Erp. The dry toast she’d had for breakfast in an attempt to sop up the remaining alcohol in her stomach grew into a giant loaf of bread.
“If I had to guess, and without an X-ray that’s all I’m doing,” Doc muttered. “I’d say my radius is fractured.”
Cami’s gaze locked onto his forearm and the tattoo she’d seen the night before. For RL was inked into his tan skin in black curly-cue lettering.
They’d been raiding her hotel minibar when she’d asked him what it meant. He’d waved away her question and changed the subject, letting her know without words that their little tryst didn’t include a get-to-know-you session.
“The good news is,” he continued, “that’s not bad as far as breaks go. The bad news is, there’s nothing to be done for it except to immobilize it and wait for it to heal. How about everyone else?” He glanced around the raft. “Any aches or pains?”
“No.” Mia shook her head. The tears she’d cried had left her eyes red and puffy.
“Miraculously, no,” Cami admitted when Doc leveled a look on her. “Although I lost my favorite pair of sunglasses. So that’s a pain in my ass.”
Doc ignored her sarcasm and hitched his chin toward Romeo. “You’re favoring that right leg,” he said to their pilot.
“Hit my knee on the console during the ditching.” Romeo shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Doc scooted across the bottom of the raft and felt of Romeo’s kneecap. Romeo sat stoically through the examination.
Once Doc resumed his spot at the other end of the watercraft, he declared, “It’s not broken. Just bruised.”
Cami blinked at Doc. “You can tell that just by feeling of it? I thought Doc was an honorary handle. Like the one that goes with Pepper or Dre. Like Bugs Bunny’s What’s up, Doc?”
“I’m a medic,” Doc said, and she swiveled her chin toward Romeo when she heard him snort loudly.
“Don’t let his misplaced humility fool you,” Romeo told her. “Doc got his undergraduate from Yale and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins. He was three months away from finishing his residency when he up and joined the Navy. He’s a better doctor than half the practicing physicians out there.”
Cami eyed Doc askance.
“What?” His scratchy Kiefer Sutherland voice was full of umbrage. “You thought I was just some big, dumb cowboy?”
“You’re far too quick with a comeback for me to ever mistake you for missing IQ points,” she assured him. “This look of shock on my face”—she pointed to herself—“is me trying to figure out why you would go through so much schooling and however many more years of residency to quit right before you reached the finish line.”
Doc shrugged. “Maybe I have a bad habit of not finishing what I start. Ever consider that?”
The look he sent her transported her back to the night before. To him pressing her against the door of her hotel room and kissing her until her toes curled before pulling away and going to sit on the end of the bed to take off his shoes.
Oh, yes. His deep, slow kiss had certainly made promises he hadn’t ended up keeping. But she didn’t believe for one second that he was the kind of man generally inclined to leave a task undone.
Whatever had been the catalyst for him getting drunk as a skunk the night before was the same thing that had made him do an about-face in life years earlier. She’d bet her second favorite pair of sunglasses on it.
“I don’t believe that for an instant,” she told him.
“No?” He stared at her with a lazy self-assurance she knew was meant to throw her off his scent.
Carlotta hadn’t dubbed her The Bloodhound for nothing. Cami was a dog with a bone when she knew she was right. “No.” She shook her head decisively.
“So what do you believe?”
She didn’t get the chance to respond because Mia’s soft voice floated on the warm, salty breeze. “Oh my god! Look!”
They all turned in the direction the marine archeologist pointed, and Cami had to lift her hand to shade her eyes from the sun. “Is that what I think it is?” she whispered breathlessly.
The rise and fall of the life raft made it impossible to get a good look. But it appeared as if a white line of beach came into view one second, when they rode the crest of a wave, and then disappeared from view the next, when they slid down into the watery trough.
There it is. Now it’s gone. There it is. Now it’s—
Erp. The loaf of bread in her stomach grew soggy and gained ten pounds.
“Land,” Romeo confirmed her suspicion.
Cami turned away from the white line of beach when she heard Doc digging into the first aid kit. He located the bottle of pain medication and threw two pills to the back of his throat.
“Whoa.” She made a face. “Should you be doing that?”
“Doing what?” He frowned at her.
“Taking pain pills? Don’t they thin your blood or something? What if you have a brain bleed from hitting your head?”
“Did you get your medical degree alongside your law degree?”
“No. But I’ve watched plenty of—”
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Grey’s Anatomy?” She could only blink because he’d nailed it. “Lord save me from people who think those shows bear any resemblance to real life.” He showed her the bottle of Tylenol. “Acetaminophen is okay. It’s things that contain ibuprofen, like Advil, that can increase bleeding.”
“Oh.” She nodded, satisfied. “I guess you’re okay then.”
“My medical degree thanks you for your vote of confidence.” He smirked and then started rifling through the first aid kit again. After he found a roll of ACE bandage, he slammed shut the lid and turned his attention to Romeo. “What is it?” He hitched his stubbled chin toward the glimmering strip of land. “Where is it? You got any idea?”
“Not a clue.” Romeo shook his head. “I thought I caught a glimpse of it before we went down. It’s not very big. My guess would be it’s not much more than a sandbar. Probably doesn’t even have a name, eh?”
“Still”—Doc unrolled the bandage—“I like the idea of staying put in one spot rather than drifting around at sea.”