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“Apparently, I wasn’t,” he said, not really sure when he’d become so attached to the kittens.
Megan leaned in. “You are the sweetest, most incredible, most foolish man I have ever met.” Her lips pressed against his, making everything better in that second.
When she leaned away, her eyes searched his desperately. “I’m all right,” he told her.
She looked him over. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again. We need you here. Alive.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a smile, not minding one bit that she worried about him.
Her intense gaze suddenly shifted to his shoulder, and her eyes bulged. “You’re burned.”
And in that awareness, blinding pain hit him. He took a look at his shoulder, discovering his skin was bright pink in some places with brown and black skin hanging off. “Fuck. That can’t be good.”
“Second degree burns,” a low voice said above him.
Corey, a paramedic who had been in Nash’s graduating high school class, grinned at him. His bright smile displayed white teeth through his thick, brown beard. “Riding bulls to saving kittens. You never stop surprising me, Blackshaw.”
Nash snorted, lying back down, breathing through the pain. “Speak a word of any of this to anyone and I will gut you.”
Corey barked a loud laugh and knelt beside Nash, holding an oxygen mask. “I need to put this on you. Don’t give me a black eye.”
“I’m fine.”
Corey hesitated, his smile fading.
Megan snorted. “He won’t hit me.” She took the mask from Corey and slid it over Nash’s head. “You need some good air.”
Christ, he liked when she looked at him like this. All worried for him.
Megan asked Corey, “Will he be okay?”
“I already said I would be okay,” Nash grumbled beneath the mask. “A few times over.”
“He’ll be all right.” Corey grabbed a gauze pad, and, after wetting it with what Nash assumed was sterilized water, he gently covered the burn.
Nash hissed.
Corey rose and offered Nash a hand. “I gotta take you in.”
“I can—” He took Corey’s hand, then the world spun around him. “Yeah, all right.”
Corey chuckled then kept Nash’s arm, and carried the oxygen tank with his free hand, while they strode toward the ambulance. He helped Nash onto a stretcher waiting outside the ambulance.
“I’m coming with you,” Megan said.
Nash shook his head. His arm blinded him with pain, and the last thing he wanted was Megan seeing him like this. “I need you to do something for me.”
She stepped closer to the stretcher. “Anything.”
Corey began strapping Nash into the harness. “Take the kittens to Leah. Make sure they’re all right.”
“Nash,” she said firmly. “I want to go with you to the hospital.”
Using his uninjured arm, he used his good hand to crook a finger at her. “Come here, Freckles, come a little closer.” When she leaned in, her face close to his, he added, “Let’s skip the part where we argue. Save that for later, all right? Then you can hit me with that sassy mouth I like so much.”
Her lips thinned when Corey pushed Nash into the ambulance but she finally relented. “Fine, but expect major sass later.”
Nash grinned. “I look forward to it, Freckles.”
