that. Now you’re making it worse,” the captain chided her, snapping on a pair of gloves before tearing open a few small packets.
“What are those?” Ava asked warily. She didn’t trust this man, not after the way they’d been arguing mere minutes before. In her mind, Jason Selini was nothing more than an obstacle to her goals. He’d never helped her before.
“Just a little antiseptic.” He bent over the cuts on her legs and gingerly plucked out the glass. Finally he looked satisfied with his work. “I believe I got all of the glass out. Once I clean off the blood, I can see what else is there. You’re fortunate you weren’t any closer to your car—these bits didn’t have the full force of the blast behind them. Any closer and you could have been seriously hurt. There.” He daubed a bit more with the antiseptic-soaked gauze. “It really wasn’t bad at all—just a bit of blood that made everything look worse.”
“You’re sure you don’t need to be outside with your men?”
The captain dug into a package of bandages. “They know what to do. They’ll secure the area and then hand things over to the bomb squad as soon as they arrive.”
“So this sort of thing happens all the time?” Ava had been in the tiny Mediterranean kingdom of Lydia for ten months—long enough to plan two royal weddings, a handful of titling ceremonies and a royal marriage-renewal ceremony. In that time, she’d heard rumors of violence and danger, and once had her reception hall locked down because of gunmen on the loose within the walls of the palace grounds. But this was the first car bomb she’d ever heard about.
“We haven’t had a vehicle explode since the royal motorcade was ambushed last June—almost a year ago now. But those were grenade hits, not bombs.”
“Ow!” Ava shrieked before he was quite finished. “Could you be more careful?”
“Sorry. That little piece of glass was hiding.”
“Are you sure I don’t need stitches?”
Jason held up his gloved hand in front of her, a slender shard of glass perched on one finger. “That’s all it was. I’m almost done. There’s nothing that needs stitching.”
Feeling slightly embarrassed that she’d shrieked for such a tiny piece of glass, Ava mustered up her pride. “I think you’re taking far too much satisfaction at seeing my pain, after all the trouble I’ve caused you,” she accused him.
Jason sighed and pasted another adhesive bandage above her ankle. “So you admit you’ve caused me plenty of trouble.”
“No more than you’ve caused me.” She bit her lip as the captain applied more antiseptic, dabbing roughly at her injuries. “You know, you could try to be gentle.”
The captain was silent for a moment, but his movements became more precise, with less pressure.
“You know,” Jason echoed her as he stuck another bandage carefully in place, “you could thank me.”
“For what? You threw me on this couch like you were tossing a sack of kittens in the river.”
She expected Jason’s sharp retort but instead heard snickering from the doorway, and looked up in time to see a group of royal guards filing back into the building.
“Report,” Jason commanded, not sounding the least bit amused.
The men sobered. “All’s clear. The Sardis Police Bomb Squad has taken over the crime scene. They’ve got their bomb-sniffing dogs working the entire perimeter of the palace grounds, three blocks deep. If there’s another bomb in the area, they’ll find it.”
“Good work, men. Back to your stations.”
The men filed out in silence, but before the door closed behind them, a voice carried clearly from the hallway. “He would like to toss her in the river like a sack of kittens.”
A chorus of guffaws agreed with the statement.
“You didn’t hear that,” Jason stated bluntly as he spread antiseptic on the last of her cuts.
“Yes, I did,” Ava informed him. “And I felt the sting.”
The captain applied the last bandage, but that hadn’t been the sting she was referring to. Did Jason Selini really want to be rid of her that badly that he’d toss her off a bridge? The captain seemed to be a man of integrity and perfectly upright character, but she knew his resentment toward her ran deep. They’d been in opposition since the very first ceremony she’d planned at the end of the previous summer. She’d ignored his attitude all these long months, just as she habitually ignored anyone who didn’t like her. Hadn’t she learned her lesson long before? She couldn’t please everyone. Best to focus on doing her job and giving her brides the weddings of their dreams. That much she could do.
But the image of her burning car had seared itself into her mind. Why had her car exploded? Had someone placed a bomb inside to hurt her? What if they’d killed her?
“It’s all right. I’m done.” The captain handed her a tissue.
Only then did Ava realize she’d started sniffling, her near brush with death somehow penetrating her usually impervious armor. “Why do you think my car blew up?” It took all of her resolve to keep her voice steady.
“Somebody put a bomb in it. From what I saw, they probably had it set to go off a certain number of seconds after you unlocked your door—the idea being that you’d be very near or inside the car at that moment. If you hadn’t stopped and turned around, that’s where you would have been.”
“But—that would have killed me.” Ava couldn’t get the image of her charred car from her mind—nor could she quite grapple with the idea of what would have become of her if she’d been inside.
The captain met her eyes for just a moment. Instead of hardened anger in his flint-gray eyes, she saw a hint of sympathy, maybe even apology.
The change shook her as much as the realization that she’d narrowly escaped a horrific end. “They wanted me dead?”
The captain closed the box of bandages and tucked them away in the first-aid kit, not meeting her eyes. “That’s the only reason I can think of for what I saw.”
“But why?”
Jason looked her full in the face, a bit of sadness shimmering in his steel-gray eyes. “Do you have any enemies?”
Ava stared at him for long seconds, her stunned mind taking longer than usual to process her thoughts. Finally she answered, “You.”
The captain turned away and began plucking up the bandage wrappers he’d left lying about. “I’m the worst enemy you have?”
She nodded, no longer trusting her voice.
“Then I don’t know why anyone would put a bomb in your car.” He sucked in a sharp breath and met her eyes again. “But I intend to find out.”
His words hit her with such cold force he might as well have tossed her in an icy river. His statement was part vow, part threat. What would it take to find out who’d tried to kill her? Discussing past relationships?
