“Mmm.” His warm breath was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted. “When you’re six-five, you’re not used to anyone getting the drop on you from above.” He lifted his hand to palpate his skull.
“How can you joke at a time like this?” she demanded, even as a wobbly smile flirted at her lips.
He was alive.Alive!
For the first time in their entire acquaintance, she was grateful he’d been born hard-headed.
“Times like this are when youshouldbe joking.” He grinned that lopsided grin she saw in her mind’s eye when she placed her head on the pillow at night. Then he winced when his probing fingers hit the spot where the butt of the gun had landed. As he pulled his hand from his hair, she wasn’t surprised to see his fingers were slick with blood.
“Get up! Get back to your chair!” The fourth gunman toed Cami’s flank. Not hard. But he’d hit her puncture wound, making her hiss.
The noises coming from the back of Doc’s throat then barely sounded like words. They were more like the growl of a vicious animal. “If you touch her again, I swear on my father’s grave I’ll rip that gun from your hands, shove it down your throat, and pull the trigger until it clicks.”
Cami saw the sincerity in his eyes. The determination. The kind of red-hot anger that came over a person when someone they cared about was threatened.
Warmth bloomed in her chest. Which was ridiculous. It wasn’t the time for her to be experiencing thoughts likehe cares about me, he really cares about me! Nor was it the time to be feeling the effervescent bubbles of joy that realization brought with it.
“It’s fine,” she assured him. She’d never forgive herself if he made good on his words and ended up getting shot in the process. “I’m fine,” she added before awkwardly pushing to her feet and returning to her chair.
Once she was situated, the leader of the group, a man whose name she still didn’t know, leveled his gun at Doc. “You too. Get up and get back to your seat. And Brady?” When the tall, skinny gunman blinked in question, the leader added, “Tie ’emallto their chairs this time. Armsandlegs.”
Brady of the Bloody Head used his pistol to point LT back to his place in line. Jace of the Giant Arms shoved his gun hard into Uncle John’s chest until John, too, retook his seat. And then everyone waited as Olivia awkwardly righted her chair and climbed back into it.
Cami wasn’t sure how much time passed while Brady worked his way down the line of ladderback chairs, securing everyone’s elbows to the back rungs and cinching their ankles to the wooden legs. By the time he’d finished, the sun outside had been obliterated and darkness had descended over the already dim room. The wind was back to roaring like a freight train, and the air smelled like the sea as the water rose beneath the floorboards.
Jace cursed. “The eyewall is back. We’re stuck here until Julia moves on.”
Chapter 14
6:52 PM...
Doc was concussed.
The momentary loss of consciousness was his first big clue. His second was the incessant ringing in his ears. And the third? He had a headache big enough to drop an elephant.
Fortunately, he seemed to have escaped the blurry vision, nausea, and vomiting that often accompanied a blow to the head. Or at least he’d escaped it for the time being.
Concussions were tricky because they were so subtle. Sometimes symptoms didn’t show up for days, weeks, or even longer. But for now, he seemed to be firing on all cylinders—as long as he concentrated on tuning out the head-splitting cacophony of the storm. Because if hedidn’t, he wanted to cry.
Or beg the thieves to get me some damn Tylenol.
The insanity of the backend of the eyewall had moved on. Now they were simply suffering the incessant moan of Julia’s tailwinds as she battered the house, the relentless lash of rain as it pummeled the metal roof, and the rhythmic slap of the storm surge as it licked at the floorboards beneath their feet.
Nightfall had partnered with the gloom of the storm to prompt the thieves to light more candles around the room. Their flames flickered wildly anytime a wisp of wind whispered in through the bullet hole in the far wall. And for nearly an hour—Doc knew it was an hour thanks to the cuckoo clock on the wall—the Wayfarer Islanders had done nothing but sit quietly and watch their captors pace around like caged animals.
Not that the islanders had an option other than sitting quietly since they were all trussed up tighter than cattle on branding day.
For the dozenth time in the span of that hour, Doc felt Cami glance over at him. And for the dozenth time, he caught her worried gaze and winked to let her know he was still okay. That he wasn’t about to flatline from a brain bleed.
A wave of relief flooded her pretty brown eyes, but it was quickly replaced by concern when Head Honcho said, “Huddle up,” and motioned for his three friends to follow him toward the foot of the staircase.
Doc and Cami were closest to the group of gunmen. Unfortunately, the noise from the storm and the repeatedwhack,whack,whackof one of the upstairs shutters slamming against its locking bar, meant they could only catch snippets of the thieves’ whispered conversation.
Or at least Doc was catching snippets. Cami had closed her eyes and leaned her head back, looking for all the world as if she was trying to enter a meditative state.
And who could blame her? They could all use a little Zen right about then.
Doc ripped his eyes away from the hollow at the base of her long throat, and ripped his mind away from the longing to lick that little divot, when he heard the big guy, the one they called Jace, say, “Why are we hesitatin’? We know what we gotta do.”
