Chapter 5
In the community yurt, Mathilda helped Robert transfer the pilot onto the table so Sasha could examine him.
His name, according to Lincoln, was Rory Baker.
Sasha dragged out her doctor bag and tested his vitals.
All good, if weak. As she checked his blood pressure and so forth, she asked Lincoln questions about his pilot.
As expected, he didn’t know much. “I think he’s getting close to forty,” he said. “But he stays really fit. He says he has the body of a thirty-year-old. He does collagen treatments and things like that.”
“Really? Those are super-pricey.”
“I offer an excellent health plan to my employees.”
Mathilda gave him a sidelong look, wondering again at that little edge of sarcasm she kept picking up from him. Truth to tell, she liked it because she could be pretty sarcastic herself. That was probably why she kept alienating their corporate funders.
“So what’s wrong with him?” Lincoln asked, sounding quite worried about a mere pilot. Maybe he wasn’t such a cold-hearted plutocrat. “Why is he still out cold?”
“I can’t say. I’d have to do a brain scan. The closest MRI machine is in Hilo.”
“It takes us two days to get to Hilo, including the time it takes to hike to our truck in Waipi’o,” Mathilda explained.
“I wouldn’t recommend all that bouncing up and down in his condition.” Sasha’s gleaming crop of silver hair caught the light as she shook her head.
Lincoln rubbed his forehead, looking weary. No wonder, after everything he’d been through over the past few hours. “So what’s your suggestion, Doctor?”
“The correct protocol would be to call in a Medivac to take him to a hospital.”
For some reason, Lincoln looked alarmed by that suggestion. “Is that necessary? He, uh, hates normal hospitals. Maybe it’s a religious thing, I don’t know.”
“I like him already.” Sasha’s dark eyes brightened. “The stories I could tell…”
Mathilda nudged her, hoping to fend off a rant about the medical system. “What would you recommend instead, Sasha? Keep him safe and comfortable and hope he wakes up soon?”
“Honestly, yes. As long as he’s breathing, he’s getting plenty of oxygen to his brain. Sometimes after a traumatic event, people can go into shock and their brain shuts down. It just takes them some time to come out of it.”
“That’s what you think is going on here?” Lincoln asked.
Mathilda liked the way he spoke to the older woman. Respectful, deferring to her judgement. Sasha had so many stories of being treated dismissively by sexist doctors and patients. Mathilda would hate for her to experience that attitude here in the jungle too.
“Maybe. Sorry, I left the medical profession years ago. Now I’m just a field researcher. I’m the closest thing we have to a doctor, but I’m not a practicing physician.”
Mathilda squeezed Sasha’s shoulder. She was so much more than a field researcher.
She was the rock of their little crew, the mother figure, the wise one, even though she wasn’t much older than the rest. With her cropped silver hair and lean marathoner’s frame, she was a nonstop fount of energy and advice.
“You can trust Sasha. But if you want to call for help, we have a satellite radio for emergencies only. We’ve never actually used it. ”
“I believe a plane crash and a coma counts as an emergency,” Sasha agreed.
Lincoln’s dark eyebrows drew together. He really was handsome, she thought randomly. He didn’t seem to have a bad angle. Was it really fair for a billionaire to also be so good-looking? Maybe he paid lots of money to look that good. Maybe he too took advantage of the company health plan.
“I’ll trust your recommendation,” he told Sasha.
“How about we give it a day or so. I’ll set him up with IV fluids and a urinary catheter. We’ll monitor him closely.” Sasha smiled at him kindly. “It’s nice that you’re so concerned for your pilot.”
“Of course. He saved my life.” A heartfelt declaration. “Both of our lives. If not for his heroic actions, we might have landed in the ocean. Rory never lost his cool even when we were plummeting through those clouds.”
“Wow.” Sasha wiped her stethoscope with a sterile Handi-wipe. “It must have been quite a crash. How did you come out uninjured?”
Lincoln rolled up his sleeve and showed Sasha his arm. Mathilda gasped at the sight. Blood was seeping through the makeshift bandage he’d wrapped around it.
“I…uh…there was glass…” He swayed back and forth and his skin took on a greenish tone at the edges.
Robert caught him under the armpits just before he slumped to the ground.
The next few minutes were hectic as Sasha hurried to get some warm water and soap. “Robert, get him in a chair. Take off his shirt, Mathilda,” she directed.
How had she gotten that job?
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Robert teased her. “I already saw you undressing him with your eyes.”
“I absolutely was not. Get real.”
Of course she had been. She couldn’t really blame herself. Any heterosexual woman in her position would have done the same—if by “her position” you meant “hadn’t had sex since she’d hooked up with the supply truck driver.”
She set her jaw and unbuttoned Lincoln’s black button-down shirt.
Under it, he wore a gray t-shirt which was drenched through with sweat, pink with blood that had seeped through the bandage.
She was honestly surprised that he hadn’t mentioned his wound.
Why hadn’t he complained like a normal spoiled billionaire?
And another thing. She knew what expensive clothes looked like. Lincoln’s shirt was a perfectly respectable, high-quality cotton blend. But it wasn’t the kind of shirt she would have expected someone at his level to wear.
Had Lincoln Kerr fallen on tough times?
Maybe he didn’t wear his most impeccable clothing on a plane flight. That must explain it. That would also explain the tiny hole she found in his undershirt.
Then again, he’d just been through a crash. His shirt could have gotten torn. Amazing—he’d survived a plane crash in the jungle with nothing more than a pinhole rip in his undershirt. The angels sure were watching over Lincoln Kerr.
She ended up having to cut away his clothes with a pair of scissors, since he moaned every time she tried to maneuver his shirt over his head.
