Page 7 of Daddy's Little Patient

She cracked her cast against the door in her hurry to let herself out. She braced herself, carefully working her swollen fingertips in around the latch and pulled, but the minute her fingers met with resistance, blinding pain shot up her arm again. She shouted, quickly unhooking her fingers just before Cole opened it.

“Stop now,” he said, moving in to reach around her and unbuckle her seat belt like she was a helpless baby.

She wasn’t helpless. She’d never in her lifeeverbeen helpless. Her first words ever had been “I do it!” and if they were her last words, too, so be it.

“I can do it!” Fingers throbbing, she tried to unbuckle her seatbelt, but the cast kept catching on everything. She couldn’t find the button on the locking buckle, and her fingers were so swollen and sore now, she almost burst into tears trying to stretch them out. It was like trying to play piano in hockey gloves and if that wasn’t bad enough, the piano kept electrocuting her nerves each time she moved.

It hurt so badly!

Hugging her arms, she fought a surge of stinging tears as he leaned in around her, unbuckled the seatbelt, and untangled it from around her arms.

“Come on,” he said softly, without censure or a single ‘I told you so,’ not that she couldn’t hear it anyway. Every single ‘you can’t’ she’d been told over the course of her life came barreling through the forefront of her mind. She wanted to cry all over again, but she’d never do that, not now, and certainly not in front of Cole.

She got out of the truck and slammed the door shut with her elbow before he could do that for her too. She knew he didn’t deserve the glare she gave him as she stormed past him to the porch, but she didn’t deserve a broken wrist and three broken fingers, so they all had their burdens to bear.

“Do you want to try opening the door?” he asked calmly, following in her wake. He even held up the keys.

She looked at them, glared at him, shook her head, and waited.

The aching throb in both casts were pulsing so hard, she couldn’t feel the tender arousal that had had her squirming only minutes ago in the truck. That was for the best because she wasnot a weak woman. And never, ever again, would she let herself fall for a man who thought she was.

Cole opened her front door. If she could have got in ahead of him, she’d have slammed it on him, but he ducked in ahead of her while she trailed in behind him.

“What can I do to help?” he asked, closing and locking the door behind them.

Be mean, she thought bitterly. At least then, she’d feel justified in being mean back. Her eyebrows buckled, but she never took her eyes off the wall dead ahead of her.

“Honey?” he pressed. “Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat? What would make you feel better?”

Great. Now she wasn’t just mad, she felt guilty too. None of this was his fault, after all. He’d just gotten home from ten-full days of being gone on business, and the last thing she wanted to do was this. Any of this!

“Look at me,” he said.

Shoulders slumping, she raised her unhappy gaze to his.

“It’s going to be okay.”

It didn’t feel that way.

“I need a bath. I want to go to bed, I’m tired,” she said, wilting and wanting nothing more than for tonight to go away,

The heat of his hand touched her back, and for all that she’d been so unreasonably grumbly, he leaned in to brush a kiss across her forehead. He was wearing the seductive spice-scented deodorant she liked so much. That, almost more than the kiss, whittled the last of her anger away, leaving her nothing but exhausted and sad.

“Come on,” he coaxed, turning her by the shoulders and walking with her down the hall toward her bedroom and the bathroom. He went in first, dropping the plug in the bottom of her clawfoot tub and turned on the water, adjusting the temperature until he deemed it perfect.

“Do you need to potty?”

“I can do it,” she shied, clamping down on her Little’s instant nod.

He stepped back to give her plenty of room, then stood there, arms folded, waiting.

“You’re looking at me,” she said.

He turned around, facing the hallway, his broad back filling up the doorway. With his arms folded like that, his back looked even more muscular than normal. The change in stance didn’t make her feel better.

“You’re listening to me,” she said, her voice small against her will.

“If you go potty and can’t wipe, are you going to pretend like you did, flush so I won’t know the difference, then hop into the tub to hide you can’t clean your bottom?”

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