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Pain jolted through Caleb’s shoulder. He grimaced.
Doc threw him an apologetic glance. “Sorry.”
“I’ve had worse.” He needed a few stitches, maybe, and a bandage.
He repositioned the towel against his shoulder. This was a scratch compared to some of the wounds he’d dealt with as a combat medic, but if he was going to get shot playing the hero, at least he had a pretty doctor to patch him up.
The ribbing he’d take from his Dìleas teammates if they found out—the former Green Beret got winged rescuing a woman in peril. They’d joke he just met his future wife or some crazy shit.
His gaze slanted to the pretty doctor.Classy. Caring. Brave.
She’d fit in with the women at Dìleas: Lachlan’s wife, Sophia; Nathan’s fiancée, Emily; Nathalie, Ryder’s fiancée. Even Penny—Dìleas’s office manager and unofficial company mom.
Which was reason enough to keep his mouth shut.
They crossed into Arizona and drove through Window Rock. Some of the fear surrounding Doc like a shroud receded. Still, her knuckles stayed white on the steering wheel as she pulled into a neighborhood of mostly white and beige single-wides planted in rows of hard-packed red dirt and stone. Satellite dishes perched on the roofs.Wooden electric poles lined the dirt road. The only actual color to be found was in the anemic green of the mesquite trees that dotted the neighborhood and the Russian thistle and kochia that grew as weeds in barren spaces.
Doc parked beside one of the trailers and offered a sheepish smile. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
His brows lifted. By rez standards, it was solidly middle class.
“You’re not a tribal member, yet you have housing here? That’s a privilege, even if you don’t realize it.” Many Navajo still lived in homes that lacked electricity and running water.
Hell, he hadn’t even been inside yet and he could tell this place was a palace compared to the tiny shit-hole trailer he and his parents had lived in before they left Gallup. And the run-down apartment on the South Side of Phoenix after that hadn’t been much better.
Doc opened her door, triggering the interior light. Pink bloomed on her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it that way. I am grateful. And I know what people here live with. I see it every day.”
She stepped out of the vehicle. “Wait there. I’ll help you.”
“I don’t need help.” He beat her around the front of the hood.
A huff of breath escaped her. “Another stubborn patient who won’t listen to the doctor.”
“It’s in our DNA.” He handed over the bloody towel.
“So I’ve noticed.”
Inside, the trailer smelled like tomato sauce and melted cheese—out of place in his Southwest memories but oddly homey. A worn brown sofa and battered coffee table faced a double window with white metal blinds. Brightly colored Navajo patterned rugs in shades of red, blue, and gray softened the vinyl plank floor, and a flowering cactus added a feminine touch to the small space.
Basic, but neat and cozy.
A far cry from the beige walls and brown furniture in his apartment in Northern Virginia. He’d purchased some landscape paintings that caught his eye on his travels for work, but he wasn’t around much to enjoy them.
Doc shrugged out of her coat and gestured to the dark wood table and mismatched chairs that separated the main room from the kitchen.
“Have a seat. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared through an open door to the left of the kitchen.
Caleb straddled one of the chairs, angling his body to give her better access to the wound. This wasn’t his first rodeo.
Or his first bullet wound.
Moments later, she returned with a black medical bag. At the kitchen sink, she washed and dried her hands, then snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and pulled scissors from the kit. “Some of the blood has caked. I need to cut the fabric away.”
He gave a small shrug. “Do what you gotta do.”
It was just a shirt. He had another one in his duffel in the Jeep.
Well, hell. He was going to need a ride back to the bar. The adrenaline rush fueling him subsided. Fatigue rolled in.