11. Eleven
The sun had risen by the time West made it back to the cave. Kat was fast asleep on the cave floor, and he wished he had grabbed a blanket, a fresh set of clothes, or something else to make her more comfortable.
He knelt next to her, checking to make sure she was still breathing. When he had left, she had been pale from blood loss and breathing slowly. He was extremely worried that if he didn’t get her to a hospital she’d get an infection and die out here. He looked at her arm, the blood staining the fabric of her pants. She needed stitches. The bullet wasn’t lodged in her body, but it wasn’t just a slight graze either. It had taken out a significant chunk of her arm.
He felt her move next to him, and his body thrummed to attention.
“You’re back,” she said, her voice still groggy from sleep. He smiled, happy to see her conscious.
She sat up, staring at him expectantly. “What did you get?”
“This first.” He handed her the jug of water and she gulped it down.
“Ahh, that must be what heaven feels like.” Her eyes rolled in the back of her head, and West immediately threw the backpack on his lap in an attempt to hide his ever-growing erection. This woman was driving him crazy. She couldn’t make faces like that and expect him not to want to throw her down and screw her on this cave floor here and now. Not that he would.
But Kat was more than that. She made him want to be more than that. She looked at him with those amber eyes, and he wanted to be that guy for her, the one that would be her constant.
He opened the bag, pulling out the jar of peanut butter. “I have something even better.” He held the jar in front of her with the spoon and her eyes widened into saucers.
“Wha . . .” She reached out slowly, as if worried the jar would disappear. “Where did you find this?” She took the jar from his hand, and dug the spoon in, eating a bite of the peanut butter. She made a sound of pure ecstasy.
“Here, you know you want some,” she teased, offering him the spoonful of peanut butter. He opened his mouth and sucked the spoon clean. His spine tingled as they locked eyes, her cheeks flushed, and West attributed it to her heightened awareness of their situation. The connection between them was tangible enough to make him shudder with need.
He handed the spoon back to her, and she winced in pain as she took it back.
Shit, her arm. She was still bleeding to death, and he was thinking about screwing her on a cave floor.
“I’m such an idiot. Your arm.”
The moment hung between them, but her pain doused him like cold water.
West broke the silence by grabbing the backpack. “I found a first aid kit.”
“Whose bag is that?” she asked as she unwrapped her arm, inspecting her wound, unwilling to meet his eyes.
“Not sure. There were a bunch of sleeping cabins up on the top of the mountain.”
“What’s up there?”
“I think it’s some kind of drug operation.”
Her eyes went wide as she let the information sink in.
“What does that mean, exactly?”
West rubbed his face. He didn’t want to worry Kat and debated telling her about what he saw. They had stumbled upon an operation where the people in charge would do anything to protect it, including murder interlopers. They were not going to offer them a way home, but he caved, wanting to be open with her.
“It’s some off-grid cocaine operation, from the planting to the manufacturing. The farm has all the coca plants, but there is also a small factory up there as well, so it looks like they do it all on this island.”
“Fascinating.” Her eyes lit up with excitement.
“Fascinating?”
“Yeah,” she said animatedly. “We land on an island, and it has a full cocaine operation on it! It’s just fascinating, like a real-life true-crime documentary.”
He gave her an incredulous look. “Are you romanticizing our situation? These aren’t nice men. They will kill us if they find us; they don’t want word of their operation to get out.”
She bit her lip, and it instantly drew West to her mouth. He suddenly wished he had finished their kiss earlier.
“Nothing interesting ever happens to me,” she said, interrupting his thoughts.
“What do you mean? You are on tour around the world half the year.”
She frowned. “I know, and I fully appreciate the life I’ve lived, but it gets repetitive. Every day is sound check, sit around the tour buses waiting for the show, watch the opening acts, then do the show, maybe have a drink or two, and then go to sleep to do it all again the next day.”
“Sure, it’s repetitive, but think of all the cities we went out in. The cities we’ve explored and people we met.”
She glared at him. “You mean you and the male members of the band?”
He racked his memory. That couldn’t be right. He remembered the girls going to see the Alamo with them in Texas and basking on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. “No, you did stuff with me.”
She shook her head. “Not the past few years. Lately, we’ve been left to our own devices, and since we were just your boring backing singers, without you, we had to pay for everything. That gets expensive for people who don’t have a ton of money. We usually just hung around the buses. So, I should have said ‘interesting things don’t happen to me lately’ if that makes you feel better.”
He ran his hand through his hair. He had a lot of making up to do to Kat for the past eight years. He’d wanted to keep their relationship professional, especially after taking advantage of her, but he shouldn’t have pushed her so far away. Not that she had made things easy.
