“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because—” She stopped, searching for words, and I could see the frustration building in her. “Because that was just being a decent person. This is too much.”
“Getting your car towed and fixed is too much?”
Her eyes flashed. “Yes! You had no right to—”
I took a step closer, and I saw her breath hitch. “From where I’m standing, you needed help, and I provided it.”
“The point is I can take care of myself.” The words came out sharper than I think she intended. I saw her take a deep breath, trying to calm down. “I’m not some damsel in distress who needs rescuing.”
Something in the way she said it—the defensiveness, the hurt underneath—made me pause. It made me really look at her.
“Who made you feel like accepting help makes you weak?” My hands tightened at my sides. “Some ex-boyfriend? Because if that was the case—”
She looked away, jaw tight. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Yeah, it is.” I moved closer, close enough that I could smell that floral scent again. Close enough to see the way her pulse jumped in her throat. “Someone made you feel like you have to do everything alone. Like needing anything from anyone is a failure.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” I let the question hang between us. “Because I’m looking at a woman who drove up a mountain alone to deliver medication. Who sat on the side of the road with a flat tire trying to figure out how to handle it herself. Who’s fighting me tooth and nail right now because accepting help—the little that I gave—feels like weakness.”
Her eyes snapped back to mine, and I saw the vulnerability there. The truth I’d hit without meaning to.
“I’m used to taking care of myself,” she said quietly. “I raised my brother while my mom worked two jobs. I paid for nursing school by working doubles at a diner. I don’t know how to... not be the one handling everything.”
The admission did something to me. I wanted to pull her close and tell her she didn’t have to anymore. That someone wanted to take care of her for once.
And that someone was me.
But I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t promise things I didn’t know how to give.
“Then let me make it easy,” I said. “Get in the truck. Let me drive you to Joe’s. That’s it. Nothing more.”
“Why?” she asked quietly. “Why does it matter to you?”
Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because you walked into my life and made me want things I’d given up on. Because the thought of you stranded on that mountain makes me want to break things.
But I couldn’t say any of that. So instead, I said, “Because you helped me. When I didn’t want it. When I was being an ass about it. You pushed past all my bullshit and did it anyway.”
“That’s my job.”
“No. Your job was to drop off medication. Everything else—the way you didn’t flinch when I told you to leave, how you helped me at the clinic—that was you being a good person.” I watched her face as I spoke, saw the way color crept into her cheeks. “So let me return the favor. Let me do something for you without it being a big deal.”
“But it is a big deal,” she said softly. “To me.”
“Why?”
“Because no one...” She stopped and bit her lip. “Because I’m used to being the one who takes care of everyone else. People don’t usually... they don’t think about me.”
The vulnerability in those words hit me harder than it should have. Made me want things I had no right wanting.
“Then they’re idiots,” I said flatly.
She blinked up at me, surprised.
