Shiver by Karen Robards

his bloodstained blue boxers had been shoved up as high as it would go, presumably to get it out of her way. His bare thigh above and below the bandage was caked with blood. A lot more blood than he remembered seeing when he’d pulled his jeans down, because of course the act of removing his jeans had wiped most of the old blood away.
    “So, what happened?”
    She shot another quick glance up at him. “You blacked out. You bled like a stuck pig. I saved your life. Again. You owe me. Big time.”
    If he’d had any strength at all, her truculence would have made him smile. “Duly noted.”
    Jesus, he felt like shit. The absolute agony in his leg had subsided, but it still throbbed and ached and burned like napalm bubbling through his veins. Even his foot was getting into the act: the only way he could describe the sensation was pins andneedles to the nth degree. That was good, probably, because it meant his circulation had been restored, but it hurt like a mother. He had a feeling that, best-case scenario, he wasn’t going to be walking anywhere that required more than a few limping steps anytime soon. In addition, he was woozy, with an overall sense of physical weakness that warned him that another fainting spell wasn’t out of the question. He couldn’t afford to faint again. For whatever reason, she had stayed put the first time, and helped him. He couldn’t count on her not booking it if there was a second. And the death squad on his trail was good. He might have lost them temporarily, but if one thing was absolutely certain it was that they hadn’t given up. They were going to keep coming until they were stopped, or he was dead. He should try to find a phone and call Crittenden—no, wait, he couldn’t. Rick Marco didn’t know Crittenden. That was what the fuzzy-headedness was doing to him: putting him in danger of forgetting that he was Marco, and the guiding principle behind this run for his life had to be, what would Marco do?
    Shit.
    “You okay?” She was frowning at him. Probably he’d gone a little glassy-eyed there, remembering that he had to play this thing out like Marco.
    He focused on her again. For whatever reason, that made him feel more on his game. Probably because her life depended on what he did next, too.
    “Relatively. How’d you control the bleeding?”
    “Pressure point.” She shot him a glinting look. Remembering how rucked up the leg of his boxers was, he got the picture:she’d stuck her hand in his crotch to apply the necessary pressure, which he appreciated, both for the unexpectedly sexy image it conjured up and for the fact that it had worked. “Followed by direct pressure to the wound. After that, I packed the wound with gauze and antibiotic ointment, put my shirt on top of that, and wrapped the whole thing up with more gauze, and tape, and this. Be glad I’ve taken some EMT classes.” She carefully smoothed the bandage. “I think as long as you don’t go moving around too much, you won’t bleed to death.” Her hands were busy, and she wasn’t looking at him any longer. Instead, she was gathering up her supplies. “There’s no way to be sure, though.”
    “You’ve taken EMT classes?” Talking kept him in the moment, which was a good thing. He felt light-headed and queasy, probably from blood loss.
    “Yes.” She grimaced. “Three, actually. If I keep going at the rate I’m going, I might even manage to get licensed by the time I’m, like, fifty or so.”
    “So how does that work if you don’t like blood?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t like a lot of things. But without a college degree, there are only so many jobs I can get that pay enough to give my kid a decent life. Being an EMT is one of them. So I suck it up about the blood.”
    “What about this tow-truck thing you have going on?”
    “It works for now. But I only have the one truck, and it’s old. When it finally breaks down for good, where am I going to get the money to buy another?”
    “What