In This Together. Kara Lennox

cut and patch it up. Lord only knew what sort of germs had been lurking on that wrench.

      He joined Elena in the luxurious bathroom and closed the door. Then he sat down on the carpet with his back to the door. She would have to go through him to get out.

      “How about you see if the people who used to live here left anything behind in the way of first-aid supplies.” The guy who’d hired Travis said the former owners had moved out in the middle of the night, taking whatever they could haul or carry that was valuable but leaving behind some cheap furnishings. Travis had already cleared out most of the furniture and sold it to a used furniture dealer.

      So maybe the former owners had left something useful.

      “You think I’m going to play nurse?” Elena huffed. “Think again.”

      “You don’t have to play nurse. Just hand me the stuff. I’ll do it myself. The sooner you help me, the sooner I’ll leave you alone and go take care of business—the business that will get you released.”

      “Fine.” She went to the linen cupboard first and found a clean washcloth, which she soaked with warm water and handed to him. “You can use that to clean off the blood, at least.”

      He scrubbed his face and neck with the washcloth while she rummaged around in the cabinets and drawers. Then he gingerly dabbed at the cut. Now that his adrenaline had spent itself, he was feeling the pain. She’d really walloped him. He was lucky she hadn’t knocked him unconscious.

      “If you find any aspirin,” he said, “I’ll start with that.”

      “Aspirin will make you bleed more.” She handed him a bottle of Tylenol. “Try that.”

      “Thanks.” He shook out a couple of the pills and swallowed them dry.

      “I was going to get you some water. But I don’t see a glass.”

      “It’s okay. What did you find? Any first-aid cream or bandages?” What he needed was stitches. The cut was still bleeding.

      “Found some alcohol.”

      Not what he was hoping for. That would burn like hellfire. But he supposed he better bite the bullet and use it if he didn’t want an infection.

      “What else?”

      “You’re in luck. Butterfly bandages.”

      Except how was he supposed to apply them to himself?

      She dumped everything she’d found on the floor beside him, including some cotton balls. Then she closed the lid on the toilet and sat down, her arms folded, pointedly ignoring him.

      He started with the alcohol, soaking a cotton ball and swabbing the cut. He did his best to remain stoic, because his ego wouldn’t allow him to cry like a baby in front of a woman. But she had to hear his sharp intake of breath. It was like being branded.

      “I hope it hurts terribly,” she said.

      “It does. Thank you for your concern.”

      She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Good.” But she looked worried. And as he tried to apply a butterfly bandage, squeezing the cut closed with one hand and maneuvering the bandage with the other, she frowned at his ineptitude. The cut ran close to his hairline, making it even more difficult.

      She stood up and took off her jacket. “Oh, for pity’s sake, just let me do it.”

      He should have said no. Letting Elena get her hands on his injured self when she seemed to enjoy his pain wasn’t a logical move. But blood was dripping down his forehead and he wondered if the injury was more serious than he’d thought. And he certainly wasn’t having any luck himself. He’d already wrecked two of the four available butterflies.

      Elena brought a box of tissues with her and knelt beside him. She used a wad of tissues to wipe away the blood, and then quickly, efficiently closed the cut with the butterflies.

      “It’s not too bad, only about an inch long.” She sounded like a concerned nurse. “It’s not bleeding very much now. I’m going to put this big bandage on it, but you might want to apply pressure for a little longer.”

      “Okay.”

      She did as promised. She had surprisingly gentle hands. Her breasts were right at his eye level, and he studied them leisurely. Not overly large, but not small, either, they were about the size of large, ripe peaches. Her blue dress was fairly modest, not displaying much in the way of cleavage, but he could still see the outline of those luscious breasts. She smelled good, too, like cinnamon and nutmeg.

      If he focused on the pleasant sights and scents of Elena, he found that his head didn’t hurt too much.

      “I get the feeling you’ve patched up people before,” he said, hoping to get her talking. Her voice was pleasant, too—as long as she wasn’t yelling at him.

      “When I was younger, I had to deal with lots of injuries. My dad and older brothers would come home from the sugarcane fields with scratches and cuts, and my mother and grandmother and I would get out the iodine.”

      “Iodine. Now that stuff hurts.”

      “It was what we had on hand.”

      “Was this in Mexico?”

      “No, idiot. Cuba. You can’t tell a Mexican accent from Cuban?” Then she rattled off something that he actually understood. He’d picked up some Spanish from working construction, and from when he was incarcerated, too.

      “I might be ignorant, but I’m not a pig,” he said.

      “So, you understand Spanish. Am I supposed to be impressed? There, your wretched head is fixed for now. I think you’ll live, unfortunately.”

      Her tone sounded closer to teasing than hateful, which pleased him no end. God, he was stupid, looking for crumbs of good humor from a woman he’d kidnapped. He was stupid for being attracted to her, too, but no one had ever accused him of being smart.

      He’d been an idiot to shove Elena into his truck. More than likely, his ploy would only succeed in landing him in prison and wouldn’t help Eric at all. But nothing else had worked. This plan was all he had, and he was determined to get as much out of it as he could.

      As Elena gathered up the trash and threw it into a wastebasket, Travis pushed himself to his feet. His eyes swam for a moment, but then the world righted itself.

      “I’ll be back in a few minutes. You can’t escape from here, and no one can hear you, so your best bet is to just stay calm. If your boss is a reasonable man, he’ll give me what I want, and I’ll let you go.”

      “And if he doesn’t give you what you want? I doubt he will. Daniel doesn’t negotiate with people like you.”

      “I’m willing to bet your welfare is important enough to him that he will.”

      And if he doesn’t?

      He would let her go anyway, of course. Then he would turn himself in and take his lumps.

      CHAPTER THREE

      “WAIT. CAN’T WE talk about—”

      Travis slipped out the door and slammed it in her face. He couldn’t listen to her. He couldn’t look into those chocolate-brown eyes without feeling his resolve softening. It was time to contact Daniel Logan.

      The bedroom was empty except for one straight-back chair in a corner. Travis remembered dragging it in there to stand on so he could open an air-conditioning vent. One of the chair’s slats was broken, which was why he hadn’t tried to sell it.

      He could fix it; he hated throwing away perfectly good stuff that could be repaired and provide many more years of service.

      The broken slat wouldn’t affect the use he put it to. He grabbed it and shoved it under the bathroom doorknob.

      “Don’t