When his chest was bare, she tried really hard not to spend too much time appreciating his smooth muscles and the way he had only a tiny bit of hair curling here and there.
He was in better shape than his pilot.
She glanced back and forth between the two unconscious men. The pilot laid out on the table had a more sculpted look to him. He was taller, leaner and, even flat on his back, somehow managed to look impatient.
Lincoln Kerr, on the other hand, looked completely relaxed in his unconscious state slumped in a chair. His legs were stretched long, his arms akimbo. His full lips were slightly parted, light snores snuffling through them. Robert had placed a folded towel behind his head to support it.
Her heart sank as she scrutinized the two of them.
Even though they bore a certain resemblance to each other, she found Lincoln far more attractive than his pilot.
And that…well, that sucked, because he wasn’t the first billionaire she’d encountered, and she’d vowed to never have anything to do with another.
This isn’t Bumble, she scolded herself. You don’t have to swipe on either of these men. Carlos will be back soon with the next supply run and you can stop lusting after random men you rescue in the jungle.
She noticed that Lincoln’s billfold had fallen out of his pocket. She crouched down to pick it up, while Sasha bustled over with her bag of tricks.
“Hold him steady while I clean the wound,” Sasha told her. “He might kick and scream a bit.”
Mathilda slipped the billfold into her own pocket, making a mental note to return it to him as soon as her hands were free. Then she gripped his shoulders while Sasha set to work. His skin was warm and slightly sweaty; she hoped he wasn’t getting a fever.
As soon as Sasha dabbed the gash on his arm, Lincoln came to with gasping groan. “What the…where…oh fuck.”
“Coming back to you, is it?” Sasha smiled. “Hold steady, please. We need to make sure this doesn’t get infected.”
He nodded, the automatic fight-or-flight response fading, replaced by the deliberate release of tension. Mathilda could actually feel it leave his body as he consciously relaxed. Impressive control, really.
Stop admiring the corporate billionaire.
“I’m rethinking this,” Sasha said. “We should use the sat phone to contact your people and let them know where you are.”
“I…uh…you don’t need to worry about that.” His jaw clenched as she picked out a piece of glass from the wound in his arm. “They already know. It’s all good.”
Mathilda and Sasha shared a confused glance. “How?” Mathilda asked. “There’s no service out there whatsoever. And the plane’s power was completely out. I saw the dashboard. It had no lights.”
“Well…” Lincoln swiveled his head to shoot her an arrogant look. “I shouldn’t even be talking about it, because it’s still in the prototype phase. But our company will soon be coming out with new nanotechnology that will transform communications.”
“Nanotechnology? Sounds fancy,” murmured Sasha. “Tell us more. We could use better comms out here.”
“It’s…sorry, but it’s classified. Military contract. Ow. Jesus.” He flinched hard as Sasha yanked another sliver of bloody glass from his skin. “Do you have something against the military? Or is it me?”
“Don’t ask her that,” Mathilda murmured in his ear. “You might get a rant.”
“Too late!” Sasha proclaimed, waving the glass-bearing tweezers in the air. “Since you asked, I respect the military, so long as they respect basic rules of humanity. Have you read the Uniform Code of Conduct? I have and…”
“And she’s off,” Mathilda whispered to Lincoln. “Thanks a lot. Just for some backstory, her ex-husband was in the Marines and came back all messed up psychologically.”
Still talking about the Uniform Code of Conduct, Sasha marched to the sink with her little bowl of glass slivers.
“I get it.” He rested his injured arm on his belly. “How long does she usually go on for? Would it be rude if I dozed off again?”
“You didn’t doze off. You passed out. Oh!” She dug in her pocket for his wallet. “Your billfold fell out. I grabbed it before a mongoose could make off with it.”
“Or a menehune.” Robert offered that warning from his station next to the pilot.
But Lincoln ignored them both as he sprang into action. He sat up abruptly, sending the remains of his shirt tumbling to the ground. He snatched the leather billfold from her hand and tucked it into his own pocket. “Thanks.”
Mathilda hadn’t realized a wounded man could move so fast. When he caught her surprised expression, he added, “Identity theft, you know. It’s a concern. A phobia, even.”
“You think the mongoose is going to steal your identity?” Mathilda giggled at the image of a mongoose parading around with Lincoln’s platinum card.
“Uh…didn’t you say something about menehune? They sound dangerous.”
Just then Sasha returned from the sink. She leaned over and felt Lincoln’s forehead.
“I think you might be running a low-grade fever,” she murmured. “How about we get you into a bed? It won’t be much, fair warning. But it’s horizontal and there’s mosquito netting.”
“Sold.” Lincoln scrambled out of the chair, which was a struggle in itself, then did something even more surprising. He actually crouched down to pick up the pieces of his shirt that had fallen to the ground. What self-respecting billionaire did that? “Any chance of a shower?”
“I wouldn’t advise it. Our shower water is from a rain catchment system and it might have some nasty jungle microbes in it. A sponge bath with our filtered water is the best we can do.” Sasha tossed a grin at Mathilda. “How about you do the honors while I get his tent ready?”
Mathilda set her teeth. She really didn’t need any more close physical contact with this annoyingly attractive, if weird, billionaire. “Can we really spare the drinking water?” she muttered.
“I can do my own sponge bath,” Lincoln said firmly. “Just point me to the water.”
He took a step, then swayed again. “I’m fine,” he told them through gritted teeth. “Which way?” Not waiting for an answer, he stalked out the door of the yurt and turned left. Which was the wrong way.
Mathilda sighed. “What did I do to get stuck babysitting a billionaire?”
“Buck up,” said Sasha. “At least he’s sexy.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.”