some cold water at the same time if they have it, and see if perhaps they have a cane or close facsimile.”
He didn’t like using a cane, he wasn’t incapacitated by the injury and didn’t want a bloody crutch, but he didn’t argue.
Although the oasis and small village were about ten miles ahead, near their turnoff to descend to the valley floor, he had no intention of stopping. The area was too isolated and he had an itch on the back of his neck. He scanned the surroundings. Sand. Road. Sun.
Several miles went by in silence. But Thorne bet Isis wouldn’t maintain the blessed quiet for long—the very air seemed to vibrate with her thoughts. He could feel the questions coming. Things he didn’t want to remember, let alone discuss.
“Will you tell me now what happened?”
“I fell down the stairs.”
She made a rude noise of disbelief. “No, you didn’t. If you tell me, will you have to kill me or something?”
He slid her a suggestive glance. “Or something.”
She smiled, shoving her glasses on top of her head and curling her legs under her, clearly settling in for a heart-to-heart. “No, really, what happened?”
Damn. She was more tenacious than he’d anticipated. But then, it was something that, under normal circumstances, he appreciated in her. She kept going no matter what the obstacles. And for that she deserved the truth. At least a sanitized version of it.
“A year ago, a very unpleasant man killed my two partners and had a crack at me.” Blood splatter, bits of body parts, and agonized screams superimposed themselves on the view of the road and the sound of the tires on the gritty pavement. “I’m in the extremely auspicious position of having rods and pins in my leg. My partners weren’t as fortunate.”
“It’s not fortunate that you got shot.” Isis’s clear brown eyes narrowed. Her skin looked silky soft and fine-grained in the sunlight streaming in the window, dewy with perspiration. Her soft mouth looked lush and inviting, and he wanted to pull over and kiss her into stopping the questions he not only didn’t want to answer, but didn’t want to think about, either.
Cradling the empty bottle in her lap, she twisted even more in her seat, so that her back was to the passenger door. He glanced over at the door locks to make sure they were engaged.
“What’s the prognosis, and what are your limitations?”
Pissed that she even had to ask if he had any bloody limitations, he cast a mocking glance her way. “Do you have a medical degree now, Dr. Magee?”
“No, Thorne,” she said with some asperity. “I don’t. However, someone is doing their damnedest to kill us, stop us, or… whatever us. We don’t know who, and we don’t know why. I can shoot them with my camera, but you are the man with the big gun and the bullets. You can shoot them more efficiently. And, as said gunman, you are all that stands between me and them. I need to know what your constraints are, realistically, without you minimizing them, so that I can make informed choices as we go on.” She paused. “You have no constraints in the lovemaking department, in case you’re asking.”
Foiled by logic. Damn. “I’ve kept you safe.” He glanced automatically in the rearview mirror. There was a vehicle of some sort in the distance behind them, but the shimmer on the road made identification impossible. He monitored the other car’s progress.
“For which I’m grateful. Spill.”
“The name of the man who captured and killed the members of my team was Boris Yermalof.”
“And what’s his claim to fame?”
“He shot me,” he said wryly. The surgery had taken eighteen hours, and he’d died on the table. There’d been shitloads of pain afterward, and they’d told him he’d probably never walk again, and just to be thankful he was alive. What they hadn’t told him was that numbers would be scrolling through his head. At first he’d thought he was hallucinating from the pain meds they dripped into his veins. But then Stark had told him about his own strange ability, and when they’d let him go from the hospital, he’d been drafted into service for Lodestone. What he felt now was a reminder that he’d almost died twice, and he was lucky to be alive. He had no bloody complaints.
“I have a rod in my leg that will set off airport metal detectors for the rest of my life, and assorted other hardware that enables me to