like a stuck pig. Let me go get some first aid supplies and take care of it for you.” She pressed the shirt back down. “Hold this and don’t move.”
“Yes, ma’am.” A grin darted across his face then disappeared just as fast.
The way he said yes, ma’am caused a little hitch in her step, a catch in her breath. She forgot all those very good reasons why she wasn’t attracted to him anymore. Damn.
She hurried into Grandpa’s house, raided his medicine chest for some supplies, then went back outside. True to his word, Jack had stayed in the exact same spot. She uncoiled the hose and brought it over to him, then turned the knob and waited for a steady stream of cool water. “Here. We need to wash it out first.”
The instant the water hit his hand, Jack let out a yelp and pulled away. She smirked. “Are you going to tell me that a man who has fought in one of the most dangerous places in the world is afraid of a little water?”
“Hey, it stings like hell.”
She made a face at him. “Come on, buttercup, suck it up.”
“Okay. Just make it quick and try not to amputate my hand, Florence Nightingale.”
She dried his palm with a clean towel, then had Jack hold pressure on the wound. “I’ll have you know I got my first aid badge in Girl Scouts. On the second try.”
He chuckled. “That gives me comfort.”
“I can handle this. But if you break your leg, you’re on your own.”
“Hey, I can fashion a splint out of two twigs and a piece of ivy, so I should be good to go.”
She smiled, looked up at him, and in that moment, they were teenagers sitting by the banks of the creek, and Jack was doing his best to dry her tears and pull off a miracle with a handmade bandage. His hands that day had been careful and steady, the kind that told her anything she put in his grasp would be safe and cared for. “You remember that baby bird?”
A tiny robin that had fallen from its nest. Probably part of its momma’s attempt to get her little one to fly, to be independent, but in the process, the tiny thing had injured a wing and flapped in a panicked circle on the ground. Meri had gone to the only person she knew who could make everything right—Jack.
“I remember you finding it, and coming to me with tears streaming down your face, begging me to fix it.” He reached up his free hand and brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead. Her skin seemed to melt where he touched her, and she swayed a little in his direction. The world dropped away. All she saw was Jack’s blue eyes. All she heard was the steady rise and fall of his breath, the soft murmur of his deep voice. “You were always trying to save lost causes, Meri.”
Lost causes. Oh, how she knew about those. She was smarter now, no longer that foolish girl who believed in fairy tales.
“Not anymore,” she said, then looked away, back at his hand, blinking away the tears that sprang to her eyes. She cleared her throat, then pulled the rag from his hand to squeeze a little antibiotic cream on the wound. “Stay still, Jack.”
His large, strong hand was warm against hers, solid. She wanted to study the lines and muscles, to feel the touch of those confident palms against her skin. A long time ago, Jack’s hands had touched her, made her sigh and moan and almost want to cry with anticipation. Damn. All that from a memory of a wounded baby bird?
“Uh...let me put a couple bandages on this. With some, um...” She held up the supplies beside her. “Um...”
“Tape?”
“Yeah, tape.” She pressed a gauze pad onto his wound, then let go of his hand to tear off long strips of tape. She wrapped them around to the back of his hand, crisscrossing the gauze to hold it in place. “There you go. Almost as good as new.”
“I’ll never be good as new again. Too many scars.” He had a smile on his face, but it didn’t hold in his eyes, and for the hundredth time since she’d run into him, Meri saw that other edge to Jack, the edge that she didn’t know, or recognize.
“We should get to the store,” she said, releasing his hand and gathering the supplies before she gave in to the temptation to ask Jack what was brewing behind those blue eyes and why she cared so much. “Before anyone gets hurt again.”
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