Jeff glanced down at his right side. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Your hip is covered in blood.”
He stopped at a red lightand glanced down at the dark stain on his faded jeans. “Shit. I didn’t realize he actually cut me.” A frown marred his handsome face.
She gently touched his shoulder as the light turned green and the SUV accelerated. “Jeff. You need to see a doctor. The hospital isn’t far. Pull over and I’ll drive.”
He swore under his breath and worked his way into to the right lane to turn in to a healthclub parking lot. “It’s probably not as bad as it looks. I have a first aid kit. You could patch me up.”
“Don’t be stubborn.” Tara scrambled out of the car as soon as the engine stopped, and ran around to the driver’s side. “Out,” she mouthed to his closed window.
Wincing, he opened the door and stood. Lifting his parka and a gray shirt to reveal taut abs, he tried to view the wound in thereflection of the side window.
“Let me see.” Tara circled around him, fighting a bout of wooziness with slow deep breaths. She’d faced bloody wounds before but she would never have the constitution required of a medic.
Blood crusted Jeff’s skin below a wide, oozing gash across his lower ribs.
She pressed a hand to her uneasy stomach. “I can’t tell how deep it is, but it’s about five incheslong and still bleeding.” He definitely needed a hospital. “Where’s your first aid kit?”
“In the back.”
Tara found the small, plastic case. Based on her experience with the other guys at Steele, if he’d been a PJ, he’d never leave the house without a duffle bag full of medical supplies. She didn’t fully understand what he’d done as a combat weatherman, but patching up the wounded on the regprobably wasn’t in the job description.
Placing the kit on the front seat, she used an alcohol wipe to clean her hands, then covered the wound with several layers of thick gauze and taped them to his side. “Can you keep pressure on that while I drive?”
“Yeah.” He laid the keys on the seat and slid into the passenger side, keeping a hand pressed to his back while she cleaned up and returnedthe first aid kit to the trunk. “This is probably a waste of time,” he said when she got behind the wheel.
“Maybe.” She closed the door and started the engine. “But I’d rather err on the side of caution. I can call the police from the hospital.”
“These guys are serious.”
Tara glanced at him before pulling into traffic. “The attackers?”
“Uh-huh.”
She’d been trying her best not to thinkabout it. “Mars is dead. I don’t understand who’s after us now. Or why.”
Tara slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a huge truck that cut her off.
Jeff grunted.
“Sorry.”
“I’m fine,” he ground out.
Sure he was.
“Maybe the police can figure out who hired those guys,” Jeff said. “Although they probably already took off in the confusion with the fire trucks.”
“Which they created.”
“Exactly.”
She sighed and drove the rest of the way in silence.
The ER was relatively slow—not late enough in the day yet, maybe—and Jeff was taken to a room immediately. “You’re welcome to come with,” the aide said to Tara.
“Oh, no, I’m not… We’re not…” But part of her wanted to be. Wantedthemto be.Stupid.
