Monday, July 18, 2011

He had the coldest eyes that Bethany Shelton had ever seen. She hadn’t noticed at first. When she saw the haggard-looking, handsome man with unruly black hair, her mind latched onto the puzzle that he presented and refused to let go.

He was wearing a coat. That was the first unusual thing that she noticed about him. People didn’t normally don outerwear for an early-morning trip to the convenience store when it was a balmy seventy-three. Then a drop of red fell, splattering the scuffed tile floor by his shoes. She’d seen enough blood to know what it was. Intending to direct him to the nearest clinic, she looked up but could go no higher than his waist.

The gun in his hand was pointed right at her.

Whoever he was, this man was dangerous. Very dangerous. His cold eyes merely confirmed it.

“Let’s go,” he whispered, nodding over his shoulder toward the far end of the aisle, away from the cash register where she’d been talking to Mr. Jenkins about his shoulder.

His voice was low-pitched, deep and commanding. As scared as she was, she forced herself to nod and obey. He might start shooting, and there was a young mother with small children two aisles over in the baby section, probably needing diapers or baby food or both. She would have a hard time living with herself if her refusal to cooperate put anyone else in harm’s way.

Beth clutched her empty shopping basket and started walking. “Stop,” he ordered. “Get what we’ll need.”

They were in the pharmacy section—or at least that’s what she would call it. It was barebones, but it had the basics. Gauze. Adhesive strips. Alcohol. Hydrogen Peroxide. Triple antibiotic ointment. Drawing salve. Antifungals. Those kinds of things. From the way that he held his arm, she’d guess that he had a shoulder wound. Not knowing if a bullet or a blade was involved, she piled the basket accordingly, adding tweezers and a pair of scissors to the mix.

Beth pointed to the shelf of painkillers. “Are you allergic to any of these?” she whispered.

“No.”

Ibuprofen, aspirin, and a twelve-hour analgesic went into the basket. “We should be good.” She hoped to God so, anyway. She had no experience with emergency room medicine. Her work came after that, when patients were in rehab.

Still, doubt nagged at her. There must be something else, something that she was forgetting.

Closure.

“Wait!” she whispered. With no butterfly bandages in stock, she scanned the aisle and found a household section with sewing thread and tools. An assortment pack had sharps, embroidery, ball-tip, craft, and curved stainless steel needles.

If she needed any, it would be the last.

She put the needles and white thread in with the rest. “Stitches,” she murmured. “That’s it, I think.”

Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out a wad of cash and threw it on top of the first aid supplies.

“I’ll want change back,” he murmured, deadpan. If he meant it as a joke, she wasn’t laughing. “Pay for it, then leave. I’ll be right behind you. Go right and head for the black SUV parked on the side of the store. Do what I say, and no one gets hurt.”

Beth hoped like hell that included her.

The young mother was at the checkout counter. Beth stepped in line behind her. The poor thing’s credit card was declined. And her debit card. She started digging through her purse, trying to find enough to cover her purchase, with one crying child clinging to her leg and a baby screaming in her ear.

Beth took two twenties from the wad of cash and touched the harried mother’s arm. “Here. This will cover it.”

She burst into tears. “Thank you, Miss. Oh, my God. Thank you!”

“When you get the chance, pay it forward. Help someone else, and ask that they do the same, okay?”

“I will!” She handed the money to Mr. Jenkins, who completed the transaction and gave her change. She started to offer it to Beth, but Beth shook her head. “Keep it. You’ll be needing more diapers.”

“Ain’t that the truth! Oh, thank you again! God bless you!”

The mother looped the handled plastic bag over her arm, grabbed the diapers, and crab-walked out of the store with her toddler fastened like a leech to her leg.

“You’re a good one, Doc.”

She managed a smile despite the eyes that she felt boring into her back. Palming the remaining cash, she set her basket on the counter. “Shh. It’s our secret. Ring this up, please, and tell me the damages.” Judging from the size of the wad in her hand, she should have more than enough to cover.

She did. Slipping Darkman’s change into her pants pocket, she exited through the front door, turned right, and headed for the side of the store.

He was right behind her. Lights flashed. The SUV’s doors unlocked. It wasn’t too late to make a run for it. She didn’t think that he could catch her…but he had a gun. This close, it was unlikely that he’d miss.

Praying that she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life, she opened the passenger door. “Where do you want—”

A large hand with a soaked handkerchief slapped over her face. Her nostrils filled with the telltale smell of chloroform. Seconds later, her world went as black as a sinner’s heart.

* * *

“Wake up. We’re here.”

Beth pried open her eyes. God, she felt like crap. Dazed and confused, it took her a moment to get her bearings. She was sitting in a passenger seat that was leaned all the way back. From her vantage point, she could see nothing outside but tree limbs and sky. Forcing herself up, she saw that they were at a house that had been built in a remote location. It could be anywhere in Southern Illinois or northern Kentucky, depending on how far he’d driven. All she knew was that they were surrounded by woodlands, there wasn’t another house to be seen in any direction, and she didn’t have a stitch left on her.

