Page 25 of Forever After Fall

“I’ve got it.” He’s out the door and rounded the front of the truck before I can say another word. I’m not sure how this man, the quiet, broody version I’m used to and the one I’ve been anticipating might return from the wedding night, are the same person. If I hadn’t experienced it, I wouldn’t believe it. Hopefully, if we get to spend some time as the other versions of ourselves, I’ll get to see that version more often in my daily life.

I can’t see much beyond the hood of the truck, but I hear the curse and see him pull his hand back quickly from the engine. The way he shakes it tells me he cut himself. I crack the door and yell out.

“Are you okay?” I’m worried he’s too angry at whatever’s wrong with the truck to tell me.

“I’m fine.” He’s curt again, clearly frustrated. I can feel a lecture coming on about why the hell I gave up my reliable, well-maintained truck for this old piece of junk. Once he finds out, I’ll probably get another one about how I did way too much for Chris. I don’t know how I thought we were gonna be able to pull off pretending to be strangers tomorrow, but I feel like that door is closing on us fast.

I move to shut the door again when I see the stream of blood down his arm. I snatch the bandana I always keep tied around my purse, to keep my hair out of my face when I move furniture, and jump out of the car. The rain is so heavy I have to blink rapidly just to see and my hair plasters to my face in seconds.

“Bristol! Get in the truck!” he yells the second he sees me.

“No! Let me see!” I motion to his right hand as he clutches it with his left.

“I’m fine. Get out of the rain!” The bill of his hat keeps the rain off his face, so I can’t miss the way he frowns over my efforts to help him.

I hold up the bandana anyway, insisting on doing it my way. The man is stubborn as hell, but sometimes he listens. If he could force me to stand still for a bat bite inspection, he could let me wrap his hand.

“Let me see!” I reach out for him, and he finally shows me his palm, a flash of it—enough to see he sliced himself pretty damn well on whatever he was handling.

“There! The distributor cap sparked. It just startled me. Caught my hand when I slipped. It’s fine.” He covers it again, but I refuse to cede ground even as the downpour soaks me. It’s already through the layer of my dress, and the cold September wind is driving it into my bones. I glance up at the sky, and it’s ominous. We need to get off this mountain, and step one is stopping the bleeding.

“The quicker we get you fixed, and the quicker you get the truck fixed, the sooner we get off this mountain!” I yell, hoping he’ll see reason.

He shakes his head and holds his hand out; the rain pools in his palm and creates red rivulets that flow down his forearm and onto the ground. I glare at him and his lips flatline.

“The rain is making it look worse than it is.”

“Still.” I shake my head. It should be my turn to give him hell, but I don’t. I take his hand and wrap it with the bandana, carefully covering the wound. Taking my time on this first try because I know he won’t give me a second.

His hands are strong. Capable. Worn from all the construction work he does but still soft as he lets me manipulate him freely to treat the bleeding. His palms are smeared with grease from the engine; streaks of it are on the pads of his fingers and down his wrist despite the incessant pounding of the rain. When he flexes his fingers as I turn his hand over to tie the bandana, I’m drawn to the veins in his arms. The way the tendons move and manipulate them.

The way he moved and manipulated me.

Shit.

This keeps happening. I wish it wouldn’t. Even with our agreement in place, I feel guilty about how often I think about him. Especially here on the job where we’re supposed to be coworkers and nothing more. The last thing we need is anyone to find out about what we’ve done, or what we plan to do.

“There. All better,” I say, pushing his hand back toward his chest as though I can remind myself I’m not supposed to be doing this somewhere we can be caught.

It would be more difficult out here. Hazel and Ramsey are gone. Kell’s probably sheltering in the barn a million miles away. I doubt even binoculars from one of the tourists at the inn could find us up here. My mind wanders as I look up at him through the rain and see him staring back with the sort of barefaced desire he’s never shown me before.

“Bristol…” His voice is rough, even through the sound of the pounding shower, and I follow his line of sight down to my dress as his gaze drifts lower. It’s plastered to me. The rain has made it through every layer of clothing I have, including my bra, and my nipples are making a point of announcing how cold I am right now. I cross my arms over my chest, but he shakes his head. “Get in the truck before you catch your fucking death.”

And like Mother Nature wants to make his point for him, hail follows his command. Pelting gently at first, making me wonder if I’d imagined it, and then walloping against the top of my head and the truck.

“Ow!” I screech, and Anson rushes to cover me, ripping his hat off his head and hovering it over mine.

“Get in the truck!” This time he’s not asking; he’s moving me quickly to the door and hustling me inside, slamming it shut behind me. He rounds the truck, quickly addressing the work he’d been meaning to finish, and then drops the hood and climbs in the passenger side.

“Fuck!” He declares both of our moods, leaning against the door and looking over me. “Let’s get out of here. It gets any bigger, and it’s gonna bust the glass.”

I move to start the engine, and this time, despite a rough start, it turns over. Relief floods my chest for all of two seconds until I reach for the wipers and they fail to work.

“Goddamn it!” The frustration whips through my throat and tightens until I can feel the tears start to burn up the back of it.

“They won’t come on?” Anson asks for confirmation. I shake my head. I’m afraid I’ll burst into tears if I try to form a coherent sentence. I smack the wheel with the palm of my hand instead, turning to look out the window. “Well, we’ll need ’em in this weather if we’re not gonna roll the truck over the side of the hill. You got any spare fuses? Could be that it shorted out. Or just old.”

“I have no idea.” I state the obvious.