Gellman ripped the towel away from his face and flung it at Mason before lunging for the weapon. Because the merc was closer to the pistol, he was able to get his hands around it first.
It was instinct more than anything that had Mason quickly grabbing the ends of the towel and twirling it into a rope that he used to wrap around Gellman’s forearm. One hard twist and the bones in the merc’s wrist snapped like dry twigs under combat boots.
As he howled in pain, Gellman’s hand relaxed helplessly. Only this time, instead of the pistol landing in the bottom of the boat, it hit the side of the rubber dinghy and bounced overboard.
Mason leapt, but before he could tackle the merc, Gellman tossed himself overboard too.
After the pistol? Is he crazy? He’ll never find it in the water.
Mason glanced around and quickly realized what had prompted the bastard to abandon ship. The dingy was barely ten yards from the bobbing speedboat, and the distance was closing fast.
Fuck!
Mason dove for the tiller and was able to whip it hard left. The rubber boat banged a tight U-ey, its engine showering the speedboat in propeller wash as it passed within inches of the other vessel’s hull.
“Come on, you cocksucker!” Mason throttled down, slowing the dinghy to a crawl so he could search the water for Gellman. “Show yourself!”
But he barely had time to do one quick scan of the sea around the speedboat before Doc yelled from the bank. “Mason! We need that damned dinghy! Now!”
“Fuck!” he hissed, taking another second to scan the drink for the injured merc. Then he laid on the gas and sped to shore.
It rankled to let Gellman escape. But the desperation in Doc’s call was impossible to miss. Wolf was running out of time.
Chapter 28
Thirty-six hours later
Why is hospital furniture so damn uncomfortable? Alex thought as she squirmed on the small, rock-hard love seat pushed against the far wall of Wolf’s assigned room.
As if reading her mind, Romeo, who’d been in an equally small and equally rock-hard chair positioned next to Wolf’s bed, jumped to his feet and bent side to side. “That’s it. Can’t stand sitting in that torture device a second longer. Headed to Caroline’s Café to grab some chicken wings. Anyone need anything while I’m out?”
Both Alex and Chrissy—who was in the chair on the opposite side of Wolf’s bed—shook their heads. But Wolf sat up a little straighter.
After Chrissy tenderly plumped the pillow behind his back, he said to Romeo, “Grab me some condoms. I might get lucky tonight and need protection.” He waggled his eyebrows—or rather his one good eyebrow—at Chrissy.
“Don’t confuse friendly concern for something more,” Chrissy told him with a roll of her eyes.
“Yeah.” Romeo nodded. “Plus, I think your face is protection enough.”
“That bad?” Wolf pressed a hand to the thick bandage wrapped around his head and under his chin. The entire side of his face was swollen. His left eye was so puffy, you couldn’t tell if he had eyelashes.
“It’s not that bad,” Chrissy assured him. “Once the swelling goes down, you’ll be as pretty as ever. And all the ladies will be chasing after you again.”
“Who says I want that?” Wolf pasted what passed for a scowl on his lopsided face.
“Please,” Chrissy scoffed. “Every man with a pulse wants that.”
“Not me.” Wolf shook his head and then winced like the movement hurt. Instant concern clouded Chrissy’s eyes.
The woman wasn’t fooling anyone. What she felt for Wolf went far beyond friendly concern. And that made Alex smile.
The expression felt good. It’d been a while since she’d donned it because, at many points over the last day and a half, things had been touch and go.
Despite his best efforts, Doc hadn’t been able to stanch the blood pumping from Wolf’s head. Turned out that was because the bullet that’d grazed Wolf’s skull when he turned his back on his post for five seconds to take a piss—emphasis was Wolf’s when he finally regained consciousness and could tell them the story—had sliced clean through his temporal artery.
“We have to get him to a hospital. Fast,” Doc had growled that night on the beach, his hands flying as he examined the wound.
“Let’s carry him to the floatplane,” Romeo had said, grabbing Wolf’s shoulders, only to have Doc stop him with a bloody hand on his forearm.
“No time.” Doc had jumped up to yell for Mason to bring in the dinghy, and Alex had been left with nothing to do but watch in horror while the scene in the water played out.
It’d been awful seeing Mason tussle with Gellman. Worse even than when she’d watched him take a knife to the gut, because she’d been so helpless. So completely useless to offer any assistance.
She’d dragged in a huge breath of relief when Gellman jumped overboard. But it was short-lived. Because Doc’s face had told her that while Mason had come out on top, it looked very likely that Wolf might not.
The fact was Wolf wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been for Mason. Not only had Mason raced to shore so they could pile inside the dinghy in a classic Keystone Kops free-for-all and speed around the island to the waiting floatplane, but he’d also been the one to step up to the plate to donate blood when Doc determined on the flight to Key West that Wolf wouldn’t make it otherwise.
Alex had objected to the plan, scared Mason hadn’t the blood to spare after his knife wound. But she’d soon learned it was him or no one. He was the only universal donor.
Doc had quickly set up what he termed a battlefield transfusion, and Alex had sat on the floor of the floatplane holding Mason’s hand and feeling it grow colder and clammier as the minutes ticked by and the blood he so desperately needed drained out of him and into Wolf.
Between the events on Garden Key and what’d happened with the Iranians, she’d known true fear. But nothing had terrified her more than when Mason lost consciousness and slumped beside her.
She’d screamed his name.
What happened after was nothing more than a blur of landing, loading into the waiting ambulance Romeo had called for over the plane’s communications system, and racing to the hospital where Wolf had been rushed into emergency surgery, and Mason had been laid on a gurney in the emergency room to receive two bags of blood.
Watching Mason nearly bleed out to save Wolf was the most selfless, heroic thing Alex had ever seen. And was further proof why she loved the very bones of him.
Put simply, he was the best man she’d ever known.
As if thinking of him conjured him, she heard his deep voice in the hallway. The hospital had released him this morning, and she’d tried twice to pull him aside to talk about things between them. But each time he’d claimed to need to go take care of something.