He shrugged. “Maybe? The corpsman says my memory is whacked.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Making herself comfortable, she hitched a hip on his mattress and cupped his hand.
“I’ve had worse,” he said with a sigh.
“Did anyone tell you what happened?”
“They said the convoy got hit.”
“Not hit exactly,” she said and then went on to explain the roadside bomb.
“Wow,” he said. “I guess we were lucky.” His lips pressed together. “Did anyone…”
“No. No deaths,” she said, rushing to reassure him. “Several were injured in the Humvee in front of us. You’re the only one who had significant injuries on the bus.”
“What about Skye? Shit, Ash is probably having a cow right now. Is he pulling the tour? Shit, that ass had better not do that. Shit, fucking shit.” He glanced at his arm. “Guess I’m kind of out of it.”
“You need to focus on healing.”
His fingers wriggled on his broken arm. “My fingers are fat.”
“They’re swollen. I’ll get the nurse to loosen the splint. It looks like they set your arm, but you don’t have a cast on.”
“Why not? If I broke my arm, shouldn’t I have a cast?”
She pinched the nail bed of his finger.
“That hurts,” he hissed.
“It hurts because your arm as well as your hand are swollen after the break. They can’t put a cast on you until the swelling goes down. Imagine what would happen if they put you in a hard cast, and you swelled up even more?”
He squinted and gave her a smirk. “Doc, if that’s your idea of dirty talk, you need to work on it.”
She laughed. “Not talking dirty to you,” she said, “and I’m not a doc. I’m an anesthetist.”
“A what-a-what?”
“CRNA. Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist.”
“Whatever the fuck that is.”
“I’m the one who puts foul-mouthed chatty men to sleep.”
“Hell,” he said, “there’s no way you’re ever going to put a man to sleep, hon. You’re fucking gorgeous.”
“Sweet talk won’t get you anywhere with Tia,” Ryker’s deep voice called from the door.
She spun around and just barely kept herself in check. After last night, her first instinct was to leap into Ryker’s arms and wrap herlegs around his hips. Instead, she released Bent’s hand and crossed her arms over her chest. Her fatigues were thick, but her nipples had hardened at the sound of Ryker’s voice and could probably cut right through the thick fabric of her uniform.
“Ryker,” she said, surprised at the evenness of her voice, “what brings you here?”
He approached, lifted a hand to brush her cheek, and then withdrew sharply. “I need to talk to Bent,” he said.
“Awesome,” Bent said. “Pull up a chair, and join the party. Just don’t expect me to pay you any mind, not with this goddess sitting beside me.”
Ryker huffed a laugh. “Yeah, she gets that a lot.”
“I do not!” she exclaimed. Furrowing her brows, she gave a slight shake of her head to warn Ryker off from being too informal.
