to anything. But it just makes sense that giving one to a person and an animal are totally different things.”
She heard a certain shrill nervousness in her voice.
In contrast, his was low and calm. “Don’t worry, Amy, I’m not going to hurt you.”
“On purpose,” she said. “You might by accident.”
He glanced up at her sharply. She had a woozy sense of not being at all sure they were still talking about the needle.
“I’ll try not to.”
No promises, she noticed.
He picked up the scissors, item number five, cut the gauze wrap. She glanced over at the table. He was nearly done.
He picked up the little metal clips, item number six, pulled the end of the gauze wrap firm on top of her wrist and inserted the teeth of the clips into the thickest place on the gauze. He gave his handiwork a satisfied pat.
“You can’t just give a person penicillin,” she said, staring at what remained in his neat lineup on the table—number seven, the syringe and needle. “You need a prescription for it!”
“Okay.”
She eyed him suspiciously. He seemed to acquiesce just a little too easily. She watched narrowly as he methodically repacked the first aid kit. He picked it up, and almost as an afterthought, picked up the huge needle and syringe. He stowed them all back in the cupboard above the fridge.
“Oh!” she said, and let out a huge breath of relief. “You never planned on using the needle! You scared me on purpose.”
“Dressing a burn hurts like hell. I prefer to think of it as a distraction,” he said, and then he smiled.
His smile was absolutely devastating. It took him from stern and formidable to boyishly charming in a blink.
She looked down at her hand. He had distracted her on purpose, and she honestly didn’t know if she was grateful or annoyed by how gullible she was, but the smile made it impossible to be annoyed with him no matter how annoyed she was at herself.
And she realized the syringe and needle had indeed been a distraction. But that distraction had existed in the background. In the foreground had been the exquisiteness of his touch, his strength so tempered by gentleness, that pleasure and pain had become merged into a third sensation altogether.
And that third sensation scorched through her, more powerfully than the burn.
It was desire.
She wanted to kiss him again. Harder this time. Longer.
She had to get away from here. She was just in the baby stages of getting her life back in order. This was no time for kissing and all the complications that kissing could bring.
She’d known this man less than twenty-four hours. What was she thinking? The truth? She wasn’t thinking at all. She was falling under some kind of spell, an enchantment that had been deepened by tasting him, and then by the drugging sensuality of his easy smile.
He had a tea towel in his hand now. “Sorry. I don’t have a real sling. I’ll improvise with this.”
“I don’t need a sling!” Imagine how close to her he’d have to get to put that on!
“It’ll be better if we immobilize your hand. If we don’t, you’ll be surprised by how often you want to use it. You could just try it for today.”
“But I won’t be able to drive if my arm is in a sling.”
His gaze slid away from her before he turned back, opened his palm and held out two white pills.
“You generally need a prescription for these, too. We’re a long way from an emergency ward here. We take some liberties.”
“I really won’t be able to drive if I take those.” Or, she added to herself, keep my head about me.
“No, you won’t.”
“Then I’d better not.”
“Ah, well, there’s something I have to tell you. The driveway isn’t passable. I’m going to turn on the radio and see what the roads are like, not that it really matters if you can’t get out of the driveway.” He glanced to the window. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s snowing again.”
Her eyes drifted to the window. Snowing again was an understatement. The window looked as if it had been washed with white paint, the snow beyond it was so thick light could barely penetrate. She felt panic surge in her.
This terrible wave of affection had been building in her since he had changed Jamey. Shamefully, it had grown even more when he’d said he disliked her husband.
That sensation of someone having her back had deepened the emotion she was feeling for him.
And now that he had dressed her hand so gently, with such skill, distracting her from the pain, she felt a terrible danger from the desire that was beating like a steady pulse at the core of her being.
“You can’t possibly mean I can’t get out of here!” She knew she was saying it like it was his fault. She knew it wasn’t.
His silence was answer.
“But for how long?” she asked, her voice shrill with desperation.
“It won’t be long,” he said in a tone one might use trying to divert a small child from having a temper tantrum. She was done with his diversions.
“That isn’t a real answer.”
“I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t have a real answer.”
“If you were going to guess?” she pressed him.
He hesitated. “I’d say tomorrow. If it stops snowing in the next hour or so I can get the driveway plowed by then. I’ll put on the radio and get the weather forecast.”
“I’m trapped,” she whispered.
“Well, not limb-in-leg-hold-trap trapped, but not-going-anywhere-today trapped.” He sounded just a little tongue-in-cheek. He clearly did not understand the gravity of this situation!
Her new life, her new plan for herself was being threatened by him. It was being threatened and she had been here less than twenty-four hours. She’d kissed a man she barely knew and wanted to do it again.
What kind of mess would she be in forty-eight hours from now?
Maybe she would be ripping off his clothes and chasing him around the kitchen. Not that she was that type.
Good heavens, she had never been that type.
But she was well aware that the “type” she had been—pleasing other people in the hope they would play their role in her fantasy of the perfect home and family—had not brought her one iota of happiness. Not one.
That
