Chapter 18
Serena had no idea what she had been expecting but it was not this.
They arrived at Kiribati Island country the following day close to midday. She had a chance to look outside when the pilot announced that they were close to landing.
Somewhere along the flight, they had finally uncuffed her. Thank God, since she had felt pressed some minutes after that and simply went to the restroom without asking any of them.
Annoyed as she was with the impertinent young man, she couldn't begrudge the fact that he was genuinely worried about his brother. Though he was with the pilot at the front, he had been to the back to check on the unconscious man so much time that she stopped herself from almost telling him that he shouldn't worry so.
No, she had no business extending any assurance to him when he was the reason why she was here now. The reason why they were looking for her at home right now. Oh, Mathew would be so worried.
She deliberately took her mind off the inevitable trouble she would have with explaining herself when she got back home and focused on the unconscious man. She willed him to get up so he could tell his high-handed brother how wrong it was to kidnap someone!
There was no other world to define what he had done. She had been kidnapped!
Yet when he woke up trashing during the night, she wished her prayers had gone unanswered and he had just gone on sleeping. He strained against the harness they used to keep him in place, buckling against the restraint as his eyes flew open, looking wildly everywhere.
It had not taken Serena long before she realised that he was not seeing her. He was deep in his world. One filled with anguish if one could tell from the wild look on his face.
"Sir, calm down. You have to calm down" she tried to soothe him but it was of no use.
His brother must have heard in front because he rushed back to where they were, running so fast that Serena thought it a miracle that the plane did not simply turn over, tumbling them all into the deep sea beneath.
"Tread carefully" she called out to him with her heart in her mouth.
"What is it? What did you do to him?" he shouted at her as he crouched beside his brother. He didn't wait for her answer before calling "Cade, Cade, bro, you need to wake up. Wake up, man. This is not funny anymore" he shook his brother almost violently and that seemed to aggravate the man more. He seemed ready to claw his way out of the harness and the plane altogether.
"That is not helping" Serena whispered.
"Do you have a better way? Or you are only good at passing judgement? Do something for fuck's sake. You are supposed to be the professional"
"I am a nurse not a dream chaser, you idiot!" she yelled back. She was shocked at herself. Her actions since yesterday seemed to belong to someone else entirely but in the next moment, she was glad for it as that got him to shut up for a while.
Then she gentled her voice "He is gripped in a nightmare. Here, let me try" she moved around him and lay her hand over Kincaid's thumping chest and for the first time, she called him by his name.
With her mouth to his ear even as she tried to restrain his bulking motion so he wouldn't reopen his wound, she said "Cade, you are fine. It is fine. That can't touch you anymore, Cade. your brother is here and I am here. We…we are waiting for you to wake up. You need to rest now so you can wake up stronger and better soon. Calm down, Cade, you…"
"It seemed to be working" she heard Basset whisper and she looked back at Kincaid. Truly, his erratic heartbeat had reduced its tempo under her hand and his thrashing legs were now hanging loosely at the sides of the bed.
"That it did" she muttered and moved back from the man. His eyes seemed to fix on hers in recognition for a moment before his eyes closed and his breathing normalized.
Serena did not want to admit to herself that she had been touched by her closeness to him. The unmistakable sandalwood scent had filled her nostril but his manly clean scent? Well, it did things to her insides that she was not sure of.
It was when she wanted to move to the other side of the bed that she realised that he had his hands clamped on hers. She wanted to remove it when Basset commanded "Leave it"
She raised her eyebrows at him. That was what she get for helping him out when he couldn't do a thing about his brother's state.
He gave her a chagrined look and looked back at his brother, his voice lowered as he said "I am sorry. I mean, if that made him sleep better then can you please let him hold you like that for a while, until he sleeps deeply, I mean"
Serena reminded herself that she was a married woman and shouldn't be holding another man's hand. Unconscious or not but she only ended up nodding her head.
"Thank you," he said, looking back at his brother.
There was a look in his eyes that made Serena realise that under his bravado, there was a fear in him. The fear of losing his brother. She had no idea when she raised her free hand to his shoulder. She heard herself say "He would be fine. Don't worry so much"
He jolted from her touch and the look in his eyes was gone in an instant as he looked at her hand on his shoulder and shrugged uncomfortably "Yeah, he would be fine. He is Kincaid"
She removed her hand from his shoulder immediately, wondering what was wrong with her. Why on earth was she feeling any sympathy towards her kidnapper?
Kincaid. So that was his full name? She looked at his prone figure and decided that the name fit him.
She could feel her subconscious roll its eyes at her as it said "And you know this because?"
Basset put his hands in his pocket and hunched his shoulder. His shirt was unbuttoned and it showed the hint of the muscles he was sure to acquire in no time. Just like his brother.
Girl! She scolded herself.
"I would be upfront, just call if you need anything," he said and she nodded, wondering when they developed a camaraderie. Typical Serena. She scoffed at herself. Amara would probably be tearing out his hair by now. Gun or no gun but here she was playing Nurse Florence.
It was after he left that she realised that moisture had dampened the man, Kincaid, in a specific's spot. She pulled open the shirt and realised that he had opened his wound again in his thrashing. Damn it.
She gently removed her hand from his grasp and after telling herself that she had enough of seeing Basset's anguished face, for now, she decided to change him herself which was not as easy as it was when his cloth had been cut open. Though not tight-fitting, his cloth took a while to get off plus the fact that he seemed like a hundred pounds of dead weight.
Grunting, pulling, lifting. All while ensuring that she did not irritate his wound; she managed to clean and redress his wound and changed his cloth.
She was embarrassed beyond measure when she realised that her nipples had puckered in her bra from the way they have been rubbing against his chest while she had been trying to keep him in place by holding him against her chest while guiding his arm into the armholes.
He had felt incredibly warm for an injured, unconscious man. And she must be crazy, she said to herself as Mathew's scornful face came to her mind's eye. What would he say now?