Mother fuck.

Darkman had stripped off her clothes when she was unconscious.

Evil man.

Or desperate man. She would have known if he had touched her sexually, but he hadn’t. He had undressed her, nothing more. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost him to do it.

But why?

She looked again at where they were, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but forest as far as the eye could see. Clothed, she could have tried to run for it, but with no clothes, no shoes…?

No way.

Even if she followed the gravel drive and managed to reach a paved road, who knew what kind of man—or men—would find her. At the moment, the known evil seemed the far lesser of the two.

Beth wished like hell that it was nighttime. He was probably laughing at the full-body blush that she had going on. For all that she had brown hair, when she was embarrassed, she pinked up worse than her ginger sister.

“The bags from the store are in the back seat. Get them. I’ve already unloaded the rest of the car.”

Darkman sounded more tired than terrifying. No doubt the loss of blood was affecting him. She had no idea how long she’d been out, or where they were. She did know that he needed medical attention and he seemed to be expecting her to give it.

Beth found the side lever and returned her seat to an upright position. Carefully stepping barefoot out of the car, she closed the front door, ball-walked on the rough white rocks, and opened the back passenger door. Pulling out the plastic sacks filled with first aid supplies, she took one in each hand and followed Darkman into the house, feeling the bite of gravel with every step that she took.

She didn’t know what to expect, but the house was far nicer and much larger than she imagined. Of course, her expectations were low. Dirty warehouses and the backrooms of seedy bars seemed more fitting for a kidnapper than a modern home with amenities that included a gourmet kitchen. He stopped by the kitchen’s eight-foot island and began unbuttoning his blood-soaked shirt.

“Where do you want to do this?”

All she could think of was that she had no clothes and he was taking his off. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t make me.”

“You have to,” he snarled. “This bullet isn’t going to remove itself.”

“I’m sorry?”

He growled at her. “Don’t fuck with me. I’m warning you, I’m in no mood for jokes. I need to get this bullet out and go after the son of a bitch who put it there. Every minute we waste lets him get further away.”

She kept her voice soft, her tone even. “Then maybe you should have gone to the ER and had it taken care of by people who are trained to do it.”

“What?” he scoffed. “They didn’t teach you in medical school?”

“Medical school?” Beth frowned. “I didn’t go to medical school. What on earth makes you think—”

Darkman swore beneath his breath. “Fuck it all. He called you Doc. You were talking about his shoulder and how he should keep up with his exercises.”

Her surreal experience was beginning to make more sense now. He must have overheard her talking to Mr. Jenkins and had jumped to a very wrong conclusion. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, to cooperate or negotiate. Without shoes or clothes, her options were limited. Attempting an escape was out of the question—for now, anyway.

“You said that you’d be happy to not see him there again.”

“At the hospital,” she said tightly. “Where you should be right now. I was his physical therapist. And a lot of my patients call me Doc. It pisses the real doctors off, but I’m good at what I do. My patients respect that.”

He rubbed a hand across his face. “Christ almighty. Okay. You’re not a doctor, but I still need help. Like it or not, you’re it. I can dig this bullet out myself, but if it’s lodged in the bone, it helps to have two working hands to extract it. Do this, and I’ll let you get dressed and see that you get home, safe and sound. Give me problems, and you’ll wish you hadn’t. Capisci?”

As an operating table, the island had merit. Good light. Height. A hard surface that would be easy to clean and sterilize. The problem was, he had bought into the myth that a bullet needed to be removed.

“You should consider that soldiers live with shrapnel. You run more risk getting rid of that bullet than leaving it in. What if it’s sealing a damaged artery? Remove it, and you’ll be bleeding out and there won’t be a damned thing that I can do about it. Do you really want to risk it?”

He shrugged off his shirt, revealing his nicely furred chest and the entrance wound in his shoulder. “Yes,” he grated. “I can’t be setting off fucking metal detectors the rest of my life.”

“Other people do.”

“I am not,” he said tightly, “other people. Now, do what you need to, but do it fast. I’m not getting any younger.”

From the sick pallor on his face, she had to wonder if he’d be getting any older when all was said and done.

He made it to the sink in time to vomit into it, then collapsed on the floor, barely conscious.

Crap. The weakness, the pallor, the nausea.

He was bleeding inside.

Beth dumped a marble crock of cooking utensils and poured half of the alcohol into it. She took the paring knives from the wooden knife block and put them, tip down, in the alcohol. Guessing, she opened the end drawer on the counter, thanked God it was the junk drawer, and grabbed a pair of needle-nosed pliers. She ripped open the tweezers and set them on the stove in case she needed to cauterize. Grabbing the fully-loaded paper towel holder from the counter, she set it by the crock near his shoulder and prepared for her first surgery.

Her physical therapy patients called her Doc. Now, she was about to earn it.