He’d kept his body over hers. Until long after the SUV had sped away. Annie grabbed her phone, intending to call 911. Turner’s hand stopped her. She looked at him; that’s when she saw the rapidly spreading blood.
She dropped her phone, her hands going toward the wound.
“No. Don’t call.”
Blood welled beneath her fingers. Annie pressed tighter. “We need to get you to the ER. I’ll call Jake on the way. We have to call the police.”
“We can’t. With what happened to…Daniel’s sister, I’m dealing only with Elliot or Daniel.”
She looked up at him. “You were shot. You’re bleeding. That’s not something we can hide.”
“And it’ll have to be reported.” He shook his head, a stubborn look in his blue eyes. One she had no difficulty interpreting. He wasn’t going to budge. This was a side of him she hadn’t seen before. “I think it’s just a graze.”
“You need to go to the hospital. I can’t fix this.” She could stop the bleeding, but suturing was beyond her skills. And if she missed something—she could do more harm than good. He needed Allen or Lacy or Nikkie Jean. But he was going to be just as stubborn as one of her sons. Annie just knew it. Well, she could just out-stubborn him then. “We have to get this fixed. Somehow. You need medical attention. There are arteries in your arm. You could have serious damage that I can’t fix.” If he’d been hit in the brachial, he would have already shown signs of it, Annie thought.
He stood, shooting the field around them an angry look. Annie’s gaze followed his. No one was around. They were completely alone. Before she’d been charmed by the peace of the place, now…she shivered.
“Come on. You can drive.”
She was already digging in his pocket for his keys, damn the awkwardness of the movement. “To the ER?”
He was already shaking his head. “No. Not yet. I have people I need to talk to first. Al owes me a favor. He can fix this.”
“Then come on. We’ll swing by Jacobson’s. Get him to slap on a Band-Aid. Then I’ll take you to dinner. Just the two of us, in the private dining room at the Barratt. Unless Houghton has it reserved again. He does that a lot whenever he’s trying to suck up to Mel.” He shot her what he no doubt thought was a charming grin and used a wheedling tone. Nope. Not going to happen.
She was the mother of three boys—wheedling was a part of her daily routine. Turner wasn’t going to get through her that way.
She slipped her thin shell off her arms and tied one sleeve around his arm as tightly as she could. She’d be a little chilled in the rain, but it was all she had to stop the bleeding. “You’ll need to help me pull this tight.”
“This needs to be reported.”
“I will report it. As soon as I can. I don’t want it going over the radios. I need to talk to Elliot directly.” His hand covered hers. “I’ll be ok, honey. I promise.”
“You’re going to need a shot of antibiotics and possibly tetanus. Those aren’t things Allen will have just lying around.”
“Then he’ll get it. Al’s resourceful.”
Just like that. Just say it, and it happened? It didn’t work that way in her world. Not like it apparently did in his. How could he sit there so casually? Someone could have killed them. Him. It was him they were trying to kill. Just like they’d almost killed Delancey McKellen. “It must be nice.”
“What?”
“To just speak it and have everything you want just given to you.”
It explained why he was so sure, so confident all the time. He’d never been in a position to truly doubt himself. Or his place in the world.
She was going to see that her boys were raised just like that, too.
It struck her then—it wouldn’t bother her one bit if her children grew up to be just like the man in front of her. Strong, sure, confident, charismatic, able to lead when needed. Able to love when needed.
He could have been killed tonight, right in front of her.
Annie forced the panic back. He needed medical attention, and the TSP needed to catch the persons responsible for this. Then she could fall apart and think about just what exactly he meant to her now.
“It’s convenient—that’s for sure.” He stood, not even wobbling once. The man had just been shot, for heaven’s sake.
He should have at least wobbled a little. Instead, he was as strong and confident as ever. Of course, he was; he was Turner Barratt, hero of Finley Creek. “I don’t even know where Allen Jacobson lives.”
“On Seventeenth and Ohio. There’s a condo complex there. Nice place. I considered investing in it a few years ago. I think Powell owns a portion of it.”
No doubt one month’s rent was more than her entire electric bill for a year.
It was definitely a different world Turner inhabited. What that meant for her, Annie was going to have to figure out.