the woman, wondering if he could commandeer her car. “You always state the obvious?”
Definitely not Mr. Congeniality. More in the running for Oscar the Grouch. “Only when I’m talking to a Neanderthal.”
She’d give him too much of a hard time if he tried to take her car, he decided, and he was in no condition to take her on. He felt as weak as a wet kitten someone had done their best to drown.
He had to get going before his strength deserted him altogether.
“Well, let’s remedy that right now.” Kane stepped back, away from the annoying woman, and then turned around on very shaky legs. Right now, he needed to get back to the run-down hotel room his handler had secured for him while he played out this half-assed charade. If he didn’t get this bullet out soon, he had the uneasy feeling he was going to pass out.
To his surprise and great annoyance, the woman he was trying to get away from shifted, moving faster than he did. She got in front of him. More than that, she got in his face.
Pointing to his wound, she said, “I can take care of that for you.”
Against his will, he winced, the result of taking in a shallow breath. His side felt as if it was on fire. “Haven’t you done enough?”
“I’m not the one who shot you,” she pointed out. Somewhere in the back of her head, she could envision her father, his frown so deep it imprinted itself into the furrows of his deep jowls, demanding to know what she was possibly thinking, standing and arguing with a man with a gunshot wound. But she couldn’t just leave him here. That wasn’t why she’d become a doctor.
“Lady, get out of my way,” the stranger growled menacingly.
Marja stood her ground on knees that didn’t quite feel solid. “I’m a doctor,” she told him. “I can take you to the hospital and treat you.”
There was disdain on the handsome face. He looked dangerous, she thought, wondering if she was making a fatal mistake.
“Business that slow?”
Rounding the hood, she got over to the passenger side and threw open the door. “Get in,” she ordered in the most authoritative voice she could manage. She was channeling her mother, who no one disobeyed.
Obviously her future was not in channeling. The stranger didn’t move. If anything, his expression grew darker. “No, thanks.”
He was about to go. Again, she moved so that she was in front of him, blocking his way out of the side street. He was breathing harder, she noted. It was getting more difficult for him to stand, she guessed.
Marja did her best to brazen him out. “That wasn’t an offer you were supposed to refuse.”
“I can’t go to the hospital.” He couldn’t afford for his cover to be blown, not when things were beginning to come together, however slowly.
“Why?” Marja demanded.
Even as she asked, she had a feeling she knew. Anyone who came into the hospital with a gunshot wound had to be reported to the police. The man she’d hit with her car was undoubtedly standing on the wrong side of the law and couldn’t risk it. Ordinarily she’d be tempted to back off. But part of this was her fault. She’d hit him with her car and that made her at least partially responsible for this man. Who knew what kind of damage he’d sustained from the impact, however slowly she’d been going?
She couldn’t let him just disappear into the night without trying to help. That wasn’t the way she had been raised, that wasn’t what her Hippocratic oath meant to her.
For one long moment Kane seriously debated just pushing this woman out of his way and making good his getaway.
But despite the fact that there’d been no one to teach him manners, no one to drill the difference between right and wrong into his head, not even when he’d been very, very young, it was second nature to him to rein in the explosive temper that dwelled inside of him. Women were the softer sex and should be treated with a measure of respect—even when they ran you down with their cars.
So rather than become physical, Kane decided to resort to his voice, a voice that had been known to make his handler, a fifteen-year veteran with the Company, cringe and look decidedly uncomfortable. He figured at the very least, that would make the woman back off and leave him alone.
“What the hell do you think you are, lady? My conscience?”
His manner was malevolent, but there was something in his eyes, something that told her she didn’t have anything to fear. He wasn’t going to hurt her, not for trying to help him at any rate.
“Why?” she asked, her voice mild, curious. “Do you need one?”
His eyebrows narrowed, his eyes looked like thunder. “Get out of my way, lady.”
Marja stood her ground and tried again. “I’m a doctor—”
Kane sucked in his breath, struggling to keep the pain at bay. It was distressingly close. “Okay, get out of my way, Doctor.”
Marja made a quick decision, not one her parents or her brothers-in-law, all three of whom were in some branch of law enforcement, would have praised, but one she knew she could live with. Hopefully. “If you don’t want to go to the hospital, I can still treat you.”
She saw suspicion rise into his eyes to replace the darkness.
“And just why would you do that?” Each word was carefully measured out.
“Because I hit you with my car and I owe you one.”
Kane found himself leaning against the hood, his knees growing watery. “If you ‘owe me one,’ get out of my way and we’ll call it even.”
The infuriating woman moved her head slowly from side to side. A hot breeze moved her hair independently about her face. “Can’t do that.”
“Sure you can.” Getting air into his lungs was becoming difficult. “There’s your car.” He tried to wave toward it and stopped. The effort to stand grew increasingly difficult. “Get in it, drive away and go hit someone else.”
She ignored his protest. “I don’t live far from here. I’ve got everything I need to treat you at my apartment. Please,” she pressed, taking a step toward him.
The air turned sweeter. Fruit? Perfume? His brain was scrambled.
“That could get infected.”
She was talking about his wound, he thought, his brain oddly feverish. Maybe she had hit him harder than he thought. “And that’s your concern how?”
“I’m a doctor,” the woman repeated for the third time. She was really getting on his nerves.
“You keep saying that,” he accused angrily.
To his surprise, he saw her smile. Or was that just a hallucination? “And I’ll keep repeating it until you let me treat you.”
He knew better, he really did. But he felt dangerously light-headed.
