The Judas Relic: An Evangeline Heart Holiday Adventure by A.K. Alexander, Jen Greyson Page A

to keep him upright. “Come on, Clay. Don’t be such a baby.” I looked back at Anna. “You, don’t want him on the sofa. He’s bleeding. I need to stitch him up.”
    “Dining room. The bench,” she said.
    He growled and straightened a few inches, picking his feet up as we moved closer to the kitchen. I didn’t remember seeing a bench in the dining room when I’d been here last, but as we came out of the long hallway into the room at the back of the house, I was pleasantly surprised to see it looking normal and not crammed to the ceiling with boxes and papers.
    “I did a little cleaning up once you said you were coming,” Anna said from behind us.
    Thank god. Stitching Clay and giving him a place to rest his head in a narrow trench of Ralph’s life would have been tough. This improved my outlook drastically. She helped me get him onto the bench and I held his head as he swiveled around and lay back. “I’ve got you.”
    His fingers reached for me and I let him settle them around the back of my knee. Anna hurried off toward the sink to get cloths.  
    “I’ll need something to sew him up too.”
    “I have just the thing.” She tossed me a stack of towels and I set them on the floor next to him.  
    “Okay,” I said, “this is going to suck. A lot.”
    He grimaced and tried to shift and sit up but I put three fingers on his forehead and held him down. “Stay put.”
    “Either kill me or fix me. Can you get me a shot of something?” His eyes focused on Anna.”
    “I have just the thing.” She went to the cupboard and took out a bottle of brandy and started to fill a shot glass.
    “Just bring me the bottle,” Clay said.
    She did and he took a big swig. “Okay.” He sighed and looked at me.
    I unraveled the makeshift dressing I’d put on him.
    “Make it look pretty,” he said.
    He still had his sense of humor, and that was good. Once he lost that, I was in deep shit. But I also knew that if I could get him stitched up, we’d be fine. He hadn’t lost much blood before I’d gotten him patched, but the pain was not helping and I needed to get him stitched.
    Anna brought me a full military medical kit and I grasped both her arms and kissed her cheek. “Bless you.”
    “Tell me what to do and I’ll help, dear.”
    Ralph announce his entrance into the room as he tapped his cane on the wood floor and grinned, his white hair flying wildly around his head with wiry eyebrows to match. “How was your trip?” he asked. “Good I hope. Supposed to get a nor’easter in through tomorrow, but not for a day or two. Glad you made it. Christmas in two days! I love Christmas!” He crossed the room until his failing eyesight figured out what was going on.  
    I patted his arm. “Hey, Ralph. We’ve got a situation here.”
    “I say.” He peered closer to Clay’s face. “I told you not to piss her off.”
    Clay laughed and it turned into a guttural growl. I let Ralph distract him while I ordered Anna around and cut away Clay’s tuxedo shirt. The blood had dried and crusted, which was good, but as I peeled away the fabric, it reopened most of the wound. Anna was a doll and took away all the mess as I got it off him, cleaned it up, and stitched him closed.
    More than a few strings of curses flew from him, interrupting Ralph’s storytelling, but Clay handled it like a champ. At the end, I shot him with morphine that I’d found in the kit and wiped my hands on one of the damp, clean towels Anna had brought over. He could use the rest for his head—both from the worrying and the concussion.  
    “You could have found the morphine before you sewed me up!”
    I straightened and stretched, then looked at the war zone we’d made of Anna’s clean kitchen. “I’m so sorry,” I said sheepishly, but I was speaking to Anna.
    “Don’t be sorry,” Anna said. “I would always prefer that you come here with such situations.” She glanced at Ralph. “We’ve seen our share of things, and I can usually fix