Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Give up, Rainier. She’s got that stubborn look. She isn’t going to back down. When she gets that look, you know she’ll charge Hell with a bucket of water. Just show her your owie and let her decide whether or not she has to rip your Band-Aid off and start all over.” Zale sounded amused.
Rainier’s gaze didn’t so much as flick toward Zale, but he did sigh a capitulation. “I suppose you feel you have no choice. It is a through and through.”
He stood up, a fluid motion in spite of the injury, but she could see it hurt. His face turned just a little grayer. Obviously, they’d explored the house, because he walked unerringly to one of the bedrooms, opened the door and went right inside.
“Make yourself at home.” Vienna couldn’t keep the bite of sarcasm out of her voice as she closed the door and leaned against it, keeping the medical kit in front of her with both hands.
She looked around the room, anywhere but at Rainier as he eased the soft jeans over his hips and the pad on his thigh. He sank down onto the bed and actually lay on his stomach, dragging the throw loosely over him so he was partially covered. She appreciated his attempt to be modest on her account.
“The exit hurts like a mother,” he admitted. “I couldn’t see to take care of it the way I should have and Zale had to keep us covered, so I just slapped antibiotic ointment into it and gauze over it.”
She could see that Rainier had covered the wound with a thick pad of gauze. The tear in his flesh was large, raw, the edges ragged and ugly, creating a wide hole in the muscle. Vienna shook her head. “Were you going to ask Zale to sew this up for you?”
“Eventually. I wanted to ensure you women were safe first.”
The pain had to be sawing at him, but he was stoic as she gave him a shot of antibiotics and then took her time cleaning and sewing the wound. She was meticulous, making certain the bullet hadn’t nicked anything vital. He would be feeling this one for a long time, but he’d recover. He was lucky.
“Were you worried about us returning the truck?”
“I had a bad feeling. When I get bad feelings, I pay attention to them,” Rainier said.
“Was that before or after you dropped off the truck?” she asked, more to distract him than for any other reason. He was holding still as she took those small little stitches in the back of his thigh, but she felt the tremors in his body. She’d tried to numb the wound, but she didn’t have anything that was really adequate to numb the entire injury. She felt a little as if she were torturing him.
There was a small silence. He wiped his forehead on the pillow. “A while after. It didn’t seem as if it would be a big deal to ask you to take the truck back for us. As time went by, I had second thoughts about you going anywhere near that truck. Any of you women going near the truck.”
“That’s so interesting that you didn’t feel any alarm right away.” It actually was. “Did you see who shot you?”
“Three of Daniel Wallin’s security guards tailed us when we left the hotel. We didn’t want them to make their try with civilians around, so Zale, who was driving, led them into the desert. He acted as if he were making a run for it. We didn’t want them to shoot into the truck, so we got far enough ahead to get out and acted like we were looking for a place to hide in the boulders out in the desert. There was a narrow passage where they would have had to come at us one at a time. We’d scouted it out a few days earlier as one of the places we might use if necessary.”
That fascinated her. She planned ahead for every type of rescue situation she could think of and went over and over it with her crew. She had the gear, knew the terrain, and each member knew exactly what they were responsible for if they were ever in the situation. Apparently, the missions Rainier and Zale planned were similar in that they planned ahead for every contingency.
“What went wrong?” She was nearly finished. A good thing. He was a big man with a lot of muscle, and he needed stitches inside as well as out, just as Zale had on his bicep. She hadn’t realized how sore her arms were. She still had to check Zale’s injuries and make certain he didn’t need to be sewn up.
“A couple of their buddies followed in a second car. They came over the rocks instead of straight at us.”