Page 70 of Glimmer in the Darkness

“I was feeling a little…” Sick? Dizzy? Tired? All of the above. “I needed food.”

“Yeah.” He gazed at the sweatshirt she’d dropped on his table. “That was a lot to take, between the loss of blood, the fatigue, the hunger.”

“I’m okay now.” She already felt better. Not a hundred percent, but better.

He squeezed her knee. “Sit tight.” He left the room and came back a minute later with a plastic shoebox that looked vaguely familiar.

He set it beside her, and she realized it was the same box that Mrs. Sullivan had stored first-aid supplies in years before.

With a wet paper towel in one hand, he met her eyes. “I’m going to clean it, okay?”

“Can you do that without touching it?”

His smile was slight. “I’ll be gentle.”

She braced for pain. It wasn’t as bad as she’d expected, though. James dabbed at the wound, then added antibiotic ointment. “I think, since the bleeding has stopped, you don’t need stitches. Or… staples, I guess. That’s what they do for head wounds, right?”

Staples? “I’m not letting anybody put staples in my head.”

“I don’t think they would anyway. The gash is too wide. But it’s not bleeding anymore.”

James pressed a bandage over the wound, which pulled uncomfortably against her hair. “How do you feel?”

“Better.”

“How about the head? Does it hurt?”

“Not too bad. It’s not throbbing like it was before.”

He opened a cabinet and returned to the table with two tablets. “Tylenol.”

“Thanks.” She downed them.

Seated beside her, he leaned forward, one arm on the round table. “Can you tell me what happened out there? If you saw anyone or…?”

She closed her eyes, thought back. “We were in the passageway, right? And I…I turned around, went feet-first.” James said nothing while she tried to put it all together. But… “I don’t remember anything after backing away from you toward the opening except thinking how grateful I was that you were with me. I felt…safe.”

She opened her eyes to find his gaze on her. She wasn’t sure what she read in that expression. More than curiosity, more than concern. She was afraid to name it, afraid the name would raise her hopes higher than they should be.

“What happened next?”

Again, she closed her eyes. She couldn’t think with him so close, looking at her like that. “The next thing I knew, you were there. You were making me crawl away. And then we were running down the hill.”

“You didn’t see anybody?”

He was so close when she next opened her eyes. “No.”

He wrapped her hands in his and squeezed. “Thank God…” He swallowed, bobbing his Adam’s apple.

“I know.” The bullet had been centimeters from ending her life. She didn’t know what James felt for her now, but even if it was only friendship, she was grateful he wouldn’t have to bury her. James didn’t need to lose another person he cared about.

The thought that she might have lost him… She didn’t even want to consider it.

She pushed back her chair. “Mind if I use the restroom, get cleaned up?”

He cleared his throat and dropped her hands. “I’ll go upstairs and do the same. When you’re ready, I’ll drive you back to your cabin.”

“Not calling the police?”