Night's Promise(27)
“Where’s Sheree?” Derek dropped her purse on a small table.
“In one of the bedrooms upstairs. She’s resting comfortably. Go in the kitchen and sit down. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Lacking the strength to argue, Derek did as he was told. He clenched his hands against pain that grew worse with every breath as he climbed onto a high stool. Tugging the bloody cloth from inside his shirt, he tossed it into the sink. The one around his leg quickly followed.
“Do you think it was a good idea bringing Sheree here?” he asked when his mother stepped into the kitchen.
“We’ll worry about that later,” she said, dropping a towel on his lap. “Right now, I need to get those bullets out of your stubborn hide before you bleed to death.”
“Yeah.” Taking shallow breaths, he watched her fill a large aluminum pan with warm water, then deposit rolls of gauze and tape on the table, along with a pair of scissors and a probe that looked all too familiar.
“This is getting to be a habit,” Mara said, easing him out of his blood-soaked shirt.
“Yeah.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “A bad one.”
She tossed the bloody garment in the sink. “What happened this time?”
“Aurland and another hunter broke into Sheree’s house while I was inside. They ambushed me.”
“What? You couldn’t take down two hunters before they shot you?”
“They’re both dead, aren’t they?”
“You’re supposed to kill them before they shoot you.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied his wounds. “Hold still now.”
He sucked in a breath as she probed the wound in his shoulder, let it out in a hiss when she withdrew a misshapen silver slug and tossed it into the sink. After cutting off a length of gauze, she folded it into a square, and taped it over the wound.
Mara looked up when Logan entered the room. “Is everything taken care of?”
“Not to worry, my sweet. They’ll never be found.” He jerked his head at Derek. “Stings like hell, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he rasped, flinching.
“I said hold still,” Mara admonished as she slid the probe into the ragged hole in her son’s chest.
“This girl seems like a lot of trouble,” Logan remarked.
“Tell me about it. Dammit, woman,” Derek hissed, “be careful!”
“Got it!” She tossed the second slug into the sink, and after wiping the blood from Derek’s chest, she wrapped several layers of gauze around his torso, then tied off the ends. “Two down, one to go,” she said cheerfully. “Take off your pants.”
Propping one shoulder against the doorjamb, Logan admired the sight of his wife lounging in a tub filled with frothy, scented bubbles. “So, what now?”
“You could wash my back.” She lifted one slender leg and rested it on the edge of the tub. “Or massage my foot.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“A massage still sounds like a good idea.”
Logan pushed away from the door, then knelt beside the tub and began to rub her foot. She had pretty feet, small, well formed. But then, she was pretty all over, and no one knew it better than he did.
She closed her eyes, a sigh of pleasure escaping her lips.
His hand moved up her calf, his fingers gliding over her silky skin. “What are you going to do about the girl?”
“Wipe the incident from her mind and let her go.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“What do you want to do? Make her disappear?”
“There’s something going on.” Logan’s hand tightened on her thigh. “I don’t like it that four hunters showed up here in the last week.”
“So, what should we do? Run away and hide?”
He released his hold on her leg and stood up. “You know me better than that.”
“What do you want, then?”
Heat flared in his eyes, the hunters forgotten as the scent of her desire reached him. “Don’t you know?” he growled.
She smiled as he stripped off his shirt, stepped out of his trousers and briefs, and slipped into the tub behind her. She leaned back as his arms went around her waist, his big hands caressing her. Thoughts of hunters fled her mind when he rose in one fluid motion, water splashing over the edge of the tub as he carried her, soaking wet, into the bedroom.
Lowering her onto the mattress, he covered her body with his.
“I know,” she said, her voice a low purr. “I’ve always known.”
Derek’s nostrils flared as the scent of musk filled the air. Sitting on the edge of the mattress in the bedroom down the hall from his mother’s, he ran his knuckles lightly over Sheree’s cheek, wondering if he would ever find the kind of love his parents shared. What would Sheree’s reaction be if he told her the truth? What would his reaction be if she looked at him with revulsion? Was she strong enough, brave enough, to share her life with him? It was, he admitted, a moot point at the moment. He knew his mother intended to wipe the night’s events from Sheree’s mind, wondered if the smart thing would be to wipe his memory from her mind, as well.