Guarding the Princess - By Loreth Anne White Page 0,28
to get through this. Alive.
Exhausted, Dalilah sat limp, staring at the coppery glow of the flames on the churning and swirling river, listening to Brandt moving in the shadows as he finished covering the grave.
“You done yet?” he called out as he returned with the shovel.
“I’m surprised you went to the trouble of burying it,” she said. “Why did you?”
“Trackers would have seen it,” he said, voice clipped as he marched around to the rear of the truck, where he replaced the shovel.
“They’re going to see our tire tracks here under the trees, anyway,” she said, reading more into his actions than he was admitting.
Choosing not to answer, he sullenly dusted his hands off on his shorts and re-angled the headlamp on his head before reaching for the first-aid box. “So, are you done?”
“Apart from the buttons and the bootlaces. I can’t do them with one hand.”
He grunted as he ripped open a pouch containing a pad soaked in disinfectant and cleaned his hands with it. Then, climbing into the front seat next to her, Brandt regarded her, assessing her condition. Under the light coming from the lamp on the roll bar above, Dalilah noticed for the first time a tattoo of a lion on his shoulder.
“Clothes don’t fit too badly,” he said, opening the first-aid kit.
“Good thing the pants came with a belt.” Dalilah offered a tremulous smile, but he did not return it. A strange little sinking feeling went through her stomach.
All business now, Brandt took her arm, felt for a pulse, before cutting off the sleeve above her elbow. Feeling carefully along her radius, he lingered, closer to her wrist, gently palpating where there was swelling. She winced, and immediately he released pressure.
“Seems to be a fairly straightforward fracture. Best we can do is splint and stabilize it until we can get medical attention. Your fingers are quite swollen,” he said. “If you swell any more, Dalilah, we’re going to have to cut that thing off, okay?” He jerked his chin at her engagement ring.
She moistened her lips, nodded, tears of pain and emotion filling her eyes. He glanced up at her face, forcing her to squint against the sharp light from his headlamp.
“Sorry.” He lowered his head, averting the light from her face.
“I’m okay. Just...tired.”
He inhaled slowly, deeply, as he opened a packet containing a blue-and-orange splint. “SAM splint,” he explained. “Made from malleable aluminum lightly padded with foam on either side. It can be molded and shaped for various splinting tasks.”
He bent the splint to form a long channel, which he wrapped around the back of her elbow, sandwiching her arm down to her fingers, which he left free. He bound the splint firmly into place with a bandage, his movements deft and smooth.
“You’ve done this before,” she said.
“A couple of times.”
“Are you a mercenary, Brandt?”
“Ex. I’m going to do up your buttons, then make a sling.” His hands moved between her breasts and he kept his eyes averted from hers. “Now, hold your splinted arm against your abdomen like this,” he said, showing her. Then, lifting the damp hair away from the nape of her neck, he tied a sling fashioned from one of the triangle bandages.
A shiver chased down her back as the rough skin of his callused hands brushed against the tender skin on the back of her neck. She felt him pause briefly at her reaction. The tension between them was still thick and sexual.
“There,” he said, packing up the first-aid kit. “That should do it.”
“Did you work with Omair, with the Force du Sable?”
“You need to eat something,” he said, ignoring her question. “I’ve got some tinned food, biltong, apples.” He moved the curtain aside and reached into the cooler at the back as he spoke. “We’ll get something into you, then you must sleep. We’ve got about an hour left until first light. The flood buys us some time, and it’s better not to move into unknown terrain while dark if we can help it. But when we do move, we’ll need to go fast because we’ll be leaving a trail in the mud that even a blind man could track.” He held up three tins. “Bully beef, ravioli or chili con carne?”
She glanced at the tins. “You said you had apples?”
He frowned, handed her a green apple.
“Thanks.” Dalilah took a bite. It was sour, and she felt nauseous.
“You need something more substantial than that,” he said, reaching up to click off his headlamp.