by Dana Fraser
“What blood type are you, Hannah,” Eleanor yelled.
“O Negative,” Hannah yelled back, wrestling with Ellis as he resisted her attempt at disrobing him.
“Thank you, Lord Jesus,” Eleanor shouted. “Samson, go help Hannah’s brother get out of those wet clothes. Hannah, I need you now if you want Cash to live.”
“Don’t fight Samson,” Hannah called over her shoulder, running out of the room as Samson ran in.
“Sit,” Eleanor ordered, pointing at the chair. “You are a godsend, dear girl.”
Hannah didn’t argue, but she couldn’t help thinking that Cash wouldn’t be so close to dying if he hadn’t spent the last few weeks keeping her and Ellis alive. She’d give him every last drop of blood in her body if that’s what it took.
“Tonya,” Eleanor barked. “That boy needs blankets around him except for his face, everything else covered. Pour him some of that hot tea Marie started and tell your brother to snuggle up to him, then get back to me.”
Tonya shot down the hall to execute Eleanor’s orders.
A small, barely masculine voice whispered from the edge of the hallway. “There’s a puppy, Nana Nori.”
“You and your sister take care of the puppy,” Eleanor said, her gaze never leaving her work, her focus laser sharp as she ran the IV line between Hannah and Cash. “Tell Gabby to get some water for it. We’ll see about food in a while. Now let me work, child.”
Hannah studied the woman’s face and recognized the expression. Eleanor Bishop was in the same fugue state Hannah fell into while researching. Until she finished saving — or losing — her son, Eleanor wouldn’t feel pain or fatigue, wouldn’t feel hunger, would know no fear despite how much the loss would mean to her if she failed.
“Squeeze until I tell you to stop.” Eleanor placed a rubber ball in Hannah’s hand then looked at Marie. “Keep an eye on her until Tonya finishes with the boy. She’s small and I don’t imagine they’ve been eating well since the power went out, so anything more than one unit is going to cause problems.”
“Your brother, Hannah…” Peeling back the Insta-Clot bandage, Eleanor paused. “Is he O negative, too?”
“B something,” Hannah answered. “We aren’t blood relatives.”
Eleanor nodded. “Cash and Marie are, but their blood is different. He has his father’s type and she has mine. It’s a miracle you’re here to donate.”
Falling silent, Hannah did the only thing beyond bleeding into a tube that was left for her to do.
She prayed.
Adding a fresh log to the fireplace, Hannah moved to the chair alongside the bed that had been brought out for Cash.
For five days, the entire homestead had played musical mattresses. The singles from Gabby and Jace’s room were being used by the two patients, Cash and Genevieve, in the living room where the house was warmest. Hannah and Ellis shared the bed in Cash’s room. Tonya and Samson shared the one in Marie’s room and Marie and Eleanor slept in Eleanor’s bed with Jace and Gabby on cots in the room — although both children, as often as not, crawled up onto the bed with their mother and grandmother, bringing Grub with them.
Cash was heeling quicker than expected, but his left lung complicated his recovery. A coughing fit erupted every time he insisted on getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom instead of being reasonable and using the bed pan.
Genevieve, on the opposite side of the living room, wasn’t much better than she had been the night Hannah killed Banker Lee.
Buckshot had penetrated Genevieve’s shoulder and stomach area and the bastard who’d shot her had only permitted Eleanor to do so much. Then he had taken pleasure in opening the woman’s wounds back up. She was starting to sit up with help during the day, but, at night, Eleanor had her on the prescription painkillers the doctors gave Eleanor because of her leg.
Talk about prepping, Hannah thought with a smile. Eleanor Bishop had been telling her doctors bald-faced lies to get the prescriptions. Well, maybe not lies. But, as much pain as there really was from wearing the prosthetic and the way it affected her back and hips, she was too stoic to pop pills. That hadn’t kept her from realizing that the day might come when her family couldn’t get any painkillers. So she had stocked up after discovering her doctor would hand the pills out like they were candy and he was some kind of walking, talking Pez dispenser.
Seeing that the blanket had crawled down Cash’s chest, she leaned forward and tucked it up around his shoulders.
Both he and Ellis had hypothermia when they were brought to the homestead. Ellis had been able to shake off the effects within a few hours and the symptoms of his concussion after a few more days. Cash had required a warm body beside him the first seventy-two hours, the compounded trauma from the rifle wound and surgery too much for his body to warm him on its own.
Hannah hadn’t been one of the bodies. Eleanor, Marie and Samson had taken turns.
She didn’t understand why she hadn’t volunteered or why no one had asked. Hannah wasn’t at all sure about her place on the homestead. With everything in the house so crowded, Ellis had already marked off some trees for cutting down and building a single room, dirt floor cabin for the two of them.
Staring past the man who had saved her life so many times, she gazed at the fire and chewed at one uneven fingernail.
“You thinking hard or just hungry?” Cash teased, his voice drowsy and the blanket halfway down his torso once more.
Frowning, she didn’t reply, but pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. He didn’t feel hot. For both Cash and Genevieve, the main worry had become infection. Eleanor had some pills for that, too, but was using herbal remedies until there were actual signs of a problem.
“Don’t worry, little nurse, I don’t have a fever,” he promised.
“Do you need anything?”
He stared at her, his eyes communicating a need he seemed reluctant to name.
“Water?” she asked, keeping her voice low even though she could have pounded on Eleanor’s stew pot with the ladle without waking Genevieve.
His lips slid across one another in a restless pattern. Hannah tilted her head and scowled.
“Should I wake your mother so you can tell her what you need?”
“Good Lord, woman,” he laughed before a cough overtook him. When he was done and had caught his breath, he shook his head. “That’s the last thing you should do.”
