The Flyer Read Online Free Page B

irritated skin with a pair of needle holders, then formed the first surgeon’s knot, working as quickly, but as carefully, as she could. The sooner she could suture his wound closed, the sooner the pain would lessen. If Doc were here, he would certainly be able to work faster. While she worked, she tried not to steal awkward glances at her patient.
    Apart from the fact he was soaked to the skin, his hair was a knotted mess, and he boasted more than his share of nicks and scrapes from his recent reptilian encounter, he was precisely gorgeous. When dry, she imagined his hair would be dark blond, though it looked brown at the moment. Eyes the color of a cloudless sky just before sunset attempted to wrap her mind in a trance. If she looked into them, she could easily see herself forgetting even basic things. Like her name. It wouldn’t do to forget how to stitch a wound.
    She was unable to avoid seeing his body, however, so she did her level best to simply ignore the toned muscles beneath sun-kissed flesh. Instead, she concentrated on pulling the silk through, knotting it, then repeating the movements over and over again. If she tried hard enough, perhaps she could imagine herself back in medical school, practicing on a cadaver, instead of here, practicing on a man who was anything but dead.
    “When did you arrive, by the by?” Paul asked, barely wincing while she worked, even though the needle she plied must have caused him a great amount of agony.
    “This morning.” Pull. Knot. Twist. Pull.
    “You’re an American, aren’t you?” he continued, as if he were sitting in her parlor, sipping tea instead of bleeding on her examination table. The gentle brush of his fingers along the ends of her bobbed hair startled her, and she tossed her hair to discourage his attention.
    “I am.” Pull. Knot. Twist. Pull.
    His hand thankfully dropped to the table again. “What brings you to the Pilbara? Don’t they have hospitals in America?”

2
    P aul stifled any number of grunts and groans, and the occasional scream of bloody agony.
    He hadn’t actually felt Bessie’s giant teeth slice through his shoulder. He hadn’t known how severely he’d been injured until Tim had pointed it out to him on the bank. Already soaked from his little swim, he hadn’t noticed the blood pouring over his chest, either. But within a few short minutes, he’d grown weak, and if it hadn’t been for his mates, he would have bled to death. No doubt about that.
    As it was, they’d managed to control the bleeding with a makeshift bandage and had dragged him to Doc Mallory’s. He would have expected nothing less, and would have done the same for them, of course.
    But he felt the wound now. Every inch of it. He half-expected his arm to fall off.
    What he hadn’t expected was to find the beautiful woman in residence at Doc’s place. Doctor or not, every time she touched his shoulder, poking and prodding around his little souvenir, he felt a twinge of something powerful in his gut that had nothing to do with the pain ripping the upper half of his body to shreds.
    “We’re almost finished,” she mentioned, apparently ignoring his question while pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. She tilted her head to one side as she examined her work.
    Curious, Paul looked at the gash as best he could given the fact that he lay on his back with no pillow. The stitches were perfect, neatly arranged in equal intervals from the top of his shoulder to just above his right nipple. He frowned. “How many?”
    Helen’s head snapped upward. “Excuse me?”
    “How many stitches?”
    “Fifty-seven,” she replied, standing then crossing to the sink. She placed her instruments in a steel bowl and the other supplies in the basin, then turned on the faucet. The pipes groaned in protest before a solid stream of clear water poured out of the spigot.
    He’d have to work on that. He’d only installed the sink a month ago. It shouldn’t be having problems