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Asa opened his eyes. Elizabeth’s face was inches from his, and she was crying. Another tear rolled down her cheek to tumble from her chin onto his chest.
Her throat worked as she pressed the needle tip into the other side of the wound. He wasn’t thinking. He swore anew. Tears overflowed Elizabeth’s eyes. She swallowed hard. Her lips moved. Another “I’m sorry” slipped out before she bit her lip.
The truth was hard to ignore. Sewing him up was killing her. He didn’t need Clint’s glare to smother the next curse before it could escape.
During the last month, he’d wondered what it would take to make Elizabeth cry. Now he had his answer. All it took was hurting him. He thought she was going to burst into sobs as she pulled the thread through, and he couldn’t control his involuntary wince. He caught her hand in his before she could tie off the stitch. Surprise had her gaze flying to his.
“Clint can finish.”
Her face set in stubborn lines. “No.”
“It’s all right, ma’am,” Clint concurred, reaching for the needle. “I’ve sewn up more wounds than most doctors.”
Elizabeth’s expression turned feral. “Don’t you touch him.”
Clint jerked his hand back so fast, a body would have sworn he’d been bitten. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
Elizabeth didn’t look appeased. “It’s all right, Elizabeth, Clint’ll do a fine job.”
She shook her head. “No, he won’t. You said so yourself. Men are ham-handed.”
He wished he’d been smart enough to bite off his tongue earlier. “McKinnely was as gentle as a lamb. I was just spouting nonsense to get out of getting stitched.” He kept his grip on her hand and nodded to the door. “Go get McKinnely.”
“No problem.” Clint all but bolted for the door.
“He’s not touching you,” Elizabeth informed him in a tone that belied the tears on her face.
“Be reasonable, darlin’,” he coaxed. “Stitching me is hurting you more than me. Poking me with a needle won’t bother McKinnely a bit.”
“We both know he’s down there drinking,” she told him, keeping a death grip on the needle and thread. “By now, he’s so drunk, he’ll probably think he’s working with two needles.”
Asa shook his head at her vehemence. “You really do have a thing about drink, don’t you?”
“It turns men into animals.”
Well, at least he knew why he’d been rationed to a scant two fingers, which wasn’t enough to kill the pain in a tadpole, let alone a grown man. He touched her hand. “Not all men are mean drunks. Some of us get downright happy.”
The look she shot him was rank with disbelief. He dropped that line of argument. “It’ll take more than a few drinks to affect a man of McKinnely’s size.”
“He’s not touching you.”
And that was that, Asa realized. He slid his thumb across the back of her hand. He didn’t have much hope of it soothing her, but he figured it was worth a try. “You dead set on finishing this then?”
She bit her lip. The color fled her cheeks, but her answer didn’t waver. “Yes.”
He relaxed into the pillows. “Have at it, then. I won’t say a word.”
On another “I’m sorry” that ripped his insides, she tied off the stitch.
While her expression remained perfectly controlled, she couldn’t extend that rigid control to her eyes. All the agony she tried to hide from him rested there.
He touched her cheek with his clear hand. At first, he thought it was his imagination, but then he changed his mind. She was leaning her cheek into his hand, taking comfort from his touch even as she insisted on sewing him up and causing herself agony in the first place. He shook his head. The woman was a born contradiction.
“It’s all right,” he found himself saying as she applied the needle again. In response, she apologized. He looked to the door, wondering where McKinnely was. Apparently, the job of comforting his wife was being left up to him. “We’re a fine pair, Mrs. MacIntyre,” he whispered, brushing a fresh tear off her cheek. “Too stubborn for our own good.”
“I’m not stubborn,” she growled, then ruined the effect by biting her lip.
“I can see that.” What he could see was her feeling protective. If she weren’t bawling her eyes out while she was feeling it, he might have enjoyed the experience.
“McKinnely and Clint wouldn’t do it right,” she informed him.
“Doc is Cougar’s father and Clint’s uncle. What makes you think they couldn’t do as good a job?”
She paused as if weighing a decision. “They don’t know you like I do. They’d probably take something you said personally and do a lousy job.”
He laughed. “You saying I’m the provoking sort?”
“You know you are.”
She tied off the knot, and he took the brief interlude to relax his muscles.
“If Clint’s Cougar’s cousin—” she began.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.” She retied the knot in the end of the thread. “If Clint’s Cougar’s cousin, why isn’t he over at the Tumbling M?”
