Graham nodded once and turned away from her to a locker door that read “G-MAN” in black marker on duct tape and pulled out a black t-shirt, gray hoody, gray sweatpants, and white socks.
“Here. You need help getting dressed?” He paused. “Shit, you don’t have underwear.”
“No problem,” Ro said, “I’ll just go commando. That’s what I do anyway when I’m too busy to remember to send out my …” Conan stared at her, and Ro went silent. She couldn’t believe she’d just shared that little tidbit. She just needed to shut up. Maybe forever. “Thanks again, though. I can handle it from here.”
Graham grabbed a dry shirt for himself and then turned toward the shower room so his back was to the girl. He had just about talked himself down from his hard on when she dropped the bomb about going commando. Jesus. Now all he could think about was the fact that her naked pussy was going to be rubbing all over his sweatpants. And her tits were going to be braless under his shirt. Graham was doubly glad that he’d opted to give her his clothes rather than Alex’s, the smallest of the crew. And by small, he meant the fewest inches over six feet. Graham didn’t even want to think about why that made him happy. He just needed her to hurry up and get dressed so he could bring her to the clinic, have Beau wrap her ankle up, and find an ice pack for her so he could go take care of his raging hard on. He was a man with priorities.
He heard the clothes rustling and tried not to think about it. But it was impossible. Graham forcibly turned his thoughts to the three men he had out in the field at that very moment. Graham told himself that he had only sent the team out to confirm the girl’s story. To see if she was lying about how she ended up less than a hundred yards from their fence line. But he’d already decided she was more than likely telling the truth. She was way too ... open ... or something ... to actually be a good actress. Or she was a fucking phenomenal actress and Graham was still thinking with his dick. But Graham was pretty confident. His instincts about people had always been better than average, and his six tours, four as a Recon team leader, had only sharpened them. He might act like he didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought, but Graham liked to think he had a decent handle on what people around him were thinking. Which brought him back to the real reason for sending out the team: if there was another woman not far from his backyard whose life was seriously in danger and had probably already been irrevocably damaged, Graham couldn’t ignore it … and Zach sure as hell would never let him. He knew he couldn’t save everyone, or he’d have eleven other men living on the ranch and not just nine. If he could save a life, it would at least be something. Penance, he supposed.
Graham’s attention shifted abruptly when he heard her say, “I’m all set.”
Graham turned and froze. The impact of her fresh-faced beauty was startling. She looked young, and without dirt smeared on her face, he could appreciate her smooth, ivory skin and wide dark eyes. Her dark hair was long, and Graham could tell that it would dry into a wild tumble of curls. All but drowning in his clothes, he couldn’t help but picture her naked. In his bed. She’d rolled up the sleeves of the hoody multiple times, but they still hung over her hands. She must have rolled the waistband of the sweats down, but the crotch still hung too low. Damn. She was straight up beautiful. He tried not to mentally gloat about the fact that he’d seen her naked and Zach hadn’t. Regardless of their preference for sharing, they’d always been competitive with women.
“You good to go?” Graham asked. She responded with only a nod this time, then opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again.
“What?”
“Could you hand me my clothes? I know you said something about laundry, but I’m not going to be here long enough for that.”
And there it was. The stacked and gorgeous woman, whose curves had fired his blood and whose attitude and grit had intrigued him, had no intention of sticking around. Not since his mother had walked out on him at seven years old had Graham allowed himself to get attached to a woman. And he sure as hell wouldn’t start now. Besides, it wasn’t attachment, he reasoned. She was injured, and for all intents and purposes, helpless. And even if she weren’t injured, they could not and would not send her back out into the fray alone. It was just dumb luck that he wanted her. Naked. In his bed. And if she was up for it, between him and Zach. It was just a side benefit of the situation they found themselves in. Might as well make the most of it. Nope, Graham decided, she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
How to explain her new reality without pissing her off to an incredible degree? Probably not possible. So Graham fell back on his standard M.O.—he ignored her question.
He plucked her off the bench, and when she protested, he said, “Worry about it in the morning.”
Ro was still sputtering when Conan shouldered the door to the locker room open and stepped out into the night. He strode across the camp, heading for a narrow building that had a solar light glowing next to the door.
He paused. “Open it, would you?”
Ro complied, grasping and turning the knob. Conan used his foot to push the door open and stepped inside the surprisingly well-lit room containing three sturdy-looking cots covered in crisp white sheets.
This was clearly the infirmary or clinic or whatever they called it. IV poles stood waiting for use next to the cots, and a steel instrument tray was pushed into the corner. Ro tried not to speculate about what kinds of injuries they expected to deal with that merited surgical tools.
A full complement of kitchen cabinets and countertops, complete with deep triple sinks, wrapped around two walls of the room. A closed door was visible in the far right corner. Beau sat in a leather executive chair, his boots propped up on a desk pushed up against the front wall. He put down the book he was reading when they walked in. Wait, was thatWorld War Z? Ironic.
Dropping his boots to the floor, Beau appeared to be studying Ro in Conan’s arms. Ro assumed it was out of character for Conan to be carrying women all over hell and back. Which was surprising, given his recent penchant for it.
“Drop her on the cot. I’ll wrap her up and get you an ice pack. Where you putting her tonight?”
Ro was wondering that as well. Although, all she really cared was that there was a bed. Sleeping on the ground this last week, even with her sleeping bag, had sucked. She’d gotten soft over the years. Roughing it for a week without indoor plumbing or an air mattress used to be a regular occurrence in the Callahan family.
Conan sat her down on the cot closest to the door and moved to lean up against the counter, ignoring Beau’s question. Beau rolled the chair to a cupboard and grabbed an ace bandage and rolled over to the cot. He didn’t comment on her borrowed clothes as he surveyed her swollen ankle. An ugly bluish-black bruise had formed, stretching from her heel around to the top of her foot.
“I know you think I’m full of shit, but if you start walking on this too soon, you’re going to do more damage.” Beau said this as though he knew she was going to argue with him.
“How long? Really.”
He studied her ankle. “Hard to know exactly, but you’d be better waiting a week rather than a day.”
“Two days.”
Conan chose that moment to join the conversation. “This isn’t a negotiation. You want to be hurt worse?”
“You can’t tell me that if you or one of your commandos sprained an ankle, you’d have him on bed rest for a week. That’s ridiculous.”
Conan inclined his head. “Fair point. But we’ve got crutches here that fit us and any of mycommandoswould be on desk duty until Beau gave him the all clear. Especially now. In case you haven’t noticed, little girl, everything’s changed, and it’s going to keep changing, and not for the better. You need to get smart … and quick.”
“You condescendingasshole. You think I don’t know that everything’s changed? While you’ve been hiding here in your little fortress, I’ve been out there,” Ro pointed toward the outside, “and I’ve seen it firsthand. I know it’s going to get a hell of a lot worse before it gets better. Do you think I don’t realize that? Do you think that maybe I have a damn good reason to be in a hurry to get where I’m going, and that’s why I’m trying to get there as quickly as I can? People are confused right now, and scared, and hoping someone’s coming to save them. It’s not going to be too much longer before everyone gets desperate and violent, and it’ll be survival of the fittest, or survival of the best armed and most ruthless. You better believe I’m going to be tucked away safe when that happens.” She looked toward the wall, not wanting to meet Conan or Beau’s eyes after her speech.