Like lightning, Julia jumped forward and snatched the decanter from Douglas’s grasp.
“Get her out of here, Nick, before I kill her,” Douglas said through gritted teeth, his angry eyes gleaming darkly at her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Julia boldly declared and cut her eyes to Nick who was advancing on her. “You touch me, I’ll scream bloody murder. Just try me.”
Nick stopped.
Douglas sighed.
“I’m cleaning the wound,” Julia announced into the void.
“Well, Doug, that sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?” Nick asked, sounding like he was trying to placate a wounded beast so he could draw out a thorn. She’d never heard anyone but Tamsin call him Doug and she wondered who this Nick character was. He looked rough and, regardless of his height, he looked like a man you wouldn’t mess with. Lastly, he was also obviously trusted implicitly by Douglas.
Douglas didn’t reply.
She searched through the first aid kit and found only minuscule cleansing wipes that were smaller by half than your average handi-wipe.
“What,” she turned slowly and showed the wipe to the men, “am I supposed to do with this?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned back to the kit, rifling through it. “Don’t you have any rubbing alcohol, any hydrogen peroxide? This kit is a joke.”
“She’s trying to kill me, Nick. She wants me dead so she can take the children back to America.”
Julia whirled around “Rubbing alcohol won’t kill…” but she stopped when Douglas’s head shot up.
“Doctor,” Douglas muttered and Nick immediately left the room to fetch the doctor.
Julia and Douglas surveyed each other like opponents on a battlefield.
Julia broke the silence. “Douglas, is there something you want to share with me?”
“Not now, Julia.”
“I’ll tell you something for nothing,” she said, her anger taking over her nerves and making her lapse into the Midwestern twang her mother tried for years to breed out of them. “If you die, I’m going to kill you.”
To her shock, her idiotic threat made him grin. What he thought was worth grinning about in this grim situation, she could not imagine. Furthermore, she had to steal herself against just how devilishly sexy his damn grins made him, gunshot wounds or not. Before she could respond to the wickedly handsome look on his face, the doctor was at the door.
Julia watched as he inspected the wound then looked up and spoke to Nick and Julia.
“One of you stay to help me, the other one, leave us.”
“I’ll do it,” Julia immediately offered.
“No!” both Douglas and Nick shouted.
“You’re outvoted, luv,” the doctor said kindly and Julia, without a fight so the doctor could see to Douglas without delay, left.
Instead of going toward the house, where the kids might hear or see her, she went to the chapel.
The chapel, as it was unused nearly all the time, was unheated. She hadn’t put on her robe or slippers and only had on a pair of thin, knit, mint green, drawstring pyjama bottoms and matching lace-trimmed camisole.
She paced through the darkness to keep herself warm and she counted to keep her mind busy. She did not want to think of what her life had become. She did not want to list in her mind the many reasons her life had descended into sheer, unadulterated madness.
But as the minutes ticked by, her control slipped and she started listing. She couldn’t help it, it was habit.
There was Monique, the Super Bitch, out there somewhere, Julia knew, conniving to make Julia’s life a living hell. There was Douglas, lying on her bed with a gunshot wound in his shoulder. That same Douglas who wanted her to marry him for what had to be nefarious reasons and kept kissing her for no reason at all. There were the ghosts of separated lovers haunting this creepy old house. Then there was the house itself, spooky beyond belief and…
“Doc’s done,” Nick said from behind her, making her jump.
She rushed through the chapel, down the hall and back into her room.