Jess jumped backward as the donkey brayed its annoyance and the cart jerked forward. Donovan used it to his advantage, landing a vicious uppercut that knocked the other man to the ground. He rolled, then dived back into the fight.
In the street behind them, men yelled out in Arabic. Footsteps pounded toward them, but it barely registered as her eyes caught on something alarming—a smear of red on the side of Donovan’s robe. Blood.
She started forward without a clue to what she could do, only knowing that he needed help. He didn’t turn, but must have seen her as he pushed away from other man. “Stay back,” he ordered.
The other man crouched, ready to spring. She took in his turban, robe, and the full beard that was unusual in what she’d seen of Egyptian men. It created a good disguise, which was probably its purpose. If she saw him again, she would never recognize him. His mouth curled in a murderous snarl as he thrust his arm forward, jabbing at Donovan. She saw the knife then, six inches of flashing silver, surprisingly clean after drawing blood.
Donovan raised his thobe, bunching it up until he could whip it over his head in one clean movement, never losing track of his opponent. She stared at his white undershirt, gasping at a large patch of blood on his side. The next second it was hidden from view as he twirled the thobe around his left arm and advanced on the man. He circled, each of them watching and calculating. Without warning, Donovan lunged.
It happened faster than she could follow, a feint toward the knife, then a blur of motion as he kicked, spun, and grabbed. The knife clattered to the street and almost simultaneously a sickening crunch came from the stranger’s arm as Donovan shoved it behind his back. The man screamed and struggled. Donovan flinched at an obvious sharp pain, and the man took advantage of the moment, lurching away and cradling his broken arm, then running down the street. Startled yells followed him as two men tried to grab him, but he slipped past and disappeared around a corner.
Jess rushed to Donovan as he stumbled to lean against the donkey cart. She forgot about not touching him, pulling his bundled left arm aside to get a look at the blood spreading on his undershirt. Two other men reached him at the same time, one of them Hakim.
“Let me see,” she ordered, lifting his shirt.
“I’m okay, just a scrape.” His voice was brusque as he pushed her away, but Hakim held onto the shirt, exposing a slice on his side just above his hip.
For a moment, she felt light-headed and sick. It was more than a scrape. He needed a doctor.
Chapter Ten
Donovan tugged the undershirt from Hakim’s grip, stretching it loosely over the wound. A small circle of blood showed, but with the loose fit it didn’t absorb any new blood. She knew the cut was still bleeding down his hip, soaking into his pants beneath the shirt.
Jess wanted to touch him, to lift his shirt again and examine the wound closely, but the men were crowding close.
It might not be too deep, she told herself. It had been bleeding freely but not spurting. But she remembered the six inches of flashing steel and knew if the knife had gone in straight before slicing to the side, the injury could be serious.
Hakim took charge, slinging an arm around him and urging him toward the shop.
“No,” Donovan protested. He stopped, surrounded now by several neighborhood men and a few women. “I’m okay,” he insisted. Unwrapping the thobe from his arm, he rolled it and tied it around his waist in a makeshift bandage, wincing once as he secured it with a tight knot. “I can take care of this myself. The man is gone and you don’t need to get involved.”
She wanted to protest that he most certainly could not take care of it himself, that he obviously needed stitches, perhaps surgery, not to mention a good dose of antibiotics and painkillers. But she saw the hard look he sent Hakim and read the meaning there. Hakim was to maintain the appearance that they were nothing more than customers who had happened by his shop, then had the bad luck to be attacked in the street.
“Police,” someone said, and she heard the word echoed by others in the crowd.
Donovan lifted a hand and spoke over them. “Please, I don’t have time. I need to make my flight and filing a report will delay me and serve no purpose. The man is gone. I’m okay, really.” He grinned to emphasize it, and she wondered at the control it took. She’d seen the wound, as had Hakim, but the rest of the crowd had not. With blood not yet soaking through the rolled length of material at his waist, they seemed less insistent on calling the police. Two men made a halfhearted attempt in English to persuade him to stay and get help, but he waved them off and started toward the corner confidently, motioning for her to come along.