Ivy wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew. Gil could kill him. He might even want to. For that matter, she might want him to. She shouldn’t, but in that moment, she couldn’t dredge up any sympathy for the injured man.
Father, forgive me.
Gil kept his gaze focused on the bleeding man on the floor, but he didn’t rush to offer aidorarrest him.
“Zane?” Gil spoke in a conversational tone, like he was going to ask if he could grab him a drink or something. “We’re clear in here.”
A man eased out of her den and into the kitchen area. “Youokay?” The man Gil had called Zane did a top-to-toe scan of Gil, then repeated the process on her. His mouth tight, his eyes burning with fury as his gaze paused at her arm, her hand. “Get her. I’ll get him.”
Gil didn’t turn his back on the man on the floor. He backed away. Every step brought him closer to her but kept him where he could rush to Zane’s aid if it became necessary. Zane patted the man down, removed two guns—one from a shoulder holster, one from his ankle—then dashed to her hall bathroom. He returned seconds later with two bath towels. He tossed one to Gil. The other he tossed to the man on the floor.
Zane knelt before the bleeding man and applied pressure to the wound. When the man tried to jerk away, Zane’s voice rumbled with disgust. “I’m trying to help you. I don’t care one way or the other, but it’s more paperwork for me if you die.”
Ivy heard all this, but it couldn’t hold her attention. She was keenly aware of Gil, moving in slow motion in her direction. Once Zane had the man fully under control, Gil didn’t hesitate to come to her.
“Gil.” His name came out rough. She tried to clear her throat, but her mouth was completely dry. What else could she say? Nothing would make this less awkward.
“Buttercup.”
At the long-unheard nickname, spoken with unfathomable tenderness, Ivy forgot she hadn’t spoken to Gil Dixon in fifteen years. Her feet moved. She tried to reach for him, but her arms refused to cooperate. She slammed into him, chest to chest, and his arms caught her. “Gil.”
“I’ve got you, Buttercup.”
He was so strong. Solid. And for the first time since her ordeal had begun an hour earlier, she was safe.
FIVE INTERMINABLE HOURS LATER,Ivy stared at the clothing the nurse held out to her. “Where did that come from?”
Her nurse, Juliet, ignored the question. “You’re cleared to leave. Would you like some help with the shirt?”
Ivy followed the nurse’s gaze. Her right hand throbbed with every beat of her heart. Her ring finger and pinky were broken. The doctor said they should heal fine, with no loss of mobility.
Her right thumb sported two burns, courtesy of a cigarette. One on the tip, one at the base. The thumb contained numerous nerve endings. She knew that better than most. But she’d never experienced each and every one of them screaming in distress at the same time.
Neither the cut on her temple nor her lip had required stitches, but that didn’t mean her entire face didn’t hurt. Her head throbbed. And then there was the nasty burn on her right shoulder. It had come not from a cigarette but from a very hot object that bore a disturbing resemblance to a curling iron but had never been used for anything so gentle.Will I ever be able to curl my hair again?
If they’d wanted to hurt her, those morons who tortured her would have threatened to shave her head. Facing that possibility, she might have at least considered giving them what they wanted. It was a small mercy, still having her hair. But in this moment, she would take it.
They weren’t big on mirrors in this emergency department. Probably so people wouldn’t freak out when they got a good look at themselves after a trauma. But she could imagine the state she was in. When they fried her shoulder, a few strands of her hair were singed. She couldn’t see the damage, but the stench of burnt hair was unmistakable and inescapable. She caught a whiff every time she moved.
And there was no way she didn’t have mascara and eyelinertracks on her cheeks. She had tried hard not to cry. But when the big guy ripped her shirt, leaving her exposed and trembling, already aching from the broken fingers and burned thumb and two times he’d backhanded her, she expected the worst.
There’d been no time to mentally prepare herself to be toasted like a marshmallow.Great. No more s’mores for me.
Juliet tilted her head to one side. “Ma’am. Do you want some help getting dressed?”
“No. I can get it. But where did my clothes come from?” They were definitely her clothes. Black yoga pants and a butter-soft T-shirt. Socks. Tennis shoes. A light sweater. And ... other things. Someone had brought these clothes to the hospital for her. Was it Gil? As much as she wanted to know where Gil was and why he had walked back into her life, today of all days, she couldn’t stop the blush at the thought of Gil Dixon going through her underwear drawer.
Not because of the clothes—although that was cringeworthy—but because of the picture, framed and set in a place where she could see it every day. If he’d been in her room, there was no way he could’ve missed it.
“I don’t know, hon. The unit secretary brought them to me.” Juliet turned to the door. “I’ll check on you in a few minutes, and we’ll get you out of here.”
Ivy waited for the door to close before she took the clothes into the tiny bathroom. She wouldn’t risk changing in the main room, where any minute someone could walk in on her. She’d shown more than enough skin tonight.
She pulled the tie, curly from an untold number of washings, at the neck of the hospital gown, slipped off the gown, and reached for her clothing. She could figure out how to get her clothes on without the use of two fingers and a thumb. She was an engineer,for crying out loud. Thank goodness those idiots hadn’t had the sense to look at her hands, pay attention to the calluses, and discern that she was a leftie.
Ten minutes later, she leaned against the doorframe, proud and exhausted. She’d done it. Now she faced a new dilemma. She’d arrived in an ambulance. An ambulance Gil insisted she ride in after she almost passed out in the kitchen moments after he arrived. The paramedics said it was due to a combination of shock and excruciating pain from the burns, but it was still embarrassing. After she swooned— unfortunately, there was no other word for it—Gil refused to let anyone ask more than the most basic questions.
“What did they want?” Access to her computer at work.