Hannah didn’t understand, but she was happy to see a smile on his face. He’d been quiet since waking after the surgery. He hadn’t said more than a few words at a time to anyone because of the coughing. But whenever she looked away then looked back, she found his gaze on her.
“Then tell me,” she prodded, wishing he was well enough she could shake the answer out of him.
“I’m not on my feet yet.” Pausing, he chewed at one corner of his bottom lip. “And I’m not one for accumulating debt…”
Taming the growing urge to shake him, Hannah tucked her hands between her knees then lifted her brows in an attempt to speed him up.
He chuckled, which lead to another coughing fit.
Hannah poured him a glass of water but he waved it off.
“What I’m trying to say, Dr. Carter, is I was hoping to get an advance on some of those kisses.”
She stared, her mind blank for a moment and then her words came back to her.
You’ll get your kisses when you’re on your feet, soldier, not your back.
Her gaze going instantly wet and her throat knotting up, Hannah shook her head and leaned forward.
Cash pulled back before she could make contact. Easing to the far edge of the narrow mattress, he pulled his blanket back with one hand, his gaze expectant as he watched her.
With a peek over her shoulder to ensure Genevieve remained asleep, Hannah crawled into bed with Cash.
“You shouldn’t put weight on that side,” she cautioned as he rolled toward her, his wounded shoulder pressing into the mattress.
; “Are you trying to get out of kissing me, Hannah?” he teased.
She shook her head, too many thoughts running through her mind for her to voice just one.
“Good, then come a little closer.”
She moved as near to him as she dared, less than an inch of space separating them. With his good arm, Cash curled his palm against her cheek, holding her still as he pressed his lips against hers.
So simple, almost chaste, but her toes curled at the contact. Lips parting, Hannah breathed her need for more into Cash’s mouth. He responded with the slide of his tongue against her teeth.
She pulled back, her palm pressing lightly against his uninjured shoulder.
“You shouldn’t…” she started, voice shaking with the same vibrations that ran through her hand. “We shouldn’t.”
Eyes drifting shut, Cash analyzed the rejection. He chewed over her words, her touch, the flare of heat in her body.
“I’m not asking if we should,” he said, looking at her beautiful face once more. Placing his hand on Hannah’s hip, he tugged her closer, erasing the distance she had just opened up between them.
“I’m asking if I may.”
“May you what?”
Damn, she sounded so sexy with her voice shaking like that. Her face was killing him, too. Firelight played softly over her features and illuminated the quivering mouth.
For weeks he’d wanted to touch her.
Keeping her and Ellis safe had come first, though. And if she hadn’t wanted him touching her out on the road, even mild flirtation on his part might have driven her away from him and straight toward danger.
But he’d heard her words in the boat when she thought he was dying.
“I would have noticed you,” he said. “Whether you were up there in your lab or pouring coffee at a truck stop. I would have noticed you, Hannah.”
“You heard that?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he answered, the muscles in his chest squeezing at both the good lung and the bad one so that he could barely get his question out. “Did you mean it?”
Tears flooded her gaze and she nodded.
“Then may I?” he repeated. “May I kiss you? May I touch you?”
Another nod, her mouth stretched in a wide smile even as she cried fresh tears.
Reaching behind her head, he laced his fingers into the short blond hair and pulled her face to his. He started the kiss over, brushing his lips softly against hers until she yielded with a soft parting and his tongue slid in. His hand moved to her neck, gently rubbing at the flesh, his fingers sometimes lightly scraping, each drag of his nails like a magnet drawing her deeper into the kiss.
They parted, each of them catching their breath. Too much adrenaline fueled Cash’s body for him to lapse into another coughing fit. Mouths fastening once more, he slid his hand to cover Hannah’s breast, the fit perfect and eliciting a soft moan from her that echoed in his mouth.
Her fingertips touched his cheek and then she pulled back, her protests revived.
“You’re not healed up, enou—”
A light pinch of her nipple ended her capacity for speech.
“Let me worry about how healed I am,” he rasped, his hand sliding lower. “I want you on your back.”
Her instant obedience brought a fresh surge of hot blood through the parts of him that had hardened at the first touch of their lips.
Claiming her mouth for another kiss, he snaked his hand down her belly and beneath the pajama pants his sister had given her. Finding no underwear, a vigorous grin twisted the corners of Cash’s mouth.
Hannah was right that he wasn’t healed enough for everything he wanted to do. He still hurt too bad to take his own relief. But he wanted to make her climax, to know what she looked like at that moment of release. He wanted to gaze on her face and see the divine beauty of a woman lost in pleasure.
His woman lost in pleasure.
Cash worked the slick folds and stiff button they shielded, stroking and pinching until Hannah breath caught in her throat and she bit at her bottom lip to hold back the scream or moan that would wake the entire house. He captured her mouth again, stroked his tongue against hers with the same gentle, relentless will that guided his fingers on and in her.
Her hips crested and he felt the vibrations of her climax before she collapsed against the mattress, her body limp and flooding with endorphins. With his lips brushing against her cheek, he smiled.
For Cash Bishop, having Hannah beside him was the perfect end to his long haul home.
DON’T LET THE SERIES STOP HERE! THERE ARE PLENTY OF ADVENTURES LEFT IN THIS NEW WORLD. IF YOU WANT THE STORY TO CONTINUE, MAKE IT HAPPEN! LEAVE A REVIEW, SPREAD THE SERIES’ PAGE LINK AND SIGN UP AT DANAFRASER.COM/ALERTS TO FIND OUT WHEN THE WORD-OF-MOUTH YOU HAVE SO GENEROUSLY GENERATED PAYS OFF WITH A NEW RELEASE!
Copyright © 2016 by Dana Fraser
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