Two Alone by Sandra Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

stapled behind her head by h is hard fingers .
    " G et off me."
    "Are you all right now?"
    Sh e nodded. She was as all right as a woman could be upon wa king up to find a man the size and shape of Cooper Landry— that was it, Landry—straddling her with thighs that rose like colum ns above her, coming together... She averted her eyes f rom that mouth-drying juncture. "Please," she gasped. "I'm fine." He e ased himself off her. She sucked in frigidly cold air that hur t her lungs. But God, it felt good against her hot face. It felt goo d for only a second. Then she shivered with a chill and her teeth started clicking together. Coopers brows were drawn together worriedly. Or crossly. She couldn't tell. He was either concerned or annoyed.
    " You 're burning up with fever," he told her bluntly. " II l eft the bed to build up the fire. You were delirious and starred shouting for som ebody called Jeff."
    " My brother." Her shudders were convulsive. She pulled one of the furs around her. I t hadn't rained or drizzled anymore during the night. She c o u ld actually see flames and glowing coals beneath the sticks he had added to the fire. The flames were so hot they burned her eyeballs until they hurt.
    No impossible. That must be the fever.
    L eaving the fur covering her upper body alone, Cooper lifted the lower half of it off her leg. Once again he painstakingly un wrapped the bandage and stared down at the open wound. Rust y scared at him.
    Finally he looked at her, his mouth set i n a bleak line. " I won't try to fool you. It's bad. I nfected. There's a b o ttl e of an t ibio t ics in t he first-aid kit. I was saving t hem in case this happened, but I'm not sure they'll be adequa t e to t ake care of it."
    She swallowed with difficulty. Even her feverish brain could assimilate what he was telling her. Raising herself to her elbows, she looked down at her leg. She wanted to gag. On either side of the deep gash, the skin was raised and puckered with infection. Flopping back down, she drew in shallow, rapid breaths. She wet her lips, ineffectually because the fever was making her mouth drier than it had been before. "I could get gangrene and die, couldn't I?"
    He forced a half smile. "Not yet. We've got to do what we can to prevent that,"
    "Like cut it off?"
    "God, you're morbid. What I had in mind was lancing out th e pus and then closing the gash with stitches."
    Her face turned ashen. "That sounds morbid enough."
    "Not as bad as cauterizing it. Which it might come to." Her face went as colorless as chalk. "But, for right now, let's put some st itch es in. Don't look relieved," he said, frowning deeply, " I t ’ s gonna hurt like hell."
    She stared into the depths of his eyes. Strange as it was, rocky as their beginning had been, she trusted him. "Do whatever you have to do."
    H e nodded brusquely, then went to work. First he withdrew a pai r of her silk long Johns from the sweater cum backpack. "I'm gla d you wear silk undies." She smiled waveringly at his mild joke as he began to unravel the casing of the waistband.
    We'll use these threads for the sutures." He nodded down the toward silver flask. "Better start on that brandy. Use it to swallow one of those penicillin tablets. You're not allergic to it, are you? Good," he said when she shook her head. "Sip the brand y steadily. Don't stop until you're good and drunk. But don ' t drink all of it. I'll have to sterilize the threads and bathe the gash with it."
    She wasn't anesthetized nearly enough when he bent over her leg. T he hunting knife, which he'd sterilized in the fire, was held poised in readiness over the infected wound.
    "Ready?" She no d d ed. "Try to keep still." She nodded again. "And don't fight uncon sciousness. We'd bo th be better off if you passed out."
    T he first tiny puncture he made into the red, puffy skin caused her to cry out and yank her leg back. "No, Rusty! You've got to lie still."
    It was an agonizing process and seemed to go on forever. He meticu