Free Driven by Fire by Anne Stuart Page A

delta just outside the city, and as he pulled up to her deceptively ramshackle building, he felt Jenny begin to stir beside him, and the tension in the car began to rise. His fault as much as hers—he couldn’t keep from baiting her. Given that his back was killing him, and he could feel the blood soaking through his shirt into the cloth upholstery of the old POS, it was lucky he could even come up with a civil word. He pulled up to the small, roughly built house and yanked the hot wires apart, effectively turning off the car.
    “This is it?” Jenny said in tones of deep distrust as she surveyed the run-down building.
    “This is it.” He climbed out of the car, hiding his instinctive grimace of pain, and went around to extract her. For a Southern woman she was fast getting out on her own, but she was leaning heavily on the open door, there were beads of sweat on her soot-stained forehead, and he knew her leg wouldn’t support her.
    “I don’t suppose this place comes with something as mundane as a pair of crutches . . . What are you doing? Oh, for God’s sake, put me down!” she cried.
    “Stop struggling and you’ll make this easier for both of us,” he said, the searing pain in his back not helping his mood.
    Dr. Gentry appeared on the rickety front porch, drying her capable brown hands on a dishtowel. “What you doing here, boy, and who is it you brought me?” she demanded, not moving from the porch.
    “Had a bit of trouble, Doc,” he said. “Building blew up.”
    “Not that big-ass fancy place in the Garden District?”
    “No, ma’am. This one’s a house.”
    “Put me the fuck down,” Jenny whispered fiercely.
    “You watch your language, girly, or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap while I’m cleaning your wound,” Doc said.
    “Doc doesn’t like cussing,” Ryder advised her. He looked back to the old woman. “Can we come in? I’d rather not take her to someplace public.”
    “You don’t look any too good yourself, Ryder. Bring that girl in and I’ll see what I can do for the both of you.”
    He expected more of an argument from Jenny, but she’d stopped fighting, and he carried her into the shack and straight into the small surgery Doc had set up, placing her on the examining table with great care. She immediately tried to scramble off.
    “You’ve been hurt too,” she said as he calmly placed her back on the table and held her there.
    “Then stop making things worse by fighting me. If Dr. Gentry thought I needed to be seen to first she’d tell you. Now sit still and shut up.”
    “I was never very good at that.”
    “Your father should have whipped your ass when you were young.”
    “He did,” she said in a flat voice, one that hinted at troubles that were none of his business.
    Doc came into the room before he had time to respond. “Now let’s see here what’s going on with that leg,” the old woman said, wearing a spotless white apron. “Matthew, honey, get that girl a pillow for her head. You just lie back, and let Doc Gentry take care of you and you’ll be right as rain.”
    The old woman’s voice was soft and crooning, almost hypnotic, working her magic, and it was no surprise that Parker lay back on the examining table, a pillow tucked beneath her head, as Doc began to cut away at the jeans. She started to protest, then she must have remembered they weren’t her jeans, and she closed her eyes.
    “That’s right, baby,” Doc crooned. “Just relax. I know just how to take care of you.”
    Ryder had every intention of keeping out of Parker’s way, pain in the butt that she was, but apparently Dr. Gentry had other ideas. “Come and hold her hands, Matthew. Make yourself useful.”
    “I don’t . . .” Jenny began.
    “I’ll tell you what you need,” Doc said sternly, and Jenny subsided.
    Ryder came forward and took her unwilling hands in his. He knew he must look just as battered and soot-stained as she was. Her hands were small in his big paws, he