Flash Bang (5 page)

Ro had figured that. She nodded as he got down to the business of unlacing her boot, gritting her teeth as bolts of pain shot through her ankle. She gripped the edge of the picnic table and closed her eyes. She tried to think of her sister and her dad. Waiting at home for her. A warm hand covered her left hand and squeezed. She didn’t open her eyes, but grabbed it like a lifeline and squeezed back when the pain kicked up another notch.

Cold air hit her sweaty sock. Finally. Her boot was off. And then the sock. Ro let out a slow breath and opened her eyes, first looking down at Beau grasping her ankle, and then over to where her hand was clasped by another large, callused one. But that hand didn’t belong to Zach like she’d assumed. It was ... Conan. He’d appeared soundlessly, and for some reason ... offered her comfort? Ro was shocked. Amazed. Freaked out? She didn’t even know. She pulled her hand back, trying not to look at him.

“What’s the verdict?” Conan asked, actually sounding like he gave a shit. Which was strange, considering he’d threatened to kill her upon meeting her. She would’ve thought he’d gotten off on torturing people.

Ro sucked in a sharp breath and cringed as Beau manipulated her ankle. Conan’s hand grabbed hers again, and the shooting pains tapered off.

“I don’t think it’s broken. Could be a hairline fracture, but it’s hard to say without an X-ray. Which we obviously don’t have. Probably a bad sprain. Either way, she’s going to need to stay off it for at least a few days to start, but probably longer. Unfortunately, I have three pairs of crutches—old school wooden ones, built for guys our size. They’re not very adjustable and would be way too fucking big for her,” he told Conan, as though she wasn’t present.

“Hey, I’m right here and would appreciate you giving
me
the diagnosis, thanks.”

Beau looked at Ro condescendingly and said, “Okay,
Rowan,
your ankle is sprained. Don’t walk on it for at least a few days to a week. Keep ice on it for fifteen minutes at a time, and keep it elevated and wrapped up. Got it?”

Ro couldn’t help feeling like she’d just thrown a bit of a temper tantrum and deserved his annoyed glare. He’d never done anything to her to merit her throwing him attitude, but now that throwing attitude had moved back into her repertoire, it was instinctive.

“She won’t be going anywhere. So, that’s not a problem. You’ll wrap it up for her and grab her an ice pack.” That wasn’t posed as a question. It was definitely an order. And then Ro played his words over in her head. Um, yeah. That
was
a problem.

“Um, thanks, Conan, but I’ll just take the wrap and the ice. If you have a place I could crash for the night, I’m sure I’ll be all set in the morning. I’ve got somewhere to be.”

Zach let out a strangled laugh-cough. “I think that’s probably the most accurate nickname anyone’s ever given him. Gonna have to share that one with the team.”

Conan was silent, and she had to assume he was not as impressed by her creative naming skills. Her suspicions were confirmed when he said to Zach, “I know where you sleep.”

She could feel Conan’s intense stare drilling into her. When she didn’t look up at him, his hand shot out and tilted her chin up.

“You got somewhere to be? How ‘bout you share that with us.”

When Ro didn’t reply immediately, she swore she saw the muscle in his jaw twitch. Ro yanked her head away from his grip and looked at Beau, about to ask him for that ice pack, when the hand that grabbed her jaw turned her face back to meet a snapping brown gaze.

“Look, woman. You are in my house, and you will answer my questions. All of them. Get me?”

About to launch into a snit to end all angry snits, another hand on her shoulder stopped Ro. This one belonged to Zach.

“How’d you like to clean up? Get some of that mess off you? I’m not sure if there’s an inch of you not covered in dirt.”

Ro checked the snit. A chance to get clean trumped throwing another tantrum. Priorities and all.

She tried not to sound too excited when she answered, “That would be great. Even some water and maybe some paper towel would be fine.”

“Oh, honey, we can do better than that. You can take a proper shower, if you’d like.”

Shower? Um, yes please.

“That would be awesome.” Because six days of wet wipe baths left a whole lot to be desired. Ro figured she had to be pretty ripe, in addition to dirt-covered.

“She can’t stand to take a shower, dumbass. What’re you thinking?” Beau said.

Undeterred, Zach responded, “So we’ll get her a chair. She can sit and shower. I mean, I know she needs to get her foot up, but that can wait ten minutes while she cleans up, right? I’ll give her a hand.”

A grunt had Zach looking toward Conan. “You need to report for fire watch. Now.”

“I don’t have watch tonight.”

“You do now. I had to ... redeploy some assets, and you’re taking Alex’s shift.”

From the mulish set of his jaw, Ro could tell that Zach wanted to argue, but for some reason he didn’t. He just tapped her cheek with two fingers and said, “Later, doll. Enjoy the shower.”

Ro was so excited about the shower she didn’t even bother to ream him for calling her doll.

Ro’s excitement turned into uncertainly in a hurry. She
really
wasn’t sure about this. Well, she was damn sure she wanted a shower. But the fact that Conan was carrying her, bride-on-wedding-night-style, across the threshold of a rough-hewn wood-sided building was ... unsettling. First the handholding, and now the picking her up and carrying her places. And when he picked her up, it was like she weighed nothing. Ro wasn’t a stick figure; she struggled to stay in a size eight, and definitely toted around ten extra pounds she could stand to lose, but Conan didn’t seem to notice.

