Page 42 of Reckless Woman
“Like you sharing my name, my life, a house on a fucking hill with ‘The Graysons’ stamped all over the mail box.”
What about your child growing inside of me?
As if sensing my question, he drops my hair and steps away to remove his jeans. His movements are slow and deliberate, and soon I see why. There’s a deep laceration on his thigh. It’s at least six inches long, with splashes of dried blood and purple and yellow staining the edges. Neat stitches have been sewn into the swollen skin, except on one small section where the wound is a gaping hole of tissue.
He doesn’t need a doctor. He needs a hospital
“Look away if you’re squeamish.” He sits down on the side of the bed and unscrews the bottle of vodka. Taking several deep swigs, he pours the rest over his thigh. “Motherfucker,” he hisses, scrunching up his face in pain.
I watch the streams converge and drip down his leg before I’m snatching the bottle out of his hand. “Here, let me do it.”
Running into the bathroom, I grab a couple of clean towels, and then I kneel down in front of him to mop up the worst of the spillage. Next, I pour a generous amount of vodka onto one of the towels. Trying not to throw up, I dab at the wound, cleaning it as much as I can.
“How are you not flinching?”
“This isn’t my first pain rodeo, sweetheart,” he says through gritted teeth as he shrugs out of his shirt, temporarily distracting me.
“Eve said she saw you take a bullet when Dante’s brother kidnapped her. Then there’s the time Vi shot you—exactly how much lead is in your body, Joseph Grayson?”
When he doesn’t answer, I graze a trail across his sun-kissed skin, noting the fierce tribal tattoos on his chest, the numerous bullet hole scars, the vicious white welt across his stomach…it’s a map of endurance for a road less traveled through a dark and dangerous land.
“How did you get that?” I point to a jagged scar just above his hip.
“Shrapnel. Afghanistan.”
“Was it a bomb?”
“A bomb that caused a road crash.”
“What happened?”
“They held us captive for thirty days.”
My head jerks up. “You and Santiago?”
He grabs the half-empty bottle of vodka from the floor and nods. I watch him take another couple of swigs. He’s staring straight at the wall, like he’s fighting memories in his head.
“Did they torture you?”
“Well, we didn’t sit around all day playing cards with one another.”
There’s a note of bitterness in his voice. And pain.So much pain.
“Is that when he asked you to work for him?” I remove the bloody towel from his thigh and examine the wound. It’s smoother now. Neater. All the crustiness has gone.
There’s a pause. “That came afterward.”
Sitting back on my haunches, I reach for the medikit.
“You sure you want to do this, Anna?” His gray-blues are burning a hole in my face again.
“Something tells me this won’t be the only time I see you shot, stabbed or roughed up.” I say wearily. “Just tell me what to do.”
Tell me how to heal you, Joseph Grayson.
“There’s no needle driver in the kit. You’ll have to thread it yourself.”
“Roots suturing. Awesome.” I hold out my hands and he splashes neat vodka all over them. “Who did this?” I ask, leaning over the wound to inspect the stitches. “It’s really tidy.”