Page 19

I stood there breathing hard for a few minutes, surprised that it had actually worked. I didn’t know why or how. I was just grateful the bear was gone. Turning, I ran back to Patrick, falling to my knees beside him.

“Are you okay?”

“Peachy,” he grimaced, shifting to a sitting position. He was favoring the right side of his body, and I leaned over, lifting his shirt to see a large red mark spanning the entire side of his stomach.

“That looks painful.”

“Well, I was tossed around by a bear.”

I shot him an irritated look. “Can you stand?”

“Of course I can,” he grunted. He shuffled around, hardly moving his leg. It was clear he was injured, but didn’t want to say a thing.

“Where else are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt,” he bit out, grinding his teeth together. “I’m fine.”

“Right. Of course. Silly me, but it looked like you were barely moving.”

“I’m just stiff.”

Men. God forbid he admit that he was injured and needed help. “Well, then hop up so we can get a move on.”

I stepped back and watched as he struggled to move further than the sitting position he was already in. Sweat beaded along his forehead and his muscles shook as he attempted to lift himself up.

“So…do you need any help now?”

I could practically feel the anger coming off him in waves. He wanted to yell at me, but that wouldn’t do any good when I was the only person here to help him.

“Yes,” he ground out.

Pretending I didn’t hear him, I cupped my hand around my ear. “I’m sorry. With all the birds chirping, I didn’t hear what you said.”

“Yes!”

“Yes, what?” I challenged.

Rolling his eyes, he looked up at me with disdain. “Piper, would you be so kind as to help me up?”

“Of course. Why didn’t you say something?

” I bent over and grabbed his arm, then started the tedious process of helping him stand.

It was clear the moment he put pressure on his right leg that he was fucked.

I couldn’t see through his pants what was wrong, but I wasn’t sure if we should stick around to find out how badly he was injured.

“Fuck,” he cursed, wiping the sweat from his eyes as we finally stood.

“Keep moving or stick around to see if the bear returns?”

The determination in his eyes was admirable, but I didn’t know how far he’d make it with his leg fucked up. “Get me a walking stick.”

“Um…” I removed his arm, then decided maybe I should lean him up against a tree, but then I needed to put his arm back over my shoulder. He groaned the moment I tried to move him, and I considered putting him back down. “Maybe this isn’t going to work.”

“Just find me a fucking stick,” he bit out.

“Geez, alright. Somebody’s grumpy.”

The look he shot me was comical. For a man who was badly injured, you would think he would be just a little more grateful that I was looking out for him.

After getting him closer to the tree, I set off in search of a stick large enough for him to use, which, it turned out, was not very close.

The further I walked, the more worried I became that the bear would return to eat him while I was gone.

It took me a while to find anything that would be suitable for a walking stick, and by the time I returned, he was back on the ground, panting and sweating profusely.

“So…do you want to stick around now?” I asked, my lips quirking up in a smile.

“I think it’s broken.”

“Really?” I said in mock shock. “Wow, I never would have guessed that. I thought maybe you had a splinter from the tree.” The bear tossed him around like a rag doll. He was lucky he was still alive.

I knelt down beside him, tossing the stick on the ground. The moment I reached for his pant leg, he hissed.

“What are you doing?”

“Call me crazy, but since we’re out in the wilderness all alone, I thought I would see how bad it is.”

“You’re not a doctor. You’re an airline stewardess, and a fake one at that.”

“True.” I cocked my head at him. “Would you like me to leave and see if there’s someone more qualified to help you?”

Man, it really sucked when a man had to admit he was wrong, which was evident by the scowl on his face. “No.”

I held back my smirk and started tugging his pant leg up.

The material was already tightening as his leg swelled.

Too much longer like this and his jeans would have to be cut off.

But that wasn’t the only problem I found.

His bone was sticking out just a quarter of an inch through the skin.

I was no doctor, but if we didn’t get him to a hospital soon, this could get bad.

Leaving his pants on might help keep the wound from getting infected. However, his leg was so swollen that if I got him someplace to clean it up, I wouldn’t be able to access the wound without hurting him. Plus, the bone could scrape against his jeans, causing more pain.

