“The doctor hates me,” she muttered.
Did she realize that Zach was here?
“The doctor doesn’t hate you,” I told her, waiting for Zach to reply, but the reply never came.
He was looking at the wound that I hadn’t realized I’d let up on until then.
I could see straight into her shoulder.
The wound was ugly, and I could see bone, as well as torn muscle and other things that one shouldn’t fuckin’ see on a beautiful woman.
“Nicked her axillary artery,” Zach murmured. “Good job on the pressure. Think that might’ve saved her life.”
My hands were stained with blood up to my elbow. My jeans were covered in it, too.
My shirt. Hell, I even had it on my face. I could feel it drying there on my cheek.
“I have some shit in Crockett’s closet,” he muttered. “Run in there, find me my bag. Also, grab…”
I didn’t need him to tell me what to grab. Being a medic in the military had given me enough experience that I could handle trauma.
Coming back with all the supplies, I found Catori completely topless except for a bra that had also been half cut off. The only thing holding it on at this point was a small strap at the bottom. But even that would have to go eventually.
But I could tell that Zach was trying to maintain her privacy while he could.
When or if he needed the access, it would be gone.
“Can you start the IV?” he asked as he started looking through his bag.
I did what he asked, starting the IV in her other arm. Once the IV bag was punched, I hung it from the towel rack next to the sink, then waited for my next instructions.
The next ten minutes we worked together, me trying to anticipate what he would want or need, and Zach working away at the wound and doing what he could to stop the bleeding and keep fluid going into her.
“Hang another bag and get more fluid into her,” he ordered.
So that was what I did, all the while hoping that she would wake up. But she never did.
It was a long twenty minutes, but eventually Zach sat back on his heels and stared at her arm.
“It’s going to have to do until we can get her…” Zach trailed off as an authoritative voice yelled, “Zach? Laric?”
I got up and went to the hallway, finding Tatum Briggs, the sheriff now with Errant County, standing in the hallway with a couple of medics behind him.
“Gonna need a gurney,” I told the two of them. “She’s as stable as she can get, but she’s low on blood, needs a surgeon to remove a bullet, and she’s hanging on by a thread.”
One of the men turned around and left, the other pushed past Tatum and headed toward me.
I gestured them into the small bathroom, but stayed back, giving them room to work.
Tatum came back out moments later when the gurney arrived with the other medic.
Seconds after that, they were transferring her into the ambulance, and I was once again standing where I was when everything had gone down.
“What the fuck happened?” Tatum asked, looking less than thrilled to be on this fuckin’ street again.
I knew that I’d never live there.
Not after everything that had gone down a few months ago, and now this.
I went on to tell him everything that had happened, gesturing toward the back seat where she’d put her stuff, then explaining how I’d gotten close to her, and then the man that’d been watching her went absolutely ape shit.
My eyes went to the ground where I could see the drops of blood from my mad dash to Crockett’s place, and a black object caught my eye.
Walking over to it, I bent down and stared at the object.
A phone.
Her phone.
Picking it up, my breath caught at the photo on the lock screen.
It was a selfie of Catori and another woman.
Both of them were dolled up.
Catori in a tight red dress that hit her mid-thigh, and the other woman in a black dress that hit her much the same. The other woman was about three inches shorter than Catori, but in a pair of high heels that put her at or around the same height.
The other woman was a brunette with stunning blue eyes.
But it was Catori that held my attention.
Her exotic looks, tanned skin, and chocolate-brown eyes.
Everything about her made me wild.
My heart was beating unsteadily, and my hands were clammy.
God, I hoped that she made it.
“What do you have there?”
I showed Tatum the phone. “Catori’s phone. I’ll take it to her. That’s where I’m headed. Gotta know if she makes it.”
Tatum’s eyes studied me for a long moment, and I was glad when he let it go.
“Do me a solid and call her family then, since you have the phone.”
I didn’t bother to argue.