He flipped a light switch inside the building, and it worked! He sat her on a wooden bench in a room that looked, but didn’t smell, like a high school locker room. Complete with a shower room set off to the right with showerheads attached to the walls. No curtains, no stalls, no dividers. Ro would have dwelled on this design flaw a little more, but she was still marveling at the fact that the light switch
actually worked.
Where the hell was she anyway? Neither Zach nor Conan had answered her earlier question. Ro resolved to figure it out. Right after she showered.

Conan headed back to the door.

“Stay put.”

He walked out of the building, pulling the door shut behind him. Ro took in the yellow and white tiled interior. There was a long counter top studded with sinks every few feet. A mirror, hazy and spotted around the edges, ran the length of the counter. The big lockers lining two walls of the room had cage-like doors, so she could make out the contents. It looked like they were mostly filled with clothes in the colors of the camouflage rainbow—all black, green, brown, gray, tan, or actual camo print. Except for one locker, which looked like it held ...
pink bath toys
?

A stack of white towels sat piled in the locker nearest the shower room, which was separated from the main room only by an ankle-high tiled barrier. The entrance to the shower area was at least eight feet wide. Definitely no privacy. At all.

The door opened, and Conan stepped back inside carrying a brown metal folding chair. He walked to the shower area and set it up under the showerhead that was nearest to the entrance.

How exactly was this going to work?

Without saying a word, Conan squatted at her feet and unlaced the one boot she was still wearing before pulling it off, along with the sock.

Ro was stunned that he was undressing her like a child. “I can do that. It’s fine.”

“You’ll want to lose the hoody,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. Ro pulled it over her head, but left on the t-shirt underneath. She was not stripping down in front of him. Better to make that crystal-freaking-clear right now.

“Um, you can go now. I can take it from here.”

Conan didn’t respond, but swung her up into his arms again and stepped over the divider into the shower room and sat her on the folding chair.

“Strip and toss me your clothes. You should be able to reach the shower knob from there.”

Ignoring his order, Ro replied, “I said I can take it from here. You can go now.”

“Toss me your clothes. You don’t have anything I haven’t already seen a hundred times before.”

Nice.

“Seriously—”

“Strip. Or I’ll do it for you.”

“Turn around.”

“Fine.”

Ro looked behind her to see if he complied. He had. She unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and wriggled them off. She tossed them into the locker room. Followed by her shirt. Ro reached to unhook her bra, but then stopped. Did she really want to be tossing her underwear at Conan like he was some rock star and she was a desperate groupie? Not really.
Not at all.

As if he could read her mind, Conan said, “Just toss your fucking underwear, woman. I don’t have all night to fuck around with you.”

“Then just go!” Ro shot back.

“God, you are a frustrating piece. Just fucking strip. It’s not a big deal. I’m sure you’ve been naked in front of plenty of guys.”

Asshole.
That comment stung, given Ro’s recently acquired reputation as a raging slut, but even that couldn’t dull her desire for a shower. So she went with the mature option and unhooked her bra and threw it at his head. He grabbed it off his shoulder and tossed it over to the bench. She pulled her underwear off and tossed them on the floor.

“I can take care of those. Now, could you please just go?”

“Just turn on the water, woman. I’m not going to look.”

Ro grasped the knob and twisted it to hot. She couldn’t contain the squeak that came out when the first spray of cold water hit her. To his credit, Conan didn’t budge.

“It’ll warm up fast. Try to make it snappy. We don’t like to waste the hot water.”

True to his word, the water warmed up, and Ro had to adjust the temperature to avoid being scalded.

Trying not to moan like a porn star, Ro pulled out her hair tie and leaned into the spray to get her hair wet. It. Felt. So. Good.

“How do you even have hot water? And lights that work? I haven’t seen lights anywhere else,” Ro asked.

“We were more prepared than most. Got a good system set up. Alternative sources of power. Have our own wells.” His words cut off. Like he just realized he was sharing with the enemy.

“You do know I’m not here to try to infiltrate your little camp, right? I didn’t even know it was here. And you’re the one who brought me here, against my will, I might add.”

“That’s what bait would say.”

“Whatever.” Ro wasn’t about to spend the time she could be enjoying her shower arguing with Conan. He’d probably shut off the hot water because she was taking too long, so Ro got down to business.

Hair wet, and the metal chair getting slippery and sort of uncomfortable, Ro realized she didn’t have any soap. She saw the dispenser on the wall. Bingo. Eau de commando couldn’t be that bad. At worst it would smell like that scent-masking soap her dad used to use during hunting season that made him smell like dirt. But the dispenser was a little too high for her to reach from her seated position. Ro slid forward on the chair and put her weight on her right foot and reached out for the lever on the dispenser. Jackpot. Liquid soap filled her hand. She went to sit back down, but her wet ass slipped right off the slick metal seat, sending the chair skidding back across the shower floor. Ro tried to catch herself, and couldn’t stop from putting her left foot down, the weight causing pain to shoot through her ankle. She started to fall backward, a girly shriek coming from her mouth. She braced herself for the pain that was about to be shooting up her tailbone, but before she made contact with the tile floor, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her wet, completely naked body, catching her just underneath her breasts. Ro let out another shriek, this time in surprise.

“I got you. Hold still.” Ro froze, realizing that she’d started wriggling out of his grasp, which did nothing to get her free, but instead caused his hand to shift. It now covered her left breast. Like full-on, hand over boob.