Free The Assassin and the Girl From the Coffee Shop by Terry Towers Page A

to be silent sobs.
    Hearing him enter the room, she looked up and pushed her hair from her eyes. Her blue eyes, now red and swollen from her tears looked up and caught his. "Scott. Oh my God! I thought you said it wasn't bad." She immediately sprang to her feet and rushed over to him.
    "I didn't think it was," he admitted stumbling to the toilet and sitting on the cover. "Get the first aid kit from the bedroom, it's under the bed.”
    Nodding, she rushed from the bathroom. As he waited for her to return he managed – with some effort and lots of pain - to pull his shirt from his body so he could examine the wound. Moments later, she came rushing back falling to her knees on the floor and flipping open the lid.
    "Alright before you do anything I need you to go get a bottle of whiskey from the kitchen."
    She frowned, but instead of asking questions she did as he asked.
    "Open it," he instructed as she came back with the bottle in hand. Again she nodded and removed the top, passing it to him. He took a long swig, the alcohol burned as it slid down his throat, but because of the pain in his shoulder, he barely noticed the whiskey. "Alright, I need you to go into the first aid kit and grab the tweezers."
    She nodded; fell back down to her knees and searched the contents of the large white metal case until she came up with tweezers sealed in an airtight bag.
    He nodded to his shoulder, "I'm going to need you to take those and remove the bullet with them."
    Her mouth dropped and her face lost several shades of its color as she considered his request. He hated asking her, but he had no choice, there was no way it would have been possible for him to do it himself. "You're my only hope, Lily. Please."
    "I can't... I... What if I hurt you?" Tears began to run anew down her cheeks.
    Gritting his teeth against the pain he leaned over and cupped her cheek in his hand and then kissed her lightly. "I'll die if you don't, Lily." he admitted, sitting back up. He hated having to admit that, admit that he needed help. But there it was. He needed her more than he'd ever needed anyone in his life.
    She took a few moments to gather her composure and then nodded her head. "Okay. What exactly do I need to do?"
    He took another swig of his whiskey, explained what he needed from her and then sat back and waited for the additional pain to begin.

    ****

    Lying naked under the blankets on her side, curled up in a ball, Lily waited for Scott to join her. He was 'taking care of' the bodies. How, she didn't want to know, she would have offered to help, but by the time she was finishing sewing up his shoulder, she felt emotionally drained. So, she stripped her bloody clothing off and slipped into bed. The very thought of the dead men in the kitchen and the man she'd killed outside made her literally sick to her stomach, so Scott had insisted she lie down while he did what had to be done.
    After an hour or so of waiting she finally heard Scott re-enter the cabin and a wave of relief washed over her. All she wanted at that moment was to curl up into his arms and have him tell her everything was going to be alright, even if it was a lie.
    She listened to the sounds of his movements throughout the various rooms for close to an hour before he finally came into the bedroom. He hesitated at the bed and she could feel his eyes on her back, before he slipped in beside her.
    "I'm sorry I was so long, I had to take a bath to…"
    "I know." She didn't want to hear the remainder of what he was going to say. He had to take a bath to wash the other men’s blood from his body. One of those men being the man she'd killed. As she lay there, waiting for him to return, the thought that she'd killed a man plagued her.
    He wrapped his arms around her and she took comfort in the feel of his strong arms, hard body and musky scent of his body wash. "I killed a man, Scott."
    He kissed her shoulder. "No, you didn't, I killed him."
    She attempted to turn in his arms to face him, but