Page 9 of Haunted By You
“I don’t think you’ll be able to see much better in there,” she said, gesturing to the dim lights of the bar, delaying. How was she going to convince him she could take care of herself if she continued allowing him to take care of her?
“It’ll be okay. Let’s get them cleaned up.” He pointed to the big sink to the left of the taps, and waited as she hesitated. “You don’t want it to get infected.”
True. She didn’t need to add a doctor visit to her expenses, and who knew what had been on that pallet?
She trudged to the deep sink and washed up obediently while he located the first aid kit stored under the bar.
“How did you know that was there?” she asked. Louis hadn’t even told her about it.
“Used it before.”
She lifted a questioning eyebrow, but he did not elaborate. How long had he been back in town to need to know where the first aid kit in the local bar was?
He pulled out a large lantern flashlight that he set on the bar, turned on and aimed downward, then he took her hand in his.
She hid her shiver of awareness at the warmth of his callused hand beneath hers. She didn’t know why she was surprised at the calluses. He’d said he’d been doing handyman work. His fingers were large, but he wielded the tweezers gently. She flinched at the pinch of pain, and he made a soothing noise, like she was a spooked horse. His grip beneath her hand tightened, and he smoothed her hand open gently with the edge of his. She held herself statue-still, her gaze focused on the top of his head, the dark walnut hair with just a few shots of—silver? Surely not. He was only a couple of years older than her—threaded through. She practically held her breath, not wanting to inhale his warm, woodsy scent as he carefully removed sliver after sliver.
He had to look close, and his breath brushed across her fingers as he lifted her hand closer to the light. She looked at his mouth, the one she’d had so many teenage fantasies about. His lips were still beautiful, but now surrounded by scruff that her teenage self would have found repulsive.
Her adult self did not have the same reaction.
He made a gruff noise in his throat, and she jolted to see his gaze on her, watching her watch him. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. He sat back, stretching his shoulders, which pulled his shirt across his broad chest. Finally, finally she dragged her gaze away, following his movement when he reached into the kit and pulled out a mangled tube of ointment.
“Are you sure that’s not going to cause more harm than good?” she teased.
He held the dimpled tube up between them. Seriously, when was the last time a company made an ointment in a metal tube?
“Want to chance it?”
She arched her head to look past him into the box. “There isn’t a more recent addition in there?”
He angled the flashlight over the kit, and came up with a small single-use foil packet that made her feel marginally better. He tore it open with his teeth, which made her grin.
“Your mama would not like you using your teeth like that.”
His gaze shot to hers. “She always did get after me for that, didn’t she? Said my braces cost too much for me to use my teeth as scissors.”
She barely remembered his braces phase. She didn’t remember him ever having an awkward phase, and she had met his sister when they were both nine. “And I see it didn’t deter you.”
“Old habits,” he muttered, and spread the ointment across her palm.
She was so transfixed by his gentle movements, she didn’t realize until he was done that she could have done that herself.
“You don’t need to wrap it,” she said when he pulled out the gauze.
“Just to keep you from smearing the ointment on everything,” he said. “You can take it off when you get home.”
He put the kit away while she finished up her chores, then he held the door for her on the way out.
She crossed the lot and opened her car door. She should say something. She didn’t want to thank him, because she didn’t want to think she couldn’t have done this on her own, but, well, she probably would have bolted when she heard the raccoons. Louis would not have loved her bailing on her responsibilities like that on her first night. “Thanks for saving the local wildlife with me.”
“You bet.” He stood by his truck until she got into her car and locked up, adjusted her mirror even though nothing had changed since she got out of the car.
She thought, just for a second, she caught the glint of his headlights in her rearview mirror, but he hadn’t even gotten into the truck yet.
Weird.
She pulled away with a wave, leaving him standing beside his truck.