But as he saw the stunning woman across from him, he wanted more than a professional or friendly relationship with her, and that should have scared the hell out of him. Yet, it didn’t. She still deserved so much more than a degenerate like him, but he was starting not to care.
When he’d left her in that hallway, it had been because Declan had reminded him that bandmate one-night stands were a bad idea. It had been on the tip of West’s tongue to tell Declan he was open to more than one night with Kat. It was that feeling, wanting something more with Kat, over anything Declan had said, that had had him running for the hills. He had put up a wall between them faster than she could blink.
He didn’t even know where to start. How would he tell her she made him feel things years ago, feelings he wasn’t ready for, so he pushed her away like an idiot? But now he just might be ready to face them.
Instead, all he said was, “I’m sorry, Kat, I didn’t realize you were so unhappy.”
“I wasn’t unhappy, it was just repetitive, especially as the partying got old. Some days we watched a lot of true crime or documentaries, and other days we did a little exploring. I loved my life, but now looking back, I’m thirty-two and have no purpose. I add no value to this world, and that’s just something I need to figure out.” Emotions played across her face, and West became angry at her words, because she did add value. “I’m not an idiot. We could be murdered, and I am aware of that. I just find the whole situation fascinating. That’s it.”
“You do add value, Kat.”
She looked away from him. “I don’t really see how.”
He wanted to wrap her in his arms and tell her all the ways she added value to him, but he knew she wouldn’t listen right now.
“You saved my life, you’re kind, you care about others, and you want equality for everyone in an industry that doesn’t know the meaning of the word. I’d say you add a lot of value.”
She gave a slight smile. “Oh goodie, I’ve continued to bless the world with Weston Monroe.”
“I suppose we can add taking down a drug ring, if you’re so inclined,” he joked.
“Seriously?” She perked up.
“No.”
She slumped back down, staring at her toes. “I think we should go up the mountain. I want to see it myself. Maybe we could find a way off this island.”
Was she crazy?
“No, absolutely not. They messed your arm up. You won’t even be able to climb.”
She picked up the backpack and rummaged around inside, pulling out the first aid kit and setting it next to her. She reached her hand back into the backpack, pulling out a glass bottle of golden liquid, and raised an eyebrow in his direction.
“That must have been in the backpack,” he pointed out.
She laughed and read the label. “Ah yes, heaven forbid you leave the rum.”
“Damn, it’s rum?”
She held the bottle of Captain Morgan up to his face and he took it, removing the cap and taking a drink straight out of the bottle, making a face as it went down.
“Not whiskey, but it will do.”
“It has to be like six or seven in the morning.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s been six days on this island. I think we deserve a drink. Fate left this booze in that backpack.”
She laughed again, and West wanted to bottle her laughter and save it for every time he was feeling sad so he could drink it to make himself feel better. He didn’t even need the rum; he just needed her laughter and smiles. She dug in the first aid kit, finding what she needed.
“Here.” She handed him a needle and medical-grade thread. “Can you sew?”
“Uh . . . no.”
“Can you at least thread the needle?”
He took the needle, feeling more helpless than he had ever felt in his life. He hadn’t been kidding that his education had been rather lacking. There were many basic things that he didn”t know. He could play the shit out of musical instruments, and he had learned a lot from Animal Planet and the cooking channel, but past that, he was helpless.
She noticed his reticence. “Just push the thread through that hole. It will be easy. That thread is sturdier than sewing thread.”
It took him a few tries, but eventually he got the thread through the needle. “Now what?”
“Just set it down for a minute.” She nodded to the lid of the first aid box. “Now can you grab the alcohol and pour some on the needle, then pour some on my arm, and then make sure I don’t pass out.”
Was she about to do what he thought she was going to do? “Kat, you’re not going to-”
“West,” she cut him off. “You can’t sew, I can, so yes, I’m about to sew my arm up, but I need to clean the wound first and that’s going to hurt like a bitch.”
If West hadn’t already thought this woman was the strongest, most amazing woman he’d ever met, she was once again about to prove to him she was well out of his league.
“Shit, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“West.” She looked straight into his eyes, annoyance written on her face. “No offense, but right now, I need you to shut up and help me. This is going to hurt, and I need you to stop blaming yourself. We can get back to doing that later. ’Kay?”
He nodded, wanting to worship the ground she walked on, his goddess. “Now, pour the alcohol on me.” She took a deep breath, steeling herself against the pain she was about to endure, and then nodded for him to continue.
The alcohol burned at her skin like acid and an unearthly scream emerged from her throat as it washed away dried blood and filth.
Fighting her tears, she shook uncontrollably until finally, the worst was over. Her arm stung like a thousand fire ants had taken up residence beneath her skin.
