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was subdued now, and blood dripped from one nostril. She hadn’t hit him hard enough to break his nose. Indeed, she hadn’t knocked him out, only stunned him. She’d have to work quickly before he took it into his head to fight off her good intentions again.
    She carefully moved his injured arm flat on his lap and pushed up his sleeve to examine it. The bone looked fairly straight, though it was hard to tell from the swelling. She ran her fingertips gently and swiftly along the edges of his forearm to check for breaks.
    Nothing poked through the flesh, so it wasn’t too serious. But halfway between his elbow and his wrist, there was a bulge where the bone had cracked and slipped sideways. She’d have to pull it and put it back into alignment.
    Why she was showing him any kindness, she didn’t know. Maybe it was because he’d lost his wife and children. Maybe it was because he was alone, abandoned, a castaway like her. Maybe it was the way he’d kissed her last night.
    He was coming around again, sniffing back the blood trickling from his nose. She’d have to move fast. Seizing his thick wrist in both her hands, she thrust her foot against the inside of his elbow and pulled hard.
    He bellowed, but he must have understood what she was doing. His right hand was free, and he could have flattened her with one punch. Instead, he pounded the floor with his fist.
    She let go of him then and backed away. She wasn’t sure what black words he spat out, for they were in his own tongue. But the rafters rang with his curses, and Kimbery couldn’t resist the urge to peek around the corner at the great roaring beast.
    “Mama, what are you—“
    “Go!” they shouted simultaneously, and Kimbery disappeared at once.
    The Northman was huffing like a wounded wolf now, and she realized he was just as dangerous. She’d set his arm. And now he might well be able to use it.
    She armed herself with the fireplace poker, ready to jab him at a moment’s notice. But he didn’t seem inclined to aggression. His legs were bound. His upper arms were secure. The leash was still in place. He couldn’t go anywhere.
    “The break should heal properly now, but you’ll need a splint. Move,” she said, showing him the poker, “and I’ll break your other arm.”
    Luckily she had a choice selection of driftwood just outside. Leaving the door open, she ducked out, quickly chose two fairly straight sticks, and brought them in, thinking all the while she must be mad. Mending a Viking invader made as much sense as sewing up a deer she’d shot for supper.
    She rummaged in the small chest at the hearth and found a linen underdress that had grown too small for Kimbery. She ripped it into strips to use for binding. “Do I need to give you opium again to keep you calm?”
    “Nay,” he growled.
    She still didn’t trust him. “Then heed me well, Northman. Make one false move, and I’ll unset your arm again as fast as I set it.”
    He let her splint his arm, but it proved almost as much an ordeal for her as it was for him. It felt wrong, touching him. His arm looked foreign and forbidding with its massive muscle and sprinkling of light golden hair. His tawny skin was hot beneath her fingers, as if it radiated sunlight, and her own flesh grew warm from the contact. She was close enough to feel his breath, and her pulse quickened as she remembered the pleasant sensation of his lips on hers. The kiss had been so unexpectedly gentle coming from a brutal Northman.
    But she couldn’t afford to be gulled by his tenderness. Besides, he looked anything but tender today. An angry furrow lodged between his brows. The corners of his mouth turned down. And his hands looked enormous and threatening beside hers. A man like him could grasp her neck in one fist and squeeze the life out of her before she could blink.
    Fortunately, he didn’t.
    She managed to tie off the splint and then bound his wrists together again with rope. Satisfied with her work, she backed