Chapter 3 #2
She was responding to him. That was good. “How are you feeling?”
“Cold.”
“Is that it?”
“My head hurts.”
“I know. I need to look at that, okay?”
“And my fingers hurt.”
He pulled her hands out from under the covers, finding a diamond engagement ring on her left ring finger.
The hand was swelling, and he fingered a dark bruise on her wrist, his brows coming together in concern.
Gently, he placed her hand in his, and a tingle ran up his arm when his palm brushed hers.
“Squeeze my hand as hard as you can,” he said.
She grabbed on to him, her grip surprisingly strong.
“Good.” He turned her wrist backwards, his eye catching another bruise, this one high on her arm and the size and color of a purple grape. The hair on the back of his neck went up and he frowned, lifting her arm and looking for the bruise’s telltale companions.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t think your wrist is broken,” he evaded.
There. Three matching grape bruises on the other side of her arm.
The accident hadn’t caused them. Someone hurt her before he did, and the knowledge curdled in his stomach as his eyes went back to the rock on her wedding finger.
Odds were good the man who’d given it to her was the same one who dug his fingers into the tender flesh of her arm.
It took some doing, but he managed to get the ring off and tucked it inside his pants pocket before focusing his attention on her head.
This time she didn’t pull away as he examined her. “It looks pretty superficial,” he said, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a concussion or worse where he couldn’t see.
“Are you a doctor?” she asked.
“No. Do you remember what happened?”
She made a little sound like a child crying. “I’m so cold.”
“I have warm clothes for you.”
Her eyes opened at that, and she moved to sit up, the blanket beginning to fall before she covered herself. “Where are my clothes?” she asked.
“I took them off. They were wet. It’s okay.
” He helped her put on the long johns, not wanting her to feel more vulnerable than she already did.
He had two sisters and would just as soon knock any guy silly who took advantage of a woman.
Sitting by her feet, he pulled back the covers and helped her put on the matching pants.
“Thank you,” she whispered, averting her eyes. “Do you have any aspirin?”
She thought this was his house. He cocked his eyebrows, unsure if he should correct her and deciding it was easier to let it go. He found some painkillers in the bathroom and turned the water on, but nothing happened.
He cursed under his breath. The pipes were probably frozen.
She was sound asleep when he returned. He popped the painkillers in his own mouth and swallowed them dry.
He found firewood on a covered porch out back and quickly made a fire, then took a candle from the mantel and went to check out the water pipes in the basement. They were wrapped with wires he recognized as heat tape, and plugged into electrical outlets in the ceiling.
He located the electric meter and fingered the wire tag that held the outer ring in place to guard against tampering.
He found a pair of wire cutters on a small workbench and cut through the wire.
The metal ring around the glass meter needed a little encouragement from a screwdriver, but then it came off, allowing Trevor to remove the entire glass meter from its backing.
Two plastic tabs covered large prongs, and he removed them before plugging the meter back in and replacing the metal ring. The wheel on the meter began to spin, showing electricity was running through it.
Somebody would be facing a large fine from the electric company for breaking the wire seal, but defrosting the pipes was far more important at the moment, and if there was an electric pump on the well, they also needed the electricity to bring water into the house at all.
Back upstairs, Trevor patched the hole in the window with cardboard from a cereal box, then wrapped the second blanket around his shoulders and sat down on the couch opposite Olivia to check his knee.
It was badly swollen, with a red and purple contusion from the top of his kneecap to the top of his shin.
He put pressure on the kneecap and hissed as he inhaled.
This was not how this day was supposed to have gone.
His only consolation was that she seemed to be okay and the snowstorm that had caused their accident would likely prevent Steele from leaving Warsaw Mountain this evening as the intel claimed.
According to the weather report Hawk heard before he left Denver, it was supposed to be even worse to the east, which was where Steele needed to drop off the shipment.
Come morning, the woman would be feeling better and he could find another way to get in and out of Steele’s compound. Without any weapons or ammunition, a vehicle, and without any C4. “I knew I was going to run out of C4,” he muttered, pulling the blanket up to his chin.
When daylight came, he’d make a new plan. But no matter what happened, he wasn’t leaving this mountain until Steele was dead. He owed it to Ralph.
His eyes drifted shut. He was asleep within minutes.