CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Meredith's arms tighten around my waist, and she yells, "Go!" But it's too late.

We're going so slow that when I gas the bike, I can't maintain our balance and we fall to the right. I catch us with my leg and balance the weight of the bike and our bodies as I reach for the gun, then realize I can't hold the handlebar with my right hand and grab the gun.

f.u.c.k!

"EVAN, GO!" she screams, and I want to go, I want to get her out of here so f.u.c.king bad, but I'm too late.

The bald dude with the gun is walking toward us as I try to push off with my leg and get us vertical enough that I can gas it without falling over. I try for half a second, which is as long as I need to know that I can't pull it off. I jerk my left hand out of its support system and yell, "Grab the handlebars!"

Meredith does, and I get my gun and fire a shot at homeboy's hip. It grazes him, and he shoots the bike's front tire.

"s.h.i.t!" Merri is off the bike, running, I a.s.sume until I feel her grabbing my left arm. "Come on!" she shrieks, and our friend shoots again. The bullet clears my blue jeans, then the tank, missing skin and bone by no more than an inch. I fumble off the bike and throw it in the direction of our friend with the gun.

He lets out a howl, and it's only then I realize that he doesn't look quite sane. His bald head, gleaming in the sun, is sc.r.a.ped and scratched: fingernail marks. I made the same ones on my own skin when I tried to kick the Dilaudid. His face is streaked with tears. He howls again and shoots at Merri, to my left.

"f.u.c.k!" I yank her forward and lead her around the dirt mound, tugging her behind me, "Are you okay?" She must be, because she's running and I don't see blood.

Our would-be killer screams as he fires more shots. They're wild, but I push Meredith in front of me just in case. We round the dirt mound, out of sight for a moment, but I can tell from his screams that he's getting close.

Jesus, I'm so out of shape. f.u.c.king accident. I was stupid. Can't do this with one hand.

A close shot makes me jump; Meredith stumbles. She cries out as red blooms across her right shoulder. I rush her from behind, scooping her up with my right arm and throwing her over my shoulder, realizing belatedly that she's a sitting duck behind me, so I shift her to my front and hug her to me with my arm.

"Hold on," I yell into her ear. "I've got to shoot again!"

I find him in the narrow, jolting frame of vision over my shoulder. I aim for his throat but I'm running and firing backwards, so the shot goes wild. He somehow manages to shoot- s.h.i.t! I wait for pain that doesn't come, then look down and understand: It's my left hand. The f.u.c.ker is spurting blood, but I can't feel it. Whatever.

He gets in one more shot, a crazy shot he fires with crazy eyes, and as he does I notice the handle of vodka sticking out of his pants pocket. I spot a bush and throw Merri behind it, and as I do, the bullet lodges in the sole of my shoe. I can tell because the bottom of my foot feels hot and I can feel a b.u.mp. I take one step toward him, aim, and fire two quick shots at his leg. The first misses. The second hits the bottle, shattering it. The man screams and falls to the ground, and I put two more shots in his head.

They're grizzly, disgusting shots, and the fallout is something I'll be seeing in nightmares. Merri shrieks, then comes zipping toward me like a beautiful, girl bullet. She throws her arms around me and says, "Oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d oh my G.o.d he's dead! You killed David! That's Jesus's boyfriend. Oh my G.o.d."

Jesus's boyfriend?

"Evan, we need to move his body! Your gun is loud! Someone might have heard!"

"Yeah."

"OH MY G.o.d, YOUR HAND!"

Merri grabs my left arm, and I flinch, not because it hurts but because it's weird when people touch it. It makes me feel...uncomfortable. But she doesn't let go. She gets a death grip on my wrist and holds the hand up to inspect.

It's a b.l.o.o.d.y mess, but it looks like the bullet punched out that little flap of skin between my thumb and forefinger. I've studied the anatomy of the hand enough in the last six months to know it's bleeding heavily because the radial artery is nearby. I'm feeling dizzy, but it doesn't hurt. I use my right hand to steal my left one out of Merri's grasp and whirl her around so I can see the back of her right shoulder.

"He got you, too."

I want to rip her shirt away so I can really see the wound, but I can't do that one-handed...not unless I use my mouth to hold her collar steady.

"It was just a graze," she says, fingering the b.l.o.o.d.y spot. The circle of blood hasn't grown much larger than a teacup saucer, but... "You've been shot before?"

"Of course," she mutters. She turns to face me with her hands on her hips again. The look on her face is somehow a mix of gentle, frustrated, and sad. "Can you help me move the body? I don't think there's anywhere good to hide him out here, but I'll open the back door and we can leave him in the laundry room."

"The back door?" I frown at the dirt mound, and that's when I realize... "That's a house!"

