“And we’re not allowed to kill him, not even accidentally,” Rio responded. “Copy that. Although is wounding an option, I wonder?”
The truck stop sign had been new and gigantic and brightly lit in marked contrast to the facility, which was crumbling and small and featured a restaurant called Sawbuck’s Coffee and Grub that appeared to be deserted despite the flickering dim blue neon that announced Open 24 Hours.
Despite the still-early morning hour, a pickup truck was at the gas pumps, with one lone person standing with their back against the cold wind. Rio swung toward them, because even though the person standing there was dressed in decidedly feminine outerwear—a sky blue jacket with a hood trimmed with fake fur—they’d already learned that the prince was an outside-the-box thinker. He’d taken Jeff’s phone, so he could just as well have borrowed Kayla’s jacket.
“Signal’s coming from around the back of the building,” Dave told him, as no, the gas-pumper definitely wasn’t Tedric. It was a woman, older than the prince by around a half-century.
She looked back at Rio unflinchingly, an eyebrow going up in response to what had been his definite Who are you beneath that hood once-over, straightening her stance to convey a strong I dare you, punk message.
Rio gave her a wave and a smile as he navigated around the side of the building, past the deserted hookups to the RV dumping tanks, a sadly sagging car wash, and...
There was no one back there. No trucks, no cars—and certainly no sign of the small blue Honda hybrid that Tedric was believed to be driving—although no one had been absolutely sure about the make or model of his vehicle.
Rio gazed across that empty expanse of a potholed tarmac and gravel parking lot, landing on...
A battered dumpster.
Dave sighed. “Welp,” he said. “According to GPS we’ve found Jeff’s phone. Rock, paper, scissors for the dumpster dive?”
“Fuck,” Rio said. “Me.”
“For the record, you could make a fortune in Hollywood as a stunt butt.”
“Oh, good.” Thomas was using sterilized tweezers to painstakingly pick the debris from Tasha’s wound. He was being careful to get it all, since his antibiotic options were limited to the topical ointment from the first-aid kit. Normally, with any kind of gunshot wound, an oral antibiotic prophylaxis was given as a matter of course. “We’re still talking about this.”
They’d moved into the kitchen, where the light was better.
He’d pulled one of the counter-height stools into the center of the little room, and with Tasha perched upon it, her arm was at a better height for his surgery, as it were.
With her robe off her left shoulder and upper arm, her still-damp hair swept to the side, her long, graceful neck was exposed. She’d pulled the right side of her robe over her breasts and was clasping it closed at her waist.
Thomas was bracing himself—and keeping her from moving—with a hand on her shoulder, and her skin was soft and cool beneath his fingers. She was an unbelievably beautiful, grown-up woman, and definitely not his sister, a fact he was fully aware of despite his focus on his work.
“It’s keeping me distracted while you... ooh!” She tried not to move, but she definitely winced as she sharply inhaled.
The bit of junk he was going after had gotten stuck, so he stopped digging and released her, to give her a break. “Sorry. We’re almost done. There’s a few more pieces of something—fabric from your jacket, I think. They’re big enough to... I really don’t want to leave that in there.”
She looked at him, over her shoulder. “Isn’t this where you’re supposed to give me a shot of whiskey and a stick to bite down on?”
Thomas couldn’t not smile at her even as he raised his eyebrows in a very clear Seriously?
She smiled happily back at him, and he was again struck by how vibrant and alive she was—and how very grateful he was that this hadn’t ended tragically. And how weird it still felt to be in this odd, alternative-feeling world in which he’d kissed her. A world in which it was very, very okay for him to kiss her. A world in which his automatic mental chants of little sister were quickly doused by reality.
“Or...” You could kiss me. She didn’t say the words, but he read them clearly in her eyes. “You could just let me continue to distract myself with our electrifying ass-chat.”
Thomas laughed as he returned his attention to her almost-clean wound, trying to find the