Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
“They’ll be coming after us today. We can’t outrun them, Wildfire. We’re going to have to wait it out here. My brothers will be looking for us. It’s a matter of holding out and staying alive.” He dragged on his boots.
“I know how to make quite a few traps, but we’d have to mark them and dismantle them before we left. We don’t want animals or some hiker to accidentally get caught in one.”
Very casually, right in front of him, she pulled off the flannel she’d been sleeping in and reached for her T-shirt. It was dry. He stopped her, leaning close, examining the dark bruises over her breasts. She’d been punched hard. The bruises extended below to her stomach. He’d been so caught up in the bullet and head wounds, he hadn’t taken the time to really look her body over. She was a mess.
She hadn’t complained. He dragged her shirt over her breasts, covering the dark evidence, resolve forming. “Let’s take care of business, woman. We just need to buy ourselves the time.” He wasn’t about to tell her she couldn’t help him. He knew it wouldn’t work anyway. Lyric Johansen wasn’t the kind of woman to sit on her ass when danger threatened. She attacked with a blow-dryer and a pair of scissors. Instead of laying down the law to her, he helped her into her now-dry jacket.
“At least the rain stopped.”
Ignoring her comment, he tipped up her face so he could examine it. “The swelling is going down. Is the headache better?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
That meant she still had a headache and wasn’t going to share that news with him. He didn’t need her to admit it. He could see she was moving her head gingerly. They were going to be in enough trouble without arguing.
He caught her face between his palms and kissed her swollen eyelids. The tip of her nose. The corners of her mouth and finally that lower lip he was a little fixated on. “Good morning. Nice waking up to you.”
Her green eyes met his. Green mixed with red.
Keys grinned at her. “You’re still giving off the vampire vibe, but I like it.”
“If you’re going to give me a bad time about my latest look, at least put the coffee on.”
“We don’t have coffee,” he pointed out.
“I pretend hot water is coffee.”
That made him laugh. “Does it work?”
“Do I sound like I’m in a good mood?”
“I can see this might be a problem for us if I don’t get up first and make coffee.”
She held up her hand. “We agreed not to discuss your strange behavior last night. I’m putting it down to your broken head and the brain cells that leaked out. You’ll be fine once we get you to a doctor, and you can go back to thinking like the Keys we all know and love.”
“No one loves me,” he said gruffly, all too aware it was true and had been since he’d been born. He wasn’t lovable and never would be.
“I do.” She said it so casually he almost missed it. He tried to turn it into something else because he was certain he hadn’t heard her right. A joke. She liked to give him a bad time.
She pushed past him. “I need to get outside. I’ve got a few ideas for traps, but I won’t be able to last too long out there. We’ll have to do it fast.”
He trailed after her, deciding it was best not to confront her with what she’d said. It was going to loop in his brain and make him crazy.
When he returned the night before, she claimed she was better, but she didn’t eat, and he had to push her to hydrate. She slept more than she should have, and he didn’t know if that was good for her or if he should make certain she stayed awake. He had gone to sleep, his body curled around hers, his arm at her waist, holding her close. For a man who didn’t want anyone in his room, let alone his bed, he had done a complete about-face with his life choices. He found he couldn’t get close enough to Lyric, and he slept far better with her tucked in beside him.
Lyric moved a distance away from him to take care of business. He always came after her to fill in the hole, because she was too weak to do it herself. He knew it bothered her, but he didn’t comment. He never did. He was just grateful that she wasn’t a complainer. He almost wished she was.
“You know, with your skills, Keys, you could turn the tables on these men. They’ll spread out looking for signs. That means there will only be one or two you have to deal with at a time,” she suggested as she moved outward away from their cave.