Page 197 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

“Turn around.”

Beau turned immediately.

I closed the tack room door. My fingers shook against the button of my jeans.

I had taken my clothes off in front of men before, but nothing about this felt like undressing. There was no anticipation. No flirtation. No safety in pretending I didn’t care what happened next.

I pushed the denim down and stepped carefully out of it before sitting again. The prosthetic was fully visible now.

I could’ve stopped there, but I released it. The relief when the socket came away from irritated skin made me exhale. I set the prosthetic beside the bench. My residual limb was marked from the last two days of abuse. Angry patches of red covered areas that should’ve been pale, and one spot near the edge of my scar looked worse than it had this morning.

This was the body I had spent five years hiding beneath denim. There was nowhere left to hide it now.

“You can turn around now.”

Beau did, and like the gentlemen I knew he was, his eyes found mine first. They lowered ever so slowly that, in any other moment, my body would have been on fire under his intense gaze.

I watched his face so carefully it almost hurt. He looked at the prosthetic beside me. Then at my bare residual limb. His gaze moved over the scars and stopped on the reddened skin.

His jaw tightened with anger I wasn’t expecting. “Is that from today?”

“What?” I blinked.

“That redness.” He nodded toward the irritated skin. “Is that from today?”

“Mostly.”

“You’ve been walking around on that all day?”

Of every possible reaction I’d rehearsed, Beau being annoyed because I hadn’t rested had never made the list.

“That’s seriously what you’re thinking about?”

His gaze returned to mine. “What am I supposed to be thinking about?”

“I don’t know, Beau. Maybe the fact that I only have one leg.”

“I noticed.”

My mouth fell open. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny.”

“Then say something.”

He stepped closer. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know!” My voice echoed through the tack room. Blueberry shifted in her stall outside. I pressed my lips together, fighting tears I hadn’t wanted him to see. “I don’t know what I need you to say. I just know what happens next.”

“What happens next?”

“You change.”

His expression stilled.

“I’ve done this before, Beau. Men say they’re fine with it because what else are they supposed to say? Nobody looks at a woman missing half her leg and tells her to her face that it’s unattractive. They say it doesn’t matter. Then they start touching me differently. They become careful. They look at it when they think I can’t see them, or they avoid it completely.” My voice cracked. “I don’t want you to be careful with me.”

Beau crossed the remaining space between us, but stopped before touching me. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”