In This Together

Somehow he regained his feet. Before she could wiggle out of his grasp he leaned down, placed his shoulder against her midsection and hoisted her up into a fireman’s hold.

She was still kicking and screaming, but her arms were flailing against his back where they couldn’t do much damage, and he had a firm arm around her legs. He also had an enticing view of her rounded bottom, but he felt guilty as hell about his attraction to a woman he was using in such an ill way.

What to do with her now? He didn’t want to tie her up. That seemed so unnecessarily cruel, so Snidely Whiplash. He needed to lock her up in a room with no windows, so she couldn’t escape or break a window and scream for help. The walk-in pantry could work. With a chair, and maybe a pillow and blanket, she wouldn’t be too uncomfortable. He carried her into the kitchen.

Damn it. One of the pantry doors was broken. Even if he latched it from the outside, Elena could probably collapse the door if she threw herself against it a few times. And what if she needed to go to the bathroom?

Then he had a thought. The master bath—it was huge. Luxurious. And it had no windows except the skylights, which were far too high for her to break.

Elena’s movements had all but stopped. “The blood is rushing to my head. Figure out where you’re going to put me and do it already.”

Hmm. She didn’t really sound that scared anymore. In fact, she sounded mad. Had she seen through him? Had she figured out he wouldn’t hurt her?

He carried her through the living room, where red paint stained the carpet and someone had defaced the marble fireplace with a hammer and chisel.

“What happened to this place?” Elena didn’t sound like a terrified hostage should.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to get chummy with the woman. He didn’t want to get to know her. If he started to see her as a person, rather than part of the system keeping his brother in prison, he would find it impossible to mistreat her like this.

“This isn’t your house, is it?” she tried again. “Hey, you know, this is really uncomfortable. Maybe you could let me walk. I won’t try to run again. Obviously, I can’t get away from you.”

She was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. He’d give her credit—she wasn’t stupid. He suspected the tears and hysteria had been calculated to manipulate him, too. Well, no dice. He wasn’t falling for it.

The master suite was down a short hallway off the living room. This was the first room Travis had worked on, and it was pretty much finished. He’d replaced several sections of the hardwood floor, which the former owners had gouged with an ax, and installed a new light fixture. The walls had required a gallon of paint to get rid of stains left by permanent markers. Now that he’d repainted it in the neutral off-white his client had requested, it didn’t look half-bad.

The bathroom was in pretty good shape, except for a chunk broken out of the sink, probably with a sledgehammer. Travis was going to try his hand at porcelain repair rather than replace the whole sink. He’d heard about a new product that produced amazing results.

Hell, why was he even thinking about that? He’d never get the chance to finish this job. He’d be in jail.

Travis set Elena down. She balled up her fist and hit him in the shoulder, rightfully pissed off. But as she shook off the pain in her own hand—it had probably hurt her more than it had hurt him—her face instantly transformed from anger to dismay.

“You’re bleeding!” She sounded horrified.

“What?”

“Look at your face!” She stood aside so he could go to the mirror and look, and damned if he didn’t almost do it. She would have slipped out the door right behind him.

Instead, he put his hand to his forehead and felt moisture. When he drew it back, his fingers were indeed covered with blood.

“Well, what do you expect when you throw a wrench at someone?” He realized now that his forehead still throbbed where the wrench had hit him.

“You are not making me feel one bit guilty. I would have hit you with a hundred wrenches if I’d had them.” She winced. “Does it hurt?”

“What do you think?” He caught his reflection in the glass shower enclosure; he did look like a horror movie victim. Revenge of the Wrench Throwers. He probably should clean the cut and patch it up. Lord only knew what sort of germs had been lurking on that wrench.

He joined Elena in the luxurious bathroom and closed the door. Then he sat down on the carpet with his back to the door. She would have to go through him to get out.

“How about you see if the people who used to live here left anything behind in the way of first-aid supplies.” The guy who’d hired Travis said the former owners had moved out in the middle of the night, taking whatever they could haul or carry that was valuable but leaving behind some cheap furnishings. Travis had already cleared out most of the furniture and sold it to a used furniture dealer.

So maybe the former owners had left something useful.

“You think I’m going to play nurse?” Elena huffed. “Think again.”

“You don’t have to play nurse. Just hand me the stuff. I’ll do it myself. The sooner you help me, the sooner I’ll leave you alone and go take care of business—the business that will get you released.”

“Fine.” She went to the linen cupboard first and found a clean washcloth, which she soaked with warm water and handed to him. “You can use that to clean off the blood, at least.”

He scrubbed his face and neck with the washcloth while she rummaged around in the cabinets and drawers. Then he gingerly dabbed at the cut. Now that his adrenaline had spent itself, he was feeling the pain. She’d really walloped him. He was lucky she hadn’t knocked him unconscious.

“If you find any aspirin,” he said, “I’ll start with that.”

“Aspirin will make you bleed more.” She handed him a bottle of Tylenol. “Try that.”

“Thanks.” He shook out a couple of the pills and swallowed them dry.

“I was going to get you some water. But I don’t see a glass.”

“It’s okay. What did you find? Any first-aid cream or bandages?” What he needed was stitches. The cut was still bleeding.

“Found some alcohol.”

Not what he was hoping for. That would burn like hellfire. But he supposed he better bite the bullet and use it if he didn’t want an infection.

“What else?”

“You’re in luck. Butterfly bandages.”

Except how was he supposed to apply them to himself?

She dumped everything she’d found on the floor beside him, including some cotton balls. Then she closed the lid on the toilet and sat down, her arms folded, pointedly ignoring him.

He started with the alcohol, soaking a cotton ball and swabbing the cut. He did his best to remain stoic, because his ego wouldn’t allow him to cry like a baby in front of a woman. But she had to hear his sharp intake of breath. It was like being branded.

“I hope it hurts terribly,” she said.

“It does. Thank you for your concern.”

She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Good.” But she looked worried. And as he tried to apply a butterfly bandage, squeezing the cut closed with one hand and maneuvering the bandage with the other, she frowned at his ineptitude. The cut ran close to his hairline, making it even more difficult.

She stood up and took off her jacket. “Oh, for pity’s sake, just let me do it.”

He should have said no. Letting Elena get her hands on his injured self when she seemed to enjoy his pain wasn’t a logical move. But blood was dripping down his forehead and he wondered if the injury was more serious than he’d thought. And he certainly wasn’t having any luck himself. He’d already wrecked two of the four available butterflies.

Elena brought a box of tissues with her and knelt beside him. She used a wad of tissues to wipe away the blood, and then quickly, efficiently closed the cut with the butterflies.

“It’s not too bad, only about an inch long.” She sounded like a concerned nurse. “It’s not bleeding very much now. I’m going to put this big bandage on it, but you might want to apply pressure for a little longer.”

“Okay.”