“I plan to.”
After donning her coat, Jade waggled her fingers in farewell, then left through the garage door. I gazed at the dirty dishes, considering cleaning up. As my shoulder burned and throbbed, I doubted my abilities to do much of anything. I did, however, stack them on the tray to take to the kitchen. That small effort left me exhausted.
“If anyone breaks in,” I told the cats, “you scratch their eyes out. I can’t do jack.”
***
I woke suddenly to near darkness and the sound of a door opening.Shit, I should have asked for her baton. I can’t fight in this state. Dammit, I’m in trouble.I sat up faster than I should have, and my shoulder screamed at the sudden movement.
“Jade?”
“Yeah. Sorry, I think I woke you.”
“You scared the bejesus out of me.” I passed my hand, that trembled, down my face. “I feel so helpless.”
I heard her set packages down in the kitchen, then watched her shadow approach to kneel beside me. Her light caress over my brow galvanized me like an electric shock.
“You’re running a fever,” she said, her voice soft. “Don’t lie down, I’ll get you some aspirin.”
“That’s all we need,” I muttered. “What if I’ve got an infection?”
“I’m going to take a look at your wound,” she replied from the kitchen.
When Jade returned, she brought not just aspirin, but a tall glass of orange juice. “Take these, drink up.”
While I obeyed her, I watched her add wood to the fire and create a nice blaze. She helped me take my shirt off and turnso my back faced the light. Delicately, she removed the bandage from the hole in my shoulder.
“Well?”
Jade clicked her tongue. “It looks worse than it did. I told you, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You can heat a knife in the fire and burn it closed.”
At her long silence, I turned a worried eye on her. “I was kidding. Right?”
“We’d seal the infection inside when we want it out.” Jade pursed her luscious lips. “I think I’d better clean it again.”
“Much safer than burning me,” I agreed as she left my side yet again.
She came back a short while later, armed with her arsenal of warm water, cloths, the dreaded iodine, and bandages. “Alix had antibiotics in her bathroom,” she said, sitting behind me. “I never thought to grab them.”
“They’d come in handy about now.”
Her efforts to clean my wound hurt as badly as it had the day before. I clenched my jaws tightly to stop the screams that wanted to surge from my mouth, my fists clenched against the red-hot agony. Jade worked quickly, efficiently, then, as I breathed raggedly, and then she taped a fresh bandage over it.
“Drink your juice,” she ordered, wiping my sweaty brow with a cloth. “From now on, you drink water, broth, juice, soup. I hope that’ll flush your system of the infection.”
My hand shook as I lifted the glass to drink thirstily. “Did you see pus back there?”
“Yeah. I’m not doing a very good job of caring for you. I’m sorry.”
Before she turned her face away, I cupped her cheek with my good hand, then dropped a quick kiss to her mouth before she recoiled. “You’re doing a fantastic job,” I murmured. “I can’t say enough thanks.”
Jade flushed bright pink, pulling her face from my hand. “You’d better lie down. Get some sleep.”
I lay down, digging my slow way into my sleeping bag without jostling my shoulder too much, while she collected her nursing tools. One of the cats nestled under my arm, purring, the other sitting on Jade’s sleeping bags as though waiting for her.
Still, she didn’t come to bed straight away. Standing in the kitchen doorway, she used her new cell to call Alix. “Hey, it’s me. Are you okay?”
