a glint of amusement. “Yeah, life’s rough. So what do you want to know? How short or tall I like my women, and if you fit the mold?”
“No! Or course not!”
Flustered, she glanced away and inadvertently jerked her hand across a rough, jagged corner of the table she was sanding. The rusty edge, as sharp as a razor, cut right across the pad of her thumb, slicing it open. “Damn!”
“What’s wrong?”
Her teeth clenched tight to hold in the curses that rose to her tongue, Rocky pressed the wound against her middle, cradling the injured hand close. “Nothing,” she said tersely. “Just a scrape.”
“The hell it is. You’re white as a sheet.” Crossing the hanger in four swift strides, he reached for her hand. “Let me see, Rocky,” he said quietly. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re bleeding all over that dirty shirt of yours.”
She wanted to deny it, but anything that hurt this bad had to be bleeding like a stuck pig. Reluctantly letting him take her hand, she winced as he gently turned it over to expose the two-inch cut at the base of her thumb. Blood seeped from it, flooding her palm.
His expression grim, Lucas looked up from the wound to her ashen face. “You’re not going to pass out on me now, are you?”
She gave him a withering look that her grandmother would have been proud of. “A Fortune woman faint at the sight of a little blood? Kate would turn over in her grave. How bad is it?”
He probed gently, not wanting to hurt her, but knowing there was no avoiding it. “It’s in an awkward spot,” he finally announced, glancing back up at her with a frown. “Every time you move your thumb it’s going to break open if you don’t have it stitched. How long has it been since you’ve had a tetanus shot?”
Caught off guard, she blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe a couple of years. I can’t remember.”
“Then it’s probably been longer than you think. You’ll need another one.” Pulling a clean, neatly folded handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans, he wrapped it around her hand and stanched the flow of blood as best he could. Glancing around for her jacket, he found a forest-green down coat hanging on a hook near the door and helped her into it. “Come on, let’s go.” Hustling her out the door and into his Bronco, he quickly drove her over to the clinic.
Rocky protested that all the fuss wasn’t necessary—if he’d just give her the tetanus shot, she’d clean the wound herself and slap a butterfly bandage on it when she got home—but Lucas wasn’t listening. Ushering her into one of the examining rooms, he took her coat from her, settled her in a chair and collected the supplies he needed. All business, he took time only to wash his hands and make sure she wasn’t allergic to any medications before he pulled up a stool next to her and reached for her injured hand.
Over the course of the years, he’d lost track of the number of cuts and gashes he’d cleaned and stitched, and he could normally do it with his eyes closed. But his knees brushed hers, his concentration wavered, and suddenly nothing was as it should be. Her scent, subtle and spicy and damned provocative, reached out to him, teasing his senses, distracting him. Why hadn’t he noticed in the hangar how soft her skin was? How delicate her fingers were? With no trouble whatsoever, he could imagine those same fingers touching him, caressing him—
“Doc?”
Her husky query seemed to reach right inside him and pull him out of the fantasy that had come out of nowhere to swamp him in heat. Jerking his eyes up to hers, he found her watching him with an amused, puzzled frown. Swallowing a curse, he stiffened. “Yeah?”
“You’re looking at my hand like you’ve never seen one before. Is everything okay?”
Hell, no, it wasn’t okay, he almost snapped. How could it be when she was hurt and bleeding and all he could think of was how good she smelled? What the devil had she done to him? “Everything’s fine,” he growled. “Just peachy. Give me a second to clean this up, and you can get out of here.” And out of his life, he silently promised himself. Because just as soon as he had the lady patched up, he swore he wasn’t going anywhere near her again. Not if just touching her did this to him.
His face carved in harsh lines, he went to work and had the wound cleaned and stitched in no time. Her gaze carefully directed away from his handiwork, she stared at the far wall and chatted about the progress she was making at the hangar, the mechanic she had hired, who would start tomorrow, the coming of Christmas and the shopping she still had to do. He put seven stitches at the base of her thumb, bandaged the cut and gave her a tetanus shot after she rolled up her sleeve, and she didn’t so much as whimper.
What did you expect? a voice drawled in his head. She’s Fortune-tough, just like her grandmother.
Then she turned toward him, and he felt as if someone had punched him hard in the gut when he saw for the first time the tears welling in her eyes. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, a crooked smile pushing up one corner of her mouth as she hastily swiped at her still-pale cheeks. “Don’t pay any attention to me,” she said thickly, laughing shakily. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Then why are you crying? Did I hurt you?”
“No! Oh, no,” she quickly assured him. “I’m just a lousy patient. I didn’t feel anything once you deadened it, but I could just imagine this needle going in and out—”
Turning slightly green, she swallowed and quickly abandoned that line of thought. Straightening her shoulders with a visible effort, she warned teasingly, “You realize, of course, that if you tell anybody I was bawling like a baby over a few stitches, I’ll be forced to deny it.”
Fighting a smile, he nodded, his expression deliberately solemn. “My lips are sealed.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Her gaze immediately flew to his mouth, and suddenly the air between them was sparking with the kind of hushed expectancy that invariably proceeded an approaching storm. Giving in to impulse, to insanity, he reached for her and captured that beautiful face of hers in his hands, bringing her mouth to his.
The instant his lips settled over hers, he knew it had been too long since he’d kissed a woman, too long since he’d allowed himself to even think about needing one. He was in no shape to handle one like Rocky Fortune. Surprise held her motionless under his hands, but then her mouth softened under his and she was like heat lightning in a bottle…wild, hot, unpredictable. Too late, he realized that she had what it took to make a man sweat in the darkest, coldest part of the night.
The thought lodged in the back of his brain, throbbing like a railroad warning light, but he couldn’t focus on anything but the taste of her, the feel of her, the heat of her. God, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt any kind of female warmth. He just wanted to hold her and kiss her and not think about anything except how good it felt. With a groan that came from the depths of his soul, he slanted his mouth across hers and took the kiss deeper.
Dazed, boneless, clinging to him, Rocky tried to remember Greg and how he had hurt her, but the only image that came to mind was Lucas with his dark, wary eyes and rugged face. He kissed her with a desperation that stole her breath and set her pulse thrumming with a blind, lonely need that was as plaintive and heart-tugging as the call of a wolf on a cold winter night. Her head spinning, she frantically ordered herself to stop this madness right now, but in the dark, wet, hidden recesses of her mouth, his tongue wooed and cajoled
