Chapter Four
Steve was instantly at Jaime's side. "What is it, Sweetheart? Pain? Are you dizzy? C'mon - we'll call Rudy." Steve swept her up to carry her into the cabin.
"Oh, relax," Jaime said, laughing. "Look." She removed her hands from her head and Steve, his eyes level with her hairline, got a good, close look at...bird poop: a huge splotch, right on her head.
"You have got to be kidding!" he said, laughing with her as he put her feet back on the ground. They looked at each other and laughed even harder until they fell into each other's arms.
"You worry too much," she told him when they'd finally caught their breath. "Seriously - I'm not that fragile!"
"I don't want anything to happen to you," Steve said, suddenly turning somber.
"Tell ya what: you can worry later. Right now I need to get this crud out of my hair. Race you to the water!"
"Jaime, just take -" she was already halfway there before he could finish his sentence "-it easy." He walked to the water's edge and watched fondly as she dove into the waves with the ease and grace of a dolphin. She bobbed underwater for a few seconds and surfaced, crud-free.
"If that's your idea of a race, Austin, you're getting soft in your old age," she giggled.
Steve mustered up his best Rudy Wells imitation: "Steve, you're in charge of my patient's well-being, and Jaime, you will cooperate."
"Yeah, yeah - I'm coming out. Party pooper."
He pointed to the blanket, still spread out in the sand. "You really do need to rest now. You've been out of the chair almost all day, and -"
A movement out toward the horizon suddenly caught his eye. As he zeroed in for a closer look, Steve's mind instantly processed what he was hoping he wouldn't see. A boat was speeding in their direction - not a lost tourist or a fishing vessel, either - and even before his mind absorbed the rifle with a telescopic sight, he was already reacting.
"Jaime, get down. In the water - NOW!"
"You just said -"
Steve didn't let her finish the thought. Instinctively, he dove toward her, pushing her underwater just as a shot rang out, shattering the peace of their paradise. He held her under for as long as he could, and when they surfaced, the boat was gone.
Jaime had head the shot, but it was incomprehensible in such an idyllic place. "What the - Oh, God, your arm!" Steve hadn't even realized he'd been hit, but a wound to his upper left arm was quickly turning the water around them an ugly shade of red. With Jaime supporting him now, instead of the other way around, they moved slowly into the cabin.
"I'm ok," Steve insisted, as Jaime put him in a chair and wrapped a towel around his arm to stop the bleeding. "I think it only grazed me. You need to rest now, and I'm gonna call Oscar."
"Hush. What I need is to look at that arm." She kept pressure on it a little longer, then began to unwrap it, dabbing gently at the wound. "You're right - it's a surface wound. No bullet in it. It's a pretty big one, though." The bullet had grazed a shallow path about six inches long, but at least it had stopped bleeding.
"Jaime, will you please sit down?"
"At this moment, Austin, I am in charge. I'll get that cleaned up and wrapped, then I will call Oscar."
"Compromise: I'll clean it while you rest for a few minutes. Then you can wrap it and we'll both call Oscar."
In response, Jaime sank into a chair and smiled weakly at him. While he was in the kitchen, still cleaning his arm, the phone rang and Jaime picked it up. "Hello," she said quietly.
"Babe, it's me."
"Oscar?"
"Jaime, is everything all right? My men just intercepted a boat they said might've taken a shot at you."
"Your men?"
"You didn't think I'd send my two top operatives, and my two favorite people, into the middle of nowhere without protection, did you?"
"I'm alright, but Steve was hit."
"I'm ok, too, Oscar," Steve insisted, from the extension in the kitchen. "Just a flesh wound, and I've got an excellent nurse."
"So now you two are the walking wounded, taking care of each other," Rudy was also on an extension. "Make sure you clean it thoroughly, wrap it up -"
"He will," Jaime answered. "I'm making sure of it. What happens now, Oscar?"
"That depends," Oscar replied. "If I can ascertain that you're completely safe, do you want to stay, or should I send a plane for you? I can have one out there by tonight."
"No!" came the voices on both island extensions.
"But how can you be sure, at this point?" Steve asked.
"Well," Oscar told them, "as soon as we hang up, I'm going to have a nice, pleasant - private - chat with Jack Hansen."
