Read Online Up Close and Dangerous by Linda Howard - Free Book Online Page B

cut without washing it out first, there’s a big risk it’ll get infected. I’ll clean it out as best I can with the alcohol wipes, in a little while, but first I’m going to do what I can to get you warm.” She cast a worried glance over her shoulder at the plane. She still didn’t think it would shift, but she couldn’t discount the possibility. Moving him, though, was something else that would have to wait.
    “Good,” he said, the word only a thin thread of sound.
    Working quickly, she lifted his feet and stuffed one of the trash bags of clothes under them, to help with the shock. Opening the other bag, she took out another flannel shirt and folded it, then gently tucked it around his head to help keep him from losing even more body heat. Then she pulled the space blanket aside and started layering clothes over him, starting at his feet and working up. When she got to his shirt, cold and wet with blood, she opened his knife and simply sliced the shirt off him, then wiped the blood off his chest as best she could with the first garment that came to hand, which happened to be a pair of her underwear.
    When he was as dry as she could get him, she layered more clothes over his chest and shoulders. Finally she lay down beside him, snuggled under the layers of clothes until she was against him and could get her arms around him, and as a last covering pulled another shirt completely over their heads so the air they breathed would be warmer. The shirt didn’t block out all the light, but the effect was sort of like being in a cave. Their breathing almost immediately made the air feel warmer against her face, and the small comfort was so welcome she could have cried in relief.
    He felt like ice against her. He needed something hot to drink, or something sweet to eat, to help him combat the shock and cold. She still wasn’t thinking as clearly as she needed to be, because while she couldn’t provide anything to drink she had put a stash of candy bars and some chewing gum in one of the suitcases—evidently the one suitcase she hadn’t opened. She should have thought of them, and taken a few minutes to find them.
    Her own shivering was lessening, but he wasn’t shivering at all. That couldn’t be good.
    “Hey, Justice,” she said. “Stay awake. Talk to me. Tell me if you can feel any warmth coming from me.”
    For a long moment he didn’t answer, making her fear he’d lost consciousness again, but finally he said, “No.”
    Maybe she had on too many clothes for her body warmth to seep through to him. Wiggling around under the pile of clothing, she removed the down vest, and worked it over him so that it was the first layer next to his body. She was colder without the vest, but she snuggled close enough that she was partially covered by it, too. The down had absorbed some of her body heat, because she could feel it against her icy hands.
    “Feel that,” he murmured in a drowsy tone.
    “Good. You have to stay awake, so keep talking to me. If you can’t think of anything interesting to say, just make a noise every now and then so I know you’re still conscious.”
    She began running her left hand over his chest and shoulders and arms, to stimulate his circulation. “There are some candy bars in one of my bags. When you get warmer, I’ll dig them out and get some sugar down you; that’ll make you feel better.” She paused. “Now you say something.”
    “Something.”
    “Smart-ass.” Despite the fact that the word was slurred and his voice incredibly weak, her heart lifted. If he could still be a smart-ass, then maybe he wasn’t as far gone as she feared.
     

     
    C AM LISTENED TO Mrs. Wingate talking. He felt as if his consciousness was split in two and part of him drifted away into fog, tethered only by her occasional demands that he respond. On a far closer level he was also aware of his complete physical misery; he was so cold that he had a whole new appreciation of the word. Why couldn’t the two