Terry’s eyes burned, and he blinked twice, hard. He still couldn’t remember her name.
“I’m so sorry. Your lieutenant saved your life with that tourniquet, but it took the MEDEVAC over an hour to get to you.”
Fuck.
“Mac,” he whispered. “Is he…?” His throat seized, and he started to cough, which sent white hot pain snaking all around his torso.
“No talking,” the nurse said. “Lieutenant Fergerson is alive and conscious. But he took a lot of shrapnel, and he’s got a very long recovery in front of him. Here. Try a little water.”
Holding a straw to his lips, she met his gaze, and her brown eyes held a mix of sadness and resignation. She only let him have a couple of sips, but each one felt like heaven.
Dana. His addled brain put enough of the pieces together, and he remembered their night under the stars. Shit.
“I’m going to clean you up a bit now,” Dana said. “Is that okay?” After a beat, she continued, “That wasn’t really a question. You kind of smell.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. His left hand, the only one he could move, closed around the blankets.
“Sergeant Owens. Terry. Look at me.”
He forced himself to do as she ordered, even though the idea of this beautiful woman giving him a sponge bath made him pray the bed would swallow him whole.
“With your injuries, it’s going to be a while before you can take care of yourself properly. You don’t smell. Much. But you will soon. You’re covered in iodine, dirt, and sweat. What is it? Are you embarrassed?”
He blinked once.
“You’ve been here three days, remember? I got to Bagram an hour before you did and I’ve been assigned to you from the start. I’ve seen more than my fair share of junk, you know. Yours is rather impressive, but I could be biased.”
She smiled, and fuck, he wanted to talk to her. Moving his right hand in a weak approximation of writing, he hoped she’d get the idea.
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Hang on.” She grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, slid the paper under his hand and the pen between his fingers. Terry could barely move his head enough to see what he was writing, but he did his best.
“Hate needing help.”
“Everyone needs help sometimes. I’ll make you a deal. My rotation here ends in a few months, and I’ll head home to Washington D.C. When you’re stateside again—walking, I might add—you can help me paint my apartment. Deal?”
“Thought…no strings?”
Dana chewed on her lip for a long moment. “I know what I said. And anything that goes beyond my professional duties is still against regs. But the minute I recognized you in that bed, I decided the universe was sending me a message. That if you woke up, I was going to tell you I was wrong. So, do we have a deal?”
“Deal.”
Her smile was worth the effort it took to write the single word.
“There you go.” Dana pulled back the blankets, exposing his naked body. Tubes, sensors, and bandages covered various parts of him. A catheter snaked from his dick. And she still wanted to see him after she got home?
Dana didn’t blink twice. Dipping the sponge into the warm water, she smoothed it over his chest, and it felt so good, he let his eyes flutter closed.
She talked non-stop while she worked. Her nephew’s soccer team, the new job her sister had started the previous month, even the doctor she’d dated for a time back home. The jerk had dumped her for a younger nurse before she’d enlisted.
“I’ll kick his ass for you,” he scribbled on the pad.
Her laugh warmed him from the inside, and he no longer cared that he was buck ass naked in front of this beautiful, funny, compassionate woman.
Dana tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear, the messy bun on top of her head in disarray. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, but despite her obvious exhaustion, she kept her tone light, especially when she got closer to the open wounds running down the lower half of his right leg.
“Scars are sexy, you know.” She grinned, and something in his heart flipped. He was almost sorry when she laid fresh gauze over his calf then pulled the sheet halfway up his chest. “You want the TV remote? You’re on ‘light cognitive activity’ restriction, so that means nothing that’s going to get you too worked up. No news, no soap operas, no scary movies. You’re limited to the History Channel and Discovery.”
“Better than nothing. Barely.”