When she got a chance to better examine the wound, she could see it was deep and the blood was still oozing out. “I’m going to have to stitch this up, and I’m going to need you to hold my arm down.”
He looked ill at ease, and she wasn’t sure if it was his disbelief in her abilities, or just stitching in general.
“Have you done this before?”
“What? Stitched up human flesh? That would be a no.”
“Well, that’s great. Sweetheart, are you sure we can’t just put one of those big gauze bandages on it?” He said it in one of his most soothing tones, and while she knew she shouldn’t like the endearment, her stupid heart betrayed her, fluttering in her chest.
“It’s too deep. It needs to be stitched. I can weave a mean basket or sew a ribbon skirt. What’s the difference?”
His eyes went wide, his mouth gaped, and it would have been almost comical if the situation hadn’t been so dire. Kat held back a smile. She knew this was nothing like basket weaving or sewing up the hem of her skirt for her tour costume, but she had to do it. West shook his head as he examined the wound. “I’m certain there’s a big difference. Not to mention sewing your own flesh.”
“That’s why I need you to hold me down.” This man was not being helpful. What part of she needed to be stitched up or she might bleed to death did he not get? She was on borrowed time as it was. The bleeding had slowed, but it hadn’t stopped and that was concerning.
“Christ, Kat, this is a horrible idea.”He poured the alcohol on the needle and held it up to her, grumbling in disagreement. He moved to her uninjured side so his arms could wrap around her in a big bear hug.
She trembled as she held the needle. A bead of sweat trickled down her face as she drew closer and closer to the wound. With a burst of courage, she pierced her skin, stifling an agonized scream as she felt each tug. Forcing her eyes open, she bit her bottom lip hard to distract her from the pain.
With steady hands, she continued sewing the gaping wound shut, feeling sick at the numbing sensation that came with pulling the thread through. Each stitch was a reminder that this was what she had chosen to do—there was no going back now. After the final stitch, West applied antiseptic before bandaging it up. Her stitches were sloppy, but they would have to do—a reminder of this experience forever imprinted onto her skin.
She collapsed into West’s arms when he was done bandaging her, the exhaustion of stitching herself up racking her whole body.
“That was incredible,” he said, stroking her hair. “I can’t believe you just stitched yourself up like that.”
“Maybe I should go to med school,” she joked, her voice sounding distant and not her own.
“That would be a waste of your talent.”
Kat felt a tear burn its way down her cheek, the warmth only fueling the questions running through her mind. Did he really think she was talented? Despite what he’d said, his actions over the past decade seemed to suggest otherwise.
“You don’t have to lie to me, West.”
His hand glided lightly against her back and brushed the sensitive skin of her neck as he said, “I’m not.” He roamed over her body, and she relished the easy intimacy between them. “I seem to be a bit of an idiot about what was right behind me for quite some time.”
She felt a blush creep up, unsure what to say to that. Confusion clouded her thoughts as she tried to make sense of his unspoken words. Was this an apology for all the times he had pushed her away when she’d tried to collaborate musically after their hallway tryst? Or was there something more romantic at play here?
“We’re going up the mountain,” she said, deciding to change the subject.
He looked down at her. “You’re exhausted. You don’t need to risk your life by going up there.”
“I want to see what’s up there. It’s our only way off this island.”
“And arguing with you is pointless?”
“I’m glad you’ve figured that out sooner rather than later.” She reached up, spreading her fingers through his beard. She had never thought facial hair was that attractive, but on West it made him more ruggedly attractive, no longer the “pretty boy” rockstar.
His hand covered hers, and he closed his eyes. Kat knew there was something between them, but what happened when they left the island? When this experience was over, and they went back to real life, all of this would go away, and they would be themselves again. West would still be the international superstar who left Kat alone in a dark hallway and would easily do it again.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked her.
Her eyes narrowed, her hand dropping. “I’m pretty sure you can give me more than a penny.”
“Is that all it takes? What’s your price for you to tell me what you were just thinking?”
She couldn’t tell him. She didn’t want him to know all the insecurities that flowed through her. She knew it sounded whiny and ridiculous, but he did that to her. For now, they were in a fantasy land.
“Getting off this island.”
He let out a long whistle. “That’s a high price.”
“That’s when I’ll tell you what I was thinking.”
He sat silent for a minute, and now she was the one wondering what he was thinking, but she was unwilling to ask. “I guess we better go up the mountain and see if there is a way to get home. Rest a bit and we’ll go up in a few hours.”
His strong arms enveloped her, and at that moment, Kat knew she never wanted to leave his embrace. It was where she belonged. A dangerous longing filled her, knowing it could never be her reality, but desperate for it nonetheless.