Page 51 of Damned
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kruze woke up to a small but crackling fire, the heat from it soothing. The second he stretched, he remembered that damned loose screwdriver. He had no choice, but the reminder was excruciatingly humbling. A loose tool in a plane, for fuck’s sake. Damn that Bruce. He should’ve put it where it belonged, not left it laying around in a plane where—
“Hey. You’re awake,” Bree said softly, interrupting his mental rant.
“Umm, yeah,” Kruze replied as he struggled to sit, then pushed his back against the tree behind him when moving became too painful. One of the blankets from his plane now covered his legs. That was thoughtful. Fisting the top corner, he tugged it up over his—jacket?
He blinked, trying to remember why he was wearing his jacket, and how he’d gotten into it. Not to mention how he’d come to be in the forest with Bree, instead of on the rocky edge of the river. He came up with a whole lot of nothing. Chagrined, he swiped a hand over his forehead, combing his hair back, not remembering anything but a desperate need to get Bree out of the burning plane. Stacks of supplies that could only have come from the plane caught his eye. If those supplies were here—
“You went back into my plane,” he accused.
“I did what I had to do. We crashed,” she explained, her voice still soft. “Now we survive.”
Kruze wanted to chew her out for risking her life, but she was so calm. Which meant she was probably dead tired, because, yeah. All by her petite, little self, Bree had gotten those suppliesandhim out of a burning plane. He couldn’t fathom the challenge that must’ve been. A big man like him couldn’t stay angry with the fierce, little woman who’d saved his life.
He swallowed his ego and asked, “What’d I do, pass out?”
Bree nodded, sitting there on the other side of the fire, another blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her arms around her knees. “I think you hit your head when we crashed. You might have a concussion, I’m not sure.”
“Were you hurt? Burned?”
“No, just you.” Man, she was dirty, her face smudged with soot, her long hair wound into a tight braid over her shoulder. “How are you feeling? That hole in your side’s pretty deep. Does it hurt much?”
He inhaled a shallow but cleansing breath of cool, pine-scented air, not sure how to reply. Most guys would’ve just said‘good’at this point, but Bree knew better. Kruze scraped his teeth over his bottom lip and went for broke. “Thanks for doctoring me. Guess I’m tired, mostly. Worn out, like you. My side hurts, yeah, and breathing’s tight. Moving’s a bitch.” Which was why he was still over here, and she was all the way over there.
A sad shadow flittered over Bree’s tired face. “I’ll bet it is. That screwdriver was stuck pretty good. I was afraid it might’ve lanced your intestines or kidneys, so let me know if there’s blood in your pee, you know, when you have to, umm, go. I cleaned the wound as good as I could, and I rebandaged it better once I found your first-aid supplies. But we’ll have to keep a close watch on it. Already gave you a five-hundred-milligram dose of antibiotic. You need another dose in twelve hours. The pill bottle’s in the right inner pocket of your jacket.”
Kruze cocked his head at the amazing woman sitting too far away from him. He cast a quick look over the supplies stacked beside and behind her. “You’ve been busy.”
“It has been a crazy day.”
“How’s my plane? Anything left of it?”
She shook her head. “It’s mostly gone, Kruze. I’m sorry. It pretty much melted where it crashed.” She tipped to one side, letting him see past her to the glowing rubble at the edge of the river, all that was left of an older plane that had been a helluva good buddy.
“Well, damn. Guess you win some, you lose some.”
“I kept waiting for it to blow up, like in the movies. Where were its fuel tanks anyway?”
“In the wings, but I dumped the fuel once I knew we were going down. There wasn’t much left to burn.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Wish I’d known that. I might’ve been able to salvage a few more things.”
“No. Going back into burning planes is never a good idea. It was dangerous and foolish, Bree.” He kept his tone even. “You mean more than anything you salvaged. Don’t do it again.”
“You say that now, but you needed those medical supplies, and I wasn’t going to just sit around and watch you die. What do you think happened to your plane? Why’d we crash?”
He shook his head, aggravated that someone had gotten the best of him. “Both engines flamed out. I’ve had one die on me before, but two at the same time means someone tried to kill me.”
“Or me.”
“I find that hard to believe. Nobody knew you were flying out with me today.”
“Are you sure?”
Kruze cocked a closer look at Bree. He was missing something. “Why do you say that?”
She scrubbed both palms up her arms. “That telemarketer knew my name. He specifically asked for Brianna Banks, not the lady of the house, and he knew I was a reporter.”
