Page 32 of Meet Me at the Fudge Shop

And she just stood there, staring at it, blinking.

“Lily!” Declan grabbed a freshly laundered cleaning rag and rushed over, lifting her onto the counter without thinking about it. He then knelt, pressing the rag to her wound and holding it snug to stop the bleeding.

She grimaced. “Stop. I don’t need your help.” Except her words didn’t match her actions, because she just leaned back on her elbows and lay perfectly still while Declan cradled her leg.

“Clearly, you do.” He held tight. “Are you going to faint at the sight of blood?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you’d probably just leave me here to bleed out.”

Really? “Tempting as that is, it wouldn’t be good for business.”

“You’re only half joking.” She let out another groan when he shifted the pressure.

“Am I hurting you?”

She closed her eyes. “It isn’t you. I mean, it hurts, but not from the pressure.” A grunt. “Ugh. I can’t believe I did that.” She swiped away a stray tear from her cheek with her other hand.

He lifted the rag away for a moment. Yikes. “It’s definitely going to need stitches.”

“You think?” She smeared another tear across her face, this time taking a smudge of black mascara with it.

“We need to get you to the clinic.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

Hmm. “Good point.” The clinic was northeast of here. All the way down Main Street and then a little ways up Blueberry Boulevard, past Blueberry Hill Park, near the police and fire station and the public school.

In other words, too far for her to walk with this injury. A bike was probably out of the question too.

“I have an idea. Don’t go anywhere.” Tying the rag around her knee, he started toward the back alley door.

“Where exactly am I gonna go?” Then, with less bravado, “Dec?”

The old nickname, said with such timidity—even, dare he say, softness?—did something to his heart. He paused, turned. “Yeah, Lil?”

“Hurry, please.”

He chuckled. “That hurt to say, didn’t it?”

Her face paled as she opened her eyes and looked at him, and man, he felt bad for teasing her.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “And yes, I’ll hurry. Because as much as it would help my odds exponentially to have you stuck in ICU with some sort of gangrenous infection—which might even be some sort of poetic justice—I am too much of a gentleman to allow that.”

“Ha. You. A gentleman.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Believe what you like. Now I’m going to go save the day, if you don’t mind.” Declan stepped into the alleyway and headed for Jonathon Boulevard, jogging up the road until he reached his parents’ house.

Thankfully, nobody was home as he snatched the keys off the rack in the foyer and headed out to the western side of the house where Mom and Dad’s golf cart sat covered. He pulled back the covering, praying there was enough gas left from the winter months when they’d last used it.

Declan inserted the key and breathed a sigh of relief when the engine sputtered and finally rumbled to life.

Now to just drive this thing without getting caught.

He eased off the gravel path and onto Poppy Place, eyes scanning this way and that for anyone who might scold him for illegal use of a golf cart during the season. Thankfully, the coast was clear—a sheer miracle given that it was a Saturday afternoon and plenty of people were likely home.

The drive to the alley behind the fudge shop took thirty seconds. Declan kept the engine running and headed inside to grab Lily.

She still lay there, eyes closed, and her lips were moving. Perhaps in prayer?

---