Doc had lifted a wrist to wipe the sweat from his brow, but Romeo’s words seemed all the impetus he needed to return to work. He dug back into the first aid kit at the same time he said, “You can thank me by stopping bleeding.”
“I second that,” Mia whispered harshly.
“I’ll do my best.” Romeo tried for a smile but didn’t quite manage it. His lips twisted into a grimace of pain and Mia’s heart twisted right along with them.
Ripping open a package of gauze pads and a self-adhesive bandage, Doc nodded to Mia. “Go ahead and move your hands,” he instructed.
She hesitated briefly because her muscles refused to obey her brain. It was like her body couldn’t help but continue to do the one thing it knew to do to try to help keep Romeo alive. Eventually, however, she was able to overcome her temporary paralysis and slowly pulled her hands away from Romeo’s chest.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see. Blood squirting, maybe? She felt slightly reassured when the bullet wound merely oozed deep red droplets.
As Doc covered the hole with the gauze and went about securing the dressing in place with a bandage, she scooted around to Romeo’s opposite side so she could frame his face. Her bloody fingers left handprints on his cheeks, but she didn’t think he cared.Shecertainly didn’t.
“What can I do?” She searched his agony-soaked eyes, wishing she could trade places with him.
“I could go for one of your kisses right about now,” he wheezed. “You know, as a distraction.”
She swallowed the sob that threatened in the back of her throat and bent to press a trembling kiss to his lips. And then, because she was already there, she pressed another one to the corner of his eye. And then another one to his brow bone.
She couldn’tstopkissing him. With her lips on him, she could feel the warmth of his skin, feel the heat of his breath as he slowly exhaled.Assureherself that he was alive.
“Wait!” Carter’s voice sounded from somewhere out in the water. She lifted her chin and peered through the trees, spotting him some distance offshore. He was a darker shadow bobbing in the vast darkness of the ocean. “Stop! Don’t leave me!”
She realized the roar of engines she heard weren’t coming from the Cutter, but were, in fact, coming from a speedboat that’d been anchored about a hundred yards from the sandbar. She could just make out the white jets of water kicked up by its engines as it sped away.
Who is driving the boat?she wondered.
Of course, in the next second, when Romeo lifted a hand to smooth a lock of hair behind her ear, she forgot about everything but him.
“Breathe,cariña,” he whispered.
“Me?Youbreathe. Just keep on breathing.”
And then she kissed him again, because she needed to occupy her mouth. Otherwise, the words sitting on the tip of her tongue might just slide out.
I love you, Spiro. I amsomadly in love with you.
Chapter 23
9:51 PM...
The floor in the hallway outside the medical bay on the Coast Guard Cutter was rock hard beneath Mia’s butt. The ship was built to slice through the seas, and yet it still buoyed up and down. Given Mia’s underwear was full of sand and, as a result, her butts cheeks were chafed like she’d taken a pumice stone to them, any slight tilt to the left or to the right when combined with the uncompromising flooring material increased her discomfort tenfold.
She kept shifting to find a more comfortable position. But there seemed to be no such thing.
What I could really use,she thought,is a trip to the head to shake out my underwear.
But she refused to budge from her spot on the floor until she knew what was happening with Romeo.
Doc and the onboard Coast Guard doctor had disappeared into the ship’s small exam room half an hour earlier. When she’d tried to follow them in, Doc had said,“Look. It’s close quarters in here as it is. I promise to come get you once we’re sure he’s stable or if he takes a turn for the worse.”
Since she wasn’t a medical professional who could help with Romeo’s care, and because she wasn’t sure it was herplaceto butt in—what was she to Romeo, after all? Not a wife. Not even a girlfriend—she’d been left to stare longingly at him as he was transferred onto an exam table before Doc softly closed the door in her face.
She tried to comfort herself now with how strong Romeo’s grip had been when he’d held her hand while being carried off the island and placed into the rigid-hulled inflatable boat the Coast Guard had used to get them from the sandbar to the anchored Cutter. She told herself,he was breathing, and his bleeding had slowed. Both excellent signs.
But despite her internal, one-woman pep rally, she wouldn’t breathe easy until Doc came out and told her Romeo reallywasout of danger. Until she could see him with her own eyes. Until she could touch him and feel the warmth of his skin, place her head on his chest and hear the steady beat of his heart.
“I know I’ve only known him a few hours,” Cami said, and Mia was reminded the lawyer had joined her in her hallway vigil despite one of the Coast Guard crew members offering Cami a room to rest in. “But in those few hours, I’ve seen just how strong he is. He’s going to pull through this. He’s going to be okay.”
