Borrowed Bride by Patricia Coughlin Page A

Well, if I don’t, who will? Did you ever ask yourself that?” His voice sounded as languid as he felt.
    â€œNo. Never.”
    â€œWell, I do. All the time.” He grimaced as he reached for the banister with his good hand. “All the, ah, time. I think about you all the time, Gaby.”
    They climbed the stairs to the deck in silence. Gaby hurried ahead to open the door, and he heeded her command to head straight for the kitchen sink. Following him, she turned on the faucet and let it run until she decided it was the proper temperature before instructing him to hold his hand under the gentle flow.
    Connor took pains not to wince as the first drops struck the open wound. He’d already come off looking like a damn wuss, but he could always blame that on heatstroke and initial shock. There was no way he was going to let her think he couldn’t handle a little pain. Make that a lot of pain, he thought, wondering if maybe he’d cut a tendon or something. He spread his fingers experimentally. They all seemed to be working all right. It beat him how a cut on the back of his hand could be causing him more aggravation than a bullet he once took in the shoulder.
    â€œJust keep holding it under the water,” Gaby told him. “I’ll check in the bathroom and see what I can find to bandage it.”
    As soon as she left the room, he pulled his hand away from the still-running water and took his first close look at the damage. Gaby was right. It did look nasty. And deep. He recalled that the propeller was rusty, but for the life of him couldn’t remember the date of his last tetanus shot. Oh, well, it really didn’t matter. It was going to take more than the risk of tetanus to get him down from there before he’d found out what he needed to know.
    â€œI found something,” Gaby said, hurrying back into the room. She was holding a package of Band-Aids, elastic bandage and a tube of something. “This isn’t quite what I would prefer, but it will have to do. I’m going to try to smear some of this antiseptic ointment on there and then we’ll just wrap it with the elastic bandage. It’s bigger than the Band-Aids and it’s still in the package, so it should be sterile. That ought to hold you until we can get you to an emergency room. The question is, do you want to call 911 or try making it there on the motorcycle? Personally I—”
    â€œNeither.”
    She looked puzzled. “What did you say?”
    â€œI said neither. No emergency room.”
    â€œListen, Connor, I’m sure there are women somewhere in the world who find that tough-guy routine appealing rather than downright ridiculous. It might even come in real handy at times, as a matter of fact, but this isn’t a singles bar, I’m not a candidate to be the next notch on your belt and you need to be seen by a doctor. Fast.”
    â€œNo doctors.”
    â€œAre you even listening to me?” she demanded in exasperation.
    â€œI’m listening, are you? I said no doctors.”
    â€œWhy on earth not?” Her mouth tightened into a thin smile. “Oh, I get it. You’re afraid to go to a hospital or see a doctor because that would give me a chance to get away. For heaven’s sake, Connor, will you forget about all that? You got what you wanted by stopping the wedding. This way I’ll get to go home and see my son and you can still go on with the investigation, but most importantly you’ll get proper attention for your hand.”
    He shook his head as he rewrapped his hand in her shirt. The bleeding had slowed but not stopped completely. Walking into the living room, he looked around, trying to remember where he’d seen that sewing basket. He figured it must belong to Charlie’s wife, Marie, and he remembered coming across it when he drove up there earlier and was looking for... He struggled to remember what he might have been looking for when he