she finally answered.

Olivia groaned. "Okay, okay," she gave in. "I was being a drama queen after having this fight—" if the event could even be considered a fight—"with my husband. I went to the bathroom to get an aspirin, because by this point, I had a raging headache."

"Uh huh," the nurse said, urging her on and nodding because she obviously knew about men-induced headaches.

"So I snatched out the bottle and opened the cap, but when I tried to lift the handful of pills to my mouth, my arm bumped into the still open cabinet door, and I spilled all the aspirin down the drain." Olivia let out a sigh of relief, glad that moment of frustrated anger had passed.

"So you glared at the door for causing you to spill all your drugs and slammed it shut," the nurse continued for her, able to summarize Olivia's tale. "Causing it to shatter into a million pieces and take a nice chuck out of your arm."

Olivia's shoulders slumped. "Exactly."

The nurse treated her to a sympathetic smile. "Bummer."

"I never did get that aspirin either," Olivia complained as she pressed a palm to her aching forehead.

"Well, I've got good news," the nurse smiled and handed her a slip of paper. "The doctor wrote out a prescription for some nice, hefty pain killers."

"Oh, thank God." Olivia snagged the sheet from her hand.

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