3
Stitches
There was nothing in the way of a
modern convenience at the Cornish farm. Rees’s hands slipped on the well crank
twice before Theo brushed her not-so-sweetly out of the way and brought the
water up himself.
“I can do it,” she protested.
His answer was a disbelieving grunt
as he emptied the bucket into one of the two he’d brought outside and dropped
it down the well again. His shirt was the same thin roughspun as Liam’s, only
light. It had been white once, a long time ago. It clung to the perspiration
down the backs of his lean arms.
His silence, the sheer boldness of
him – following her out here, pushing her aside, acting not at all like any
sort of gentlemanly southerner, his being here in the first place – pricked at
her temper. She was still frightened, she was hungry, and she was close to
tears with nerves, staggering under the weight of all that had happened in just
a week’s time; and now this sullen, bearded stranger with wolfish green eyes
was treating her like a prisoner in her own home.
“I said I’d do the stitches,” she
said, folding her arms beneath her breasts. “I only came out for the water; I
wasn’t going to run away and leave my sisters alone with the two of you.”
“Good.” He poured into the second bucket,
gathered up both and turned back toward the house. “But I’ll be damned if I
trust some big-mouthed little bitch I just met.”
Bitch.
That’s what he’d called her. The
Yankee. She could smell the hot stink of his breath; could remember the feel of
him on top of her, the warm slide of his blood between her fingers and down the
front of her last good dress. The copper smell of it had burned the insides of
her nostrils, embedding itself deep in her head. He was there in every
nightmare, every shadow, every stray leaf tumbling down the road, making her
jump. Bitch, he’d said in her ear,
and her answer had been the kiss of steel through his throat.
Rees snapped.
She sidestepped in front of him,
tilting her head all the way back so she could make eye contact. The hand she
brought up against his chest was fruitless, but he pulled to a halt, water
slopping. His scowl would have frightened her…before. But not after what had
happened to her. Now, her terror was a part of a larger, more urgent anger that
came bubbling up the back of her throat.
“No!” she said, and his frown was
full of confusion.
“No what?”
Because
I can, she thought wildly. Just
because I can say it. She took a breath.
“Look–”
“No, you look! I am not – not some…lady of the evening…you paid for a ride!
You will not call me that!”
“What?” He flashed a tight, mocking
smile. “Bitch?”
“You won’t,” she said through her
teeth.
“How’s a girl,” he said, leaning low
over her, evening sun catching flecks of gold in his eyes, pressing shadows
into the lines around his brows, “with nothing but a coupla teacups to her name
get such high ideas about herself? In case you hadn’t noticed, honey, you’re
just as dirt poor as me.”
“And since when does that give a man
a right to act like an animal? Everybody’s poor,” she spat. “But you don’t have
to lose all sense of decency.”
“Decency?” His brows went up and the
mocking smile twisted. “Tell you what: I’ll treat you decent when you act decent.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
He snorted. “I’ve known ladies of the evening with better
manners than you.” And he stepped around her and kept walking toward the house.
“You-you’re horrible,” she said as
she hurried to keep up with him, too incensed to come up with a proper insult.
“And…and you smell, and you most likely have lice too.”
“Want to check for me?”
“I should never have let you come in
the house. You–”
He moved too fast for her to
comprehend. Water sloshed over her shoes as the buckets slammed to the ground
and before she could move away, he had her forearm clamped against his much
harder one, his grip on her elbow painful. All pretext of humor had abandoned
him as his face crowded hers; he was coldly serious, his intensity sending
anxious tremors all through her. Don’t
poke the bear, she’d told Annabel, and here she’d just wacked it upside the
head with a forge hammer. Never in her life had she seen a man look so stern,
so focused, so threatening. Her pulse slammed hard in her ears, drowning out
the evening sounds around them, leaving only enough space for their words.
“Now you listen to me,” Theo said,
voice low and urgent. “You can hate me all you want. Pretty sure I hate you
too. But Liam” – he swallowed – “he’s bad cut up, and I’d sew him myself if I
wouldn’t do a butcher’s job of it. If you can stitch him closed nice and neat –
and keep real quiet about it – then we’ll owe you. Do you get that?” He gave
her a gentle shake. “You girls don’t have enough firewood to get through the
night and you don’t have any shot for the rifle” – she shivered again to
realize that he knew she’d been essentially unarmed – “so having Liam Bennet
owe you is a place you want to be in. Understand?”
There was a lump in the back of her
throat. Her eyes burned. She was just so tired, and so scared, and she didn’t
want to do any of this. “M-my sisters,” she stammered, “are only girls and
they’re-they’re not married and I just…”
Understanding dawned in him; his
features softened as he sighed loudly through his nostrils. His hand stayed on
her elbow, but his grip became gentle. “Nothing’s gonna happen to your sisters.
I promise you that. We didn’t come here to bloody virgins.” Another shake, this
one more of a squeeze. “Yeah? I might smell and I might have lice, but I’m not
so bad as all that.”
Rees took a deep breath and let it
out in a rush, trying to gather her scattered emotions. She was mortified to be
this near tears in front of this man, and was both touched and relieved by what
he’d said.
“Promise,” he added.
Another
breath. “I…” He let go of her and she dashed her hand beneath her nose. “I
don’t have very good thread.”
He shrugged as he picked the buckets
back up. “If it’s clean, then it’s better than what I was gonna use.”
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