legs felt as if they were made out of rubber and her heart pounded harder than a marching band as she rounded her vehicle. She hoped against hope that her ears were playing tricks on her. That the thud she’d both heard and—she swore—felt along every inch of her body was all just a trick being played by her overtired imagination.
But the moment she approached the front of her car, she knew it wasn’t her imagination. Her imagination didn’t use the kind of words she heard emerging from just before the front of the grille.
And then the next second, she saw him.
He was lying on the ground. A blond, lean, wiry man wearing a work shirt rolled up at the sleeves and exposing forearms that could have been carved out of granite they looked so hard. The work shirt was unbuttoned. Beneath it was a black T-shirt, adhering to more muscles.
Had the man’s shirt and pants been as dark as his T-shirt, she might have missed it. But they weren’t. They were both light-colored. Which was how she was able to see the blood.
What had she done?
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Marja cried, horrified as she crouched down to the man’s level to take a closer look. “I didn’t see you.” The words sounded so lame to her ears.
The man responded with an unintelligible growl and at first she thought he was speaking to her in another language. New York City was every bit as much of a melting pot now as it had been a century ago. The only difference was that now there were different countries sending over their tired, their poor, their huddled masses yearning to be free.
But the next moment she realized that the man spoke English, just growled the words at a lowered decibel. Maybe he was trying to mask the real words out of politeness.
No, she decided in the next moment, he didn’t look like the type to tiptoe around that way.
“Are you hurt?”
It was a rhetorical question, but she was flustered. Her parents thought of her as the flighty one, but that description only applied to her social life—post-Jack. Professionally, Marja was completely serious, completely dedicated. She needed one to balance out the other.
“Of course you’re hurt,” she chided herself for the thoughtless question. “Can you stand?” she asked. Marja held her breath as she waited hopefully for a positive answer.
Rather than reply, the bleeding stranger continued glaring at her. She could almost feel the steely, angry green gaze, as if it were physical.
It wasn’t bad enough that he’d just been shot, Kane Donnelly thought. Now they were trying to finish him off with a car.
At least, that was what he’d thought when his body had felt the initial impact of the vehicle’s grille against his torso, knocking him down. But now, one look at the woman’s face and the sound of her breathless voice told him that she wasn’t part of the little scenario that had sent him sprinting down dark alleys, holding on to his wounded side with one hand, his gun with the other.
Damn it, he was supposed to be more on top of his game than this.
Kane swore roundly again. He was a veteran, for God’s sake, of the air force as well as the Company. He wasn’t supposed to let some barely-shaving punk kid, who hadn’t a thing to do with his undercover assignment, get a piece of him as he fired drunkenly into the night.
Taking a deep, ragged breath, Kane began to struggle to his feet, praying fervently to a deity that, until a few minutes ago, he’d firmly believed had left a Gone Fishing sign on His heavenly gate. The prayer encompassed the hope that nothing had been broken in this little-man-versus-machine encounter that had just occurred.
And then, interrupted, he stopped praying.
Kane was surprised that the diminutive woman with the lethal car had begun to prop her shoulder beneath his. Her hands tightened around his torso as she joined him in the effort to make him vertical again.
What the hell was she up to? “Hey,” Kane protested angrily.
She didn’t let his tone stop her. She was used to being yelled at. It amazed her what people in pain were capable of saying that they’d never even utter under different circumstances.
“Just trying to get you upright,” she said in a voice that kindergarten teachers used on their slower students.
Where did she get off, copping an attitude? It annoyed the hell out of him. He needed to be out of here. Needed to see to the bullet wound.
The next minute, as Kane planted his feet on the asphalt a little less firmly than he was happy about, he felt her soft, capable hands traveling up and down the length of his legs.
What the hell was she, a hooker trying to arouse him? Or was she just trying to roll him for money? In either case, he was on his guard. He tried to grab her hands, but she eluded him, continuing to feel up his body.
“Hey,” Kane demanded, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She would have assumed that would have been obvious, Marja thought. But apparently not to the likes of him. It reminded her just how sheltered, in some ways, she still was.
“Just checking for broken bones. There don’t seem to be any,” she concluded.
At least, she added silently, no major ones. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a cracked rib or two. He had blood on his shirt and it had to have come from somewhere. Was it someone else’s? The best way to find out just what was going on would be for her to get this man to the hospital.
Straightening, she suddenly saw the reason for the blood. There was a hole in his shirt just beneath the third rib. A hole whose outline was surrounded with blood.
She raised her eyes to his. That was why he’d stumbled in front of her car when he had. Why hadn’t he said anything?
“You’ve been shot.”
Kane blew out a breath. “No kidding, Sherlock.” He bit off the retort. Damn, but the bullet wound hurt like hell. He was pretty sure the bullet was still in there somewhere. This working undercover without benefit of a vest was the pits.
He certainly wasn’t in the running for a Mr. Congeniality award, she thought, frowning at him. Marja nodded at the bullet wound. “You need to have that taken care of.”
He glanced over his shoulder. No one was coming. He’d managed to lose the little son of a bitch. Kane looked back at the woman, wondering if he could commandeer her car. “You always state the obvious?”
Definitely not Mr. Congeniality. More in the running for Oscar the Grouch. “Only when I’m talking to a Neanderthal.”
She’d give him too much of a hard time if he tried to take her car, he decided, and he was in no condition to take her on. He felt as weak as a wet kitten someone had done their best to drown.
He had to get going before his strength deserted him altogether.
“Well, let’s remedy that right now.” Kane stepped back, away from the annoying woman, and then turned around on very shaky legs. Right now, he needed to get back to the run-down hotel room his handler had secured for him while he played out this half-assed charade. If he didn’t get this bullet out soon, he had the uneasy feeling he was going to pass out.
To his surprise and great annoyance, the woman he was trying to get away from shifted, moving faster than he did. She got in front of him. More than that, she got in his face.
Pointing to his wound, she said, “I can take care of that for you.”
Against his will, he winced, the result of taking in a shallow breath. His side felt as if it was on fire. “Haven’t you done enough?”
“I’m not the one who shot you,” she pointed out. Somewhere in the back of her head, she could envision her father, his frown so deep it imprinted itself into the furrows of his deep jowls, demanding to know