waited at the trees for her to get the photo and rejoin him. Her feet dragged—not nearly as much bounce in her step as when she’d haughtily stormed his mountain—but she didn’t look so close to dropping as she had when he’d hauled her with him up the climb. “Need help?”
“No, I’m better.” Betterish, maybe. She stuffed her phone into her pocket and took the kind of deep breath a person did when about to attempt something requiring concentration.
He helped her off the first ledge-like step anyway, then let go. A few steps down and he turned to look back at her, needing reassurance she wasn’t going to fall after he’d worked her like a mule all afternoon. Her own fault, too stubborn to stop when it had got to be too much, but he’d feel bad if she got hurt because he’d let her exhaust herself. He’d never thought she’d actually pose a threat to his rule about the cabin or he’d just have put the earplugs back in. Why hadn’t that occurred to him earlier?
Was this what it would be like to let her work for him? Someone he’d always needed to keep an eye on wouldn’t be much help. As nurses were always in demand, it made them hard to get on short notice. Amanda’s opinion of Imogen counted for something, but he had to wonder if part of her support was just friendship or knowing how fast Imogen would be available. But in his experience, annoying and stubborn were easier to suffer than superior and condescending. Having her work for him might even make him look good enough by comparison that he’d become the one the patients opened up to, rather than his nurse.
His shoulder cracked against a tree, forcing him to look where he was going again. “If you need help, say something.”
“I will,” she called, her voice labored and breathy.
No, she wouldn’t. She’d set her mind on proving she could work herself half to death and suffer no ill-effects. Who could deny Wonder Woman a job?
Maybe he’d been a little premature on the insubstantial label. She was substantial enough to fight for what she wanted.
“I’m fine. It’s a little easier going down. You just have to kind of control your fall by using the trees. They’re like nature’s speed bumps.”
It was the nature’s speed bumps bit that got him. He laughed out loud, surprising himself, and lost his footing. The second time one of her quips had cost him his balance. His legs shot out from under him, and he did precisely what he’d been worried she’d do.
He fell down the mountain.
IN THE SPACE of a few seconds Wyatt traveled several yards down the mountain and was caked from hip to heel with a layer of dirt. Some time during his impromptu trip the outside of his right forearm had caught against something. It hurt.
“Wyatt!” Imogen shouted his name twice before he sat up. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” And just as soon as he finished a mental inventory of his parts and aches, he’d believe his own words.
She knelt and lifted his arm to look at the gash he knew was there.
“Wow, whatever got you must have been sharp. It opened the skin right down to the fascia. Muscle doesn’t look cut. You don’t have a scalpel in your pocket or something, do you? Open pocket knife? Broken glass?” She slid her fingers into his, keeping his arm up and stationary so she could get a better look at it. “It needs stitches.”
“Hard to conduct myself when I’m watching someone else,” he muttered. Stupid. Of course he’d have to fall in front of her. And now that her fingers were linked with his, he realized how small they were, fine-boned and delicate. How in the world had she managed to move the logs at all? Her slender fingers didn’t look strong enough to flex the stiff gloves, let alone haul timber. She may be tall, pushy and annoying, but her hands were soft. Feminine.
“Yep, you should’ve kept your eyes in front of you and let me fall if I was going to. I said I’d yell if I needed you.” Imogen wiggled her fingers free and shifted her hands to the hem of his shirt, which she tugged. “Take off your shirt. Need pressure on that and I’m not taking off mine.”
Another travesty.
“It’s not covered in mud?” He looked at himself again, shrugged and raised his arms so she could lift the shirt. Her little hands shook—just the barest tremble—as she helped him out of his shirt.
“Do I make you nervous?”
“Oh, yeah. Earlier with the chainsaw and now I’m afraid that I might ogle you, and that’s hardly professional.” She smiled at him and teased, but he recognized a bedside manner when he saw it. Her voice had changed. Her whole demeanor had changed. The words may be teasing, but the tone was sweet. Much sweeter than she’d shown him so far. Distracting him from the pain and humiliation, and doing a damned fine job of it too.
“Not that it’d be my fault,” Imogen added, helping him up. “I’m sure you spent years bench-pressing fallen trees just so you could make annoying women babble at you when you fall off mountains.” She flipped the shirt inside out and gently wrapped his arm. “Pressure here. Try not to jostle that, there’s grit and debris in the wound. You think a speck of dust in your eye hurts…bits of dirt and wood in an open wound would be torturous.”
Half an hour later Wyatt sat in the passenger seat of her ridiculous purple vehicle, instructing her through town. His little town wasn’t particularly secluded, not like the communities he drove the practice to, but it still took time to get there from the mountain. But it took no time to get through the tiny town to the large lot where his big shiny silver bus was parked.
A much better bus than Dad’s. Getting that wreck off the mountain would give him the incentive to get the cabin built. It just meant going inside first to get stuff. Pictures. Mom’s jewelry box. The family bible. Dad’s crossbow. Important stuff. The only problem? Wyatt didn’t want to go inside.
“This isn’t the hospital,” Imogen said, dragging his mind back.
“No. It’s my practice.” He popped the car door open and stepped out, closing the door again with his knee to keep the pressure on his wound. “Keys, right front pocket.”
Imogen looked at the jeans pocket and then back up at his eyes. The fact that he was standing there, shirtless and bleeding, demanding she fish around in his pocket after he’d spent the day repeatedly refusing her requests registered. “It’s locked.” And his arm hurt, but he wasn’t going to admit that. He added a word to avoid admissions. “Please.”
She crammed her hand into his pocket and retrieved the keys. “Which key?”
He indicated and she let them inside.
“Why are we wasting time here?”
“We’re here because it’s close, it has all required medical supplies, and there’s no waiting.” He followed her, bumping the lights on with his good elbow. “First exam room, you’ll find everything we need in the cabinets.”
Imogen went ahead of him, doing as he’d bid, but obviously not happy about it. “This is silly. I’ll clean it, dress it, then we’ll go to the emergency room. You cannot suture the outside of the forearm on your dominant hand. And,
