Page 47 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Returning to the kitchen sink with a bottle of sterile water from the kit, he flushed the wound as well as he could, considering that it was hard to see the back of his own arm and also position his triceps over the sink to catch the pink liquid streaming off. The cleaners wouldn’t return for a week, so he didn’t want to slop bloody water on the wooden floor.
The bathroom door farther down the hallway clapped shut, and Blaze listened for what he assumed would be Sarah making a run for the exits again.
It didn’t matter if she tried. Every door and shatterproof window was barricaded with electronic locks.
Instead, she traipsed over to where he was standing at the sink. “What are you doing—oh my word, Mr. Robinson. What happened?”
“Call me Blaze.” He shrugged and accidentally squirted sterile water onto the black quartz countertop. “Occupational hazard.”
“They shot you? I didn’t think they were really shooting at us.”
He grabbed a handful of paper towels and dried the counter and then his arm and the stripe of pain across the back of it. “You ran like you thought they were shooting at us.”
“Well, at the time, sure. But in the car, I got to thinking about it. I assumed they must’ve been just shooting into the air to scare us, like warning shots. Or maybe at your tires.”
“Nope. They were just lousy shots.” He grimaced as the paper towels scraped the bloody track on his triceps. “For the most part.”
“You need to go to the emergency room? Do you need stitches?”
Blaze shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
She was still gawking at his arm, and the blood that was trickling down his skin was becoming more scarlet with each passing minute they stood there arguing.
Sarah said, “You need to put some ointment on that, and you probably need some penicillin.”
He stanched the flow with another wad of paper towels. “I don’t need antibiotics, and I’m current on my tetanus shot. If it starts getting inflamed, I’ll do something about it.”
“Do you have ointment? Where are your bandages and stuff?”
Blaze gestured with his chin. “I put the supplies over in the dining room area, but I do not require assistance.”
She gingerly held his wrist with two fingers and led him over to the long dark-wood table as if he didn’t know where he was going in his own house. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll see to that wound for you. I had first-aid training in vo-tech, and I did animal husbandry in 4-H. I treat my animals all the time.”
He followed her, arguing, “I had combat medic training in the DEVGRU program. I’ve dressed more bullet wounds than you have.”
“I’ll help.”
“I don’t need help.”
“It’s on the back of your arm. You can’t even see it. You need help.”
“I never need help.”
Blaze hadn’t meant that to come out quite so harsh.
Sarah stopped and stared right into his eyes. “You can’t even see what it looks like on the back of your own arm. I’ll take care of it for—oh, wow.”
He glanced at her. “What?”
Sarah was looking straight out the wall of windows on the back side of the house that overlooked the water. “Is that one of the Great Lakes?”
Blaze glanced where she was staring, which was why this particular house had cost so much.
On the second floor, where they were, the back wall was nothing but glass so clear that it looked like it didn’t exist.
The open floor plan of the dining room and several living room areas around two freestanding fireplaces was conducive to entertaining and gazing over the cliffside sloping down to a small private beach and Lake Michigan. The fresh blue water flowed to the horizon and seemed to curve around the house, lensing the warm sunlight back at them from the descending sun.
Yeah, it was quite a view. She should wait until the following day for oh-ing and ah-ing when the sun rose out of the lake.
