for some help yet?’ Ellie quipped.
The reply was an annoyed grunt.
‘I’m going to take that as a yes.’ After dumping the gown on the bed, Ellie circled his wrist with gentle fingers, and eased his injured hand through the armhole, ignoring the sight of the dark hair fanning out across the defined slabs of his pectoral muscles.
There was not an ounce of extra belly fat on the man, the black elastic of his boxer briefs peeking over the low-slung waistband of his jeans. The black hair around his nipples tapered into a thin line to bisect the ridges of his six-pack.
The hot flush struck somewhere around her backbone and raced up her spine as she dragged the T-shirt over his head.
He groaned, cradling his hand as he positioned it in his lap. She spotted the ridged white scar that had shocked her all those summers ago. She’d only seen it from a distance then.
She could see it more clearly now, illuminated by the treatment room’s harsh fluorescent light. It still looked nasty, but for the first time she noticed the tiny white dots that travelled up either side of the line trailing out of his groin all the way to the bottom of his ribcage.
When had the injury happened? Was this where his fear of hospitals came from? Because it looked like he had once had at least fifty stitches in a wound that must surely have been life-threatening.
She dragged her gaze away not wanting to get caught staring, but Art seemed unconcerned, or uninterested, busy trying to unfold the gown and put it on with one hand.
‘Here, let me.’ She took the gown and held it for him to thread his arms through. For once he didn’t protest, or insist he could do it himself.
She edged it up over his shoulders, standing on tiptoe – because even hunched over, his shoulders were impressive. Clearly spending hours on end rotary-blading things and doing whatever else was needed to keep a seventy-acre farm going was better for the male physique than pumping iron in a gym.
‘What?’
Her gaze snapped to his. And she realised she’d been caught staring.
What a shame those impressive shoulders came with his not-nearly-as-impressive personality.
‘Nothing.’ She sat on the moulded plastic chair in the corner of the room, grateful his distracting chest was now covered in the blue and red geometric cotton of the gown. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like shit.’ He adjusted his hand on his lap. ‘I’m guessing I look pretty terrific in this outfit too?’
‘Not at all, the red triangles blend with the bloodstains beautifully.’
He gave a gruff cough, which might almost have been mistaken for a laugh.
A small amount of colour had returned to his face. Whatever had spooked him seemed to be passing. While he could hardly be described as comfortable, he didn’t look as if he wanted to bolt for the door.
‘You don’t have to hang around,’ he said. ‘I can make my own way back when I’m done.’
‘Uh-huh, were you planning to jog back to the farm then?’
He coughed again, coming even closer to a laugh. ‘Did anyone ever tell you, your bedside manner is rubbish?’
‘Good thing I never considered becoming a nurse then, isn’t it?’ she said and was rewarded with an actual honest to goodness chuckle this time, albeit rough enough to sound as if someone had been sandpapering his larynx.
‘You’re not wrong.’
The door opened and Dr Grant walked into the room, followed by an older woman dressed in bright blue nurse’s scrubs and wheeling a metal trolley laden with what Ellie assumed must be the supplies needed to stitch Art’s hand.
‘OK, Mr Dalton, Tina is going to give you a tetanus shot and something to numb your hand and then I’ll get to work,’ Dr Grant said.
Art straightened on the bed, making the gown slip off one shoulder.
Apparently, the entertainment portion of the afternoon was now officially over. Sympathy whispered through Ellie. However annoying he was, and however many times he’d been stitched up before, this was liable to be unpleasant. And from the tension on his face, he knew exactly how unpleasant.
Watching Art get tortured wouldn’t have bothered her nineteen years ago after the way things had ended between them. But as the doctor and her assistant injected him, cleaned and irrigated the nasty gash and finally proceeded to stitch him – while Art remained stoic and silent and uncomplaining throughout the whole ordeal – Ellie had to admit that seeing him in pain now actually did bother her, a little bit.
*
‘You are not driving. Are you bonkers?’ Ellie marched ahead of Art across the car park and ignored his beyond stupid suggestion.
‘Why not? I’m fine now. And I’m a safer driver than you are.’
‘You’re not fine.’ She clicked the locks with the key fob and flung open the door. Settling in the driver’s seat, she waited for Art to climb in on the other side. The mulish expression on his face didn’t bother her as much as the white bandage on his hand which covered thirty-two stitches. She knew this because she had counted every single one.
As he wrestled with the seat belt with his right hand, she remembered that he was left-handed. She turned on the ignition and left him to struggle with the seat belt on his own.
‘I can drive one-handed,’ he said. ‘And even one-handed, I’ve got a better chance of getting us back alive than you have.’
‘Hardly. You’ve been shot full of enough painkillers to fell an ox, plus driving will only open up the wound.’ She crunched the gears, shifted into reverse, and wheeled into a three-point turn. Art gripped the dash like an old woman. She ignored the not-so-subtle hint. ‘And even though that would totally serve you right,’ she added, ‘the good Dr Grant’s just wasted twenty minutes stitching you up.’ Twenty minutes that had felt like twenty years. ‘And I’m not going to let you undo all her hard work just because you’re an idiot.’
A dark brow hitched up his forehead. ‘Since when did you become my keeper?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be resigning the position as soon as is humanly possible.’ With that in mind she accelerated down the country lane that led to the town’s main street. ‘And anyway, this is my car, so you don’t get a say.’
He didn’t reply, finally having conceded defeat. Feeling magnanimous in victory, she eased her foot off the accelerator as they headed over the speed bumps on the outskirts of town, and took her time getting onto the roundabout, waiting for a space big enough not to require the need to play chicken with any articulated lorries.
They’d been driving along the A30 for a good ten minutes, before he finally spoke again. ‘Thanks for helping me out. The cut was worse than I thought.’
The admission sounded weary and grudging.
‘Just a tad,’ she said, unable to resist a smile at his
