“You wanna ride back here, and I’ll drive?” Ace asks. His cousin stared at her, his eyes roaming her body before nodding.
Sliding in to sit beside their mystery woman, Nick watched her laboured breathing, worried she might have critical or possibly life-threatening injuries and die before they knew her name. With no idea of how long she’d been exposed to the elements, all they could do was hope for the best and pray she was a fighter.
The bruising on her face indicated she was left outside overnight. Grabbing the med kit he kept in his truck, he pulled out gauze, peroxide, and polysporin to clean up the bite mark and the few scratches on her face. He couldn’t begin to imagine what had transpired that led to her being assaulted so badly. The cop in him wanted to hunt her assailant down and make him pay. The man in him wanted to find out everything he could about her.
Despite being nearly translucent from the cold, her skin had a natural warm coloring to it, playing off of her dark hair. She had a quiet beauty about her that he admired. Her cold, clammy, sweaty sk
in had him worried about pneumonia. Hypothermia they could try to combat with heat, but he had no antibiotics to fight anything more serious. With the weather getting worse by the minute, taking her anywhere other than home wasn’t an option.
“These fucking roads are a bitch, man,” Ace complained from up front.
“This ain’t nothing yet. It’s going to get twice as bad before long,” Nick responded as he finished bandaging the woman’s cheek.
A short while later, they pulled up to his small cabin, opened the hatchback, and he jumped out, gently pulling the make-shift stretcher with him as Ace came around the side, and Roxie danced at their feet. When she started whining and jumping, attempting to get on it with the woman, he barked out, “Enough,” and she finally calmed down.
“Christ, you’d think it was her long-lost owner or some shit,” Ace laughed.
“I don’t know what’s up her ass, but she needs to cool it.” He pointedly looked at the dog, whose body was vibrating with excitement as she fought his command.
Following Ace inside, they headed straight for Nick’s room. It contained a fireplace, so they knew she was better off in his bed. Carefully placing the stretcher on the mattress, they began the slow roll and tug to get her unstrapped. Quietly working around each other, they finally got her settled in the middle.
Standing at the end of the bed, they quietly watched the slow rise and fall of her chest beneath her damp clothes.
“We gotta undress her,” Ace commented absently.
They both seemed to be transfixed by her. “Yup,” he agreed. “Leave her underwear if it’s dry?” he asked, wanting to conserve her modesty the best they could.
“Yup.”
Christ, what was it about this woman? They were both struck immobile by a seemingly invisible, yet potent chemistry to an unconscious woman.
“Is she local?” Ace’s question drew him from his intent stare.
“Not that I’ve ever seen,” Nick responds, studying her features a little closer, trying to determine if the bruising is, in fact, hiding a familiar face.
Brushing the hair from the mottled skin around her eyes, he was startled and took a step back as she let out a pain-filled moan, her back arching in her despair. Relief swamped him, not that she was in pain but more at the fact she was moving. Her actions could mean that her head trauma might not be as severe as they feared.
“Grab a couple washcloths and a bowl of warm water,” he instructed his cousin.
Ace’s footsteps raced from the room to do his bidding while Nick slowly began to remove her pants. His anger flared as bruises the size of a large man’s boot were quickly discovered the lower he went. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what type of man would hurt such a fragile creature.
Tossing her bottoms in the general direction of his hamper, Nick went into the bathroom to get a towel to dry her hair after covering her legs with a duvet. When he came back in the room, Ace was there with the items he’d requested and was beginning to stoke a fire to warm her up.
“You think she’ll be okay?” he asked.
Staring at the voluptuous woman in his bed, ice cold, bruised, and broken, he honestly couldn’t say for sure. He wanted her to be; fuck did he ever. He’d like to know her name, find out what color eyes she had, and if they’d be hot with fire or soft with happiness. Nick wanted to know everything he could about the mystery woman.
“Nick?” Ace called him when he didn’t answer his initial question.
“Fuckin’ wish I knew, bro. This woman should be held tight and worshipped, not battered and used.” The words slipped past his lips without thought, and it brought him peace. She could be it, she could be theirs, and there wasn’t a fucking thing they could do until she awoke from her slumber.
The two men kept watch over their guest for the rest of the day. Nick had called a neighbor who, thankfully, was also a doctor to come see if they should be worried about her condition more than they already were. The man was set to be there early the following morning once the snow stopped.
They repeatedly checked in with dispatch to find out if anyone had reported a woman missing. There was nothing, which didn’t surprise Ace too much. In a way, he was glad. It meant they could care for her, maybe even get to know her. Except, if no one was looking for her, then there were so many open questions. The biggest being who hurt her.
“We can’t keep calling her, her,” Ace told Nick as the other man checked her temperature once again. “We have to give her a name or something.”
“Alright,” Nick agreed. “She’s down to one hundred.”