"Yeah." She winces as she moves her right arm. Then she shocks me by pulling off her shirt.

Holy Jesus H.

If I was dizzy before, I almost pa.s.s out when I see her creamy skin. My eyes jet to her huge t.i.ts, spilling out of a silky-looking sky blue bra, and travel down her soft, slim belly to the waist of her pants. Oh f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, I want to kiss her there. She looks so soft.

She steps closer to me, sending my adrenaline b.o.n.e.r into overdrive, and rips the shirt in half, using one half of it to wrap around my hand, right where the gunshot was.

"Will this hurt?" she asks, looking into my eyes before she ties it.

"I can't feel the hand."

"Well that's a good thing." She's breathing heavily as she ties it. I brush her hair off her forehead to check her eyes.

"I'm not in shock," she says. She touches my cheek. "Are you?"

"I don't think so. I don't need your help with David, either. I can drag him in if you open the door." I might need her help, but I won't take it. I can't stand the thought of this beautiful woman touching a corpse.

"Are you sure? 'Cause I don't mind."

I nod. "I'm sure."

"You need to keep that left hand elevated. When we get inside I'll sterilize and do a proper bandage."

I nod, because my head has started hurting and I'm feeling kind of off.

"The back door is right here." She points to what looks like regular dirt, then lifts a tiny, dirt-colored plastic flap and punches in a code. Some dirt falls away, revealing a plastic-ish, dirt-orange door. She opens it somehow-I can't see from where I'm standing-and I turn to get the body.

I try not to look at him as I grab one of his legs, using all my strength to drag him through the square doorway. I'm hoping Merri's gone further inside, but she's right there as soon as I stumble through the door. She presses something on the wall, the way you might with a garage door, and I can hear the door sliding shut as we maneuver the dead guy into the first room on the right.

It's a surprisingly normal looking laundry room with a stacked washer/dryer combo, a little brown rug, a shelf of laundry supplies, and a framed photo of two men embracing, holding martini gla.s.ses.

Merri and I settle the dead guy face-down on the rug, and my gaze returns to the framed photo. The bald guy at our feet is smiling in the arms of a well-worked-out Hispanic man with shoulder-length hair and a Hollywood-worthy smile.

"That's him," I mutter. The infamous Jesus Cientos.

Merri nods.

I glance down at the floor, where blood is pooling. "This s.h.i.t is weird."

She nods and grabs a towel off a shelf.

"Let's go out into the hall now." She leads the way, lightly touching my back as I step by her. Then she stuffs the towel underneath the door.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

The inside of this place looks just how I remember, which is not really a surprise. Jesus and I picked out most of the decor online. From Pottery Barn, of all places. It was shipped to an empty building in Camargo, the next town over, and Jesus and David loaded it into a truck and brought it here and set the place up themselves, one weekend when Jesus pretended to be away with me. I stayed in the bas.e.m.e.nt suite all weekend, cross-st.i.tching some pillows Jesus wanted for the guest room and feeling buried alive. The bas.e.m.e.nt of an underground bungalow feels really, really underground.

When I snap out of my memories and look at Evan, I find him holding out one of Jesus's freshly laundered wife beaters. He's holding onto it with a dryer sheet because his hands are painted red. I wonder when he picked it up.

I slip the shirt on while he casts his eyes back at the door, and then I lead him into the half-bath behind the next door down. We wash our hands with pear-scented soap from Bath and Body Works.

Evan seems to be breathing hard. He looks kind of wide-eyed and is moving slowly. I wonder what the odds are that he was wrong earlier, and he really is in shock, but then I brush the thought away. This is his job.

Still, when we walk back into the hallway, I look him up and down and ask, "Are you okay?"

This makes him laugh. I laugh a little too. "Stupid question I guess."

"Thanks for asking," he says.

I'm leading him down the hallway, past the wine cellar and into the mouth of the kitchen, where I'm slightly amused to see surprise transform his face.

His blue eyes are wide. "Am I hallucinating?"

"Nope." I pull out a chair at the weathered, white-washed breakfast table and move one of the blue and white breakfast mats so he doesn't get it dirty; old habits die hard. "Have a seat, I'll get the first aid stuff."

Jesus's love nest is half underground, and it's got central air. It feels good in here-probably seventy-three degrees, Jesus's preferred temperature-and the refrigerator is appropriately cold, so the antibiotic shots are still in good condition.

I find the first aid kit in one of the cabinets near the stainless steel refrigerator. There's an additional briefcase full of surgical supplies in the pantry. When I get back to the breakfast area, Evan has his right elbow on the table and his face propped in his hand.

Despite the sh.e.l.l I've tried to build around myself, I feel a bubble of concern form in my throat. Maybe it's the way he put himself between David's bullets and me. I was running so hard I almost didn't notice, but I glanced behind me and there he was, with both arms out. I don't care who you are or what your job is, that's pretty heroic.