“I think we should remove your pants.”

“Because that will heal my leg?” he argued. “Good sunshine is a natural healer?”

Narrowing my eyes on him, I let the sarcasm fly. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking. If I remove your pants, maybe I could heal you with love and sunshine. Heck, while we’re at it, I could ride your dick out of here like a magic carpet.”

“Piper—”

“Or better yet, I could use it to flag down someone who might be hiking in the woods!”

“That’s not?—”

“How about I slice you open and let the bear come back to eat you? Then I can hitch a ride on his back. You’ll be dead, but at least I’ll be long gone. After all, I’m just full of shit ideas right now.”

Sighing heavily, he conceded. “Fine. Alright? I’m being an ass.”

“You can say that again,” I snorted.

“I’ll remove my pants.”

“Thank you,” I smiled. “And while you’re at it, give me your belt.”

He looked at me warily, already doing the buckle. “You’re not going to beat me with it, are you?”

“I’ve thought about it, but oddly enough, I’m more concerned about getting out of here with you in one piece than whipping the stupidity out of you. I’ll leave that for your future wife.”

He flinched at my words, but didn’t say anything else.

Hell, he even let me help him get his pants off, which I thought was real progress.

I grimaced at the state of his leg once he was depantsed.

Swollen and slightly misshapen, I had no idea what to do for him, but it was clear he wasn’t going anywhere unless we stabilized it somehow.

“Alright, I’m no doctor, but it looks like we need to make your leg straighter.”

“You are not touching my leg,” he ground out. “Fuck,” he grumbled, obviously warring with himself. “You need to splint it.”

“Sure, I’ll just grab the brace out of my backpack,” I snapped.

He held up his pants for me. “Wrap this as tight as you can around the knee. You’ll need to gather some sticks that are as straight as possible. You can use the belt to keep it tight.”

“That’ll only work for one part of your leg. What do we use for the other part?”

“Your jacket. Or mine. Either way, it should do the trick to get us out of here.”

I somehow doubted that, but who was I to tell him how much pain he could endure?

Using his pants, I gently wrapped it around his leg, careful not to let the jeans press on his wound, using the grimace on his face to let me know if I was fucking up this whole wrapping thing.

I’d never done anything like this before, but I had a vast knowledge of fiction to base my doctoring on. That would have to do in a pinch.

By the time I had the sticks gathered and had them braced along both sides of his legs, I thought for sure he would pass out from the pain. Oddly enough, he was holding it together pretty well. As I wrapped the belt around his leg, I thought back to everything that was in my purse.

“I had some Tylenol in my bag, but since that went down with the plane, I guess it won’t be of any use.”

“Someone will find us soon. Hopefully, my team. They have emergency kits.”

“Any chance they have a plane in one of those emergency kits?” I teased.

He huffed out a laugh at that. “I’m surprised you’d want to get on a plane after we just jumped out of one.”

“Well, I’m sure there will be an experienced pilot this time around.”

“Most likely, but we have a tendency to hit birds and have people shoot at us, so…you may want to drive out of here.”

“I think I’ll take my chances. What’s the likelihood that the plane I’m on will go down twice?”

He groaned, thunking his head on the ground. “Why did you have to say that?”

“Say what?”

“You just jinxed us! Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You did!” he snapped. “That’s like saying, what could go wrong ? Or piece of cake !”

“But I didn’t say those things.”

“You might as well have,” he argued. “Let’s just get out of here. This may be our last chance since you’ve effectively doomed us.”

Now that his leg was wrapped as well as I could make it, I went behind him and shoved my arms under his armpits and started hoisting him in the air.

“Nobody better see this,” he grumbled.

“Why? Worried your manhood will be in question if you have to actually accept help from someone else?”

He didn’t say anything, just grunted in response.

“Alright. Where are we headed?”

“I had originally planned to hang out here, but maybe that’s not the wisest idea anymore.”

“How far do you think you can make it?”

He winced as he tried to put pressure on his leg. “Not too far.”

“Maybe we should stay here since there’s water.”

A heavy sigh left his chest. “Maybe. But if you stay still, you’re dead. At least where bears are concerned.”

“Then let’s filter some more water and get moving.”