Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [79]
“If I didn’t know better I’d say you engineered this entire thing in order to drive my Corvette,” she said, and he laughed. Then again, maybe she was just fine.
“I’m not that manipulative,” he said, running a red light rather than shifting gears. He needed to keep his right hand on the steering wheel, giving his left a break. It was bleeding again, soaking through the dish towel, and Jilly wasn’t going to like having her precious vintage leather-covered steering wheel stained with his blood.
Though she was ruthless enough that she might enjoy it. “How are you feeling?” He glanced over at her. She was leaning back against the seat, safety belt fastened around her waist, her head back, eyes closed. She looked pale in the intermittent streetlights, and he pressed harder on the accelerator, torn between appreciation for the car’s responsiveness and worry about Jilly.
“Don’t push it,” she muttered without opening her eyes. “I’m fine. You don’t have to drive like a bat out of hell.”
“Are you ever going to let me drive this car again?”
“Over my dead body.”
“So I might as well enjoy it while I can.” He zipped around a corner, the tires taking it perfectly. He’d thought he’d get her in bed long before he got behind the wheel of this beauty. He’d been wrong, unless you counted that frustrating erotic partial they’d had last night.
And for some reason, being wrong about the car wasn’t particularly pleasing. He’d rather be inside her than her vintage Corvette, no matter how sleek it was or how beautifully the engine purred. He wanted to hear her purr again. The hell with the car.
He would have carried her into the emergency room, abandoning the car, but they were ready for them. Someone had called ahead, and it certainly wouldn’t have been Jackson. Dean must have been more alert than Coltrane realized. He left the engine running while he helped her out, and she reached for his hand when he started to turn away.
“Come with me.” It killed her to say it. He wanted to laugh, but somewhere his sense of humor had vanished.
“You want me to abandon your precious car here? It’s illegally parked. Chances are it’ll get towed or stolen. What’s more important, the car or having me with you?”
It was a no-brainer, but she didn’t let go of his hand. Thank God she hadn’t grabbed hold of his cut one—he was busy keeping it out of sight. “Screw the car,” she said.
They’d put her in a wheelchair and were busy wheeling her into the emergency room, and he had no choice but to go along with her since she wasn’t about to let go of his hand. Moments later she was in an examining room, up on the stretcher, still clinging to him.
He heard Jilly’s voice coming from a long ways away. She was talking to the nurse, explaining what happened, while they began to pick tiny shards of glass out of her bare feet. She was crushing his hand, or maybe it was his other hand that felt hot, heavy, crushed. He wasn’t quite sure. He lifted it to look at it. The red kitchen towel swam before his eyes, then he remembered the towel had been white when he’d wrapped it around his hand.
He was the one who’d passed out cold, even before he hit the floor.
There was only one benefit to having made such an utter fool of himself, he thought three hours later when they were finally released from the emergency room. It had managed to put Jilly Meyer into an uncharacteristically cheerful mood. Maybe she liked to see men humbled. Or the ridiculousness of it tickled her. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.
“You’ll need to stay off your feet for a day or two, as much as possible, Ms. Meyer,” the nurse said, giving final instructions. “The cuts aren’t deep but they’ll heal better if you give them a rest. They’re actually worse than the scrapes on your back, despite the amount of blood. The doctor sent along something for the pain, and it might make you feel a bit woozy, but that