He doesn't move as I approach the table, so I get the perfect chance to really look at him. His shoulders are so wide, it's almost a little ridiculous, like he might be wearing football pads-except of course he's not. Beneath his sweaty, blood-splattered black t-shirt, I can see every ripple of muscle, from the exaggerated roundness of his shoulders to that delicious indention that runs down his spine between smooth slabs of muscle. I'm checking out the bicep of his left arm, wondering how he keeps it so in shape if that hand can't move, when I notice a wicked-looking scar along his collar-line.

I've rehabbed enough kids to know that it's a surgical scar. Because I'm curious, I come up behind him and put my hands on his shoulders. This does freaky things to all my girly parts, and then he moans and I'm pretty much slayed right where I stand.

"I'm sorry," he says hoa.r.s.ely. It's half-chuckled, like maybe he's embarra.s.sed by his reaction.

"Don't be sorry." His back feels warm and hard through the soft, damp shirt, and his shoulders are super tense. I give them a squeeze, and I'm rewarded with another moan, this one deeper than the last. I swear, I can feel it vibrate way low down in my belly. He's practically lying on the table now, his head resting on his forearm so I can drink in all I want of his satiny dark brown hair and those strong shoulders, that lean, tough back. Just above the waist of his jeans, his shirt is stuck to his skin, so I get a peek of the top of his underwear. The skin they cover looks so soft and smooth... I can only see an inch of it- Ridiculous.

I direct my wandering eyes back to his scar as I work his trapezius muscles. I see not just one scar, but several. One vertical along his cervical spine, just above where I think his C4-C6 ought to be, and another perpendicular to that, going from the middle of his spine at what I think is C5 level and heading around to the left side of his neck. The scars are thick. Still pink. This must be how he lost the use of his hand.

As I knead his shoulders and he makes delicious sounds, I wonder why on earth anyone would send him on a mission alone to rescue someone from a Mexican cartel. Sure, there are bad-a.s.s seeming things about him, but twice we've crashed on the bike because he can't balance us with his left arm.

Don't get me wrong-I'm grateful. At this point, enough has happened that I'm grateful for Evan's help. I just don't really understand the situation.

I'm still hard at work on his shoulders when I notice the red pool under his left hand, which is lying on the table.

"Evan!" He shoots up so fast his head hits mine. "Ouch." I rub my sore nose.

He turns to face me. "What's wrong?"

Still covering my nose, I nod at his hand. "You're bleeding." I blush so furiously, I feel like there's a cloud of heat around my head. Sure, it's been a while since I've been around a guy, but this level of oblivion really is embarra.s.sing. Unforgivable. What's wrong with me?

"Hold your arm up," I tell him.

He does, and I take a seat beside him with the first aid stuff in hand.

I grab his left elbow, which is propped against the table, causing him to lean a little closer toward me. I scoot closer to him, too. With my hand around his bicep, I look into his blue eyes.

"So you have no feeling in your hand?" He blinks, and I take that as affirmative. "What about your arm?"

"The bicep up," he says without expression.

"Okay, that's good, because you would feel some of this in your wrist and forearm I think."

I let go of him and clean my hands with alcohol towelettes, then untie my b.l.o.o.d.y shirt sc.r.a.p and reveal his wound again. It looks darker red this time, which means some of the blood is finally clotting.

"I don't think it hit anything important."

The radial artery runs into the hand, and its location in the wrist is not too far from where Evan's wound is-but if he'd hit it, there would be even more blood. At least I think that's true.

I open then unfold two big gauze pads and gently guide his hand down onto them. Instead of spreading out, his fingers stay semi-curled. I study his hand for just a second, admiring the shape of it, before I notice him scowling.

I have the strangest desire to tell him, You have nice hands, but that would just be weird, so I swallow once and try to keep this as professional as I can.

"I'm going to spread your fingers out the way I want them, okay?"

He shrugs, trying to look unaffected. "Do whatever you want." His lips quirk up. "As long as I can get another back rub."

I smile a little as I work his fingers into the position that I want them, with thumb and forefinger in an "L" shape.

Evan huffs his breath out as I let go of him and unwrap some Betadine swabs. I glance into his eyes, offering another little smile. "You ready?"

His face is hard. "Go for it."

I swab around the wound, glancing into his eyes a time or two to be sure it isn't hurting. He looks apathetic. I wonder if he feels the ghost of pain, but as I finish painting the entire wound with orange Betadine, I decide that maybe he's self-conscious.

I lie his hand down again, and when I'm looking into my lap, fiddling with the antibiotic syringe, I ask, "Are your injuries recent?"