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He was debating whether to do it, just to get this over with and her and her subtle sexy scent the hell out of his office, when his stomach growled like a marauding mountain lion that hadn’t been properly fed for two days – probably because it hadn’t.
Ellie glanced pointedly at his belly. ‘Not hungry, huh?’
‘Bloody hell.’ He grabbed the thermometer – with the wrong hand.
Lightning lanced through his palm and shot up his arm. He swore viciously, jerking his hand back and cradling it against his midriff as the burning pain kicked up several thousand degrees.
‘Did that hurt?’
‘Of course it hurt, I’ve got about a hundred stitches in it. Now go away.’ He rocked, waiting for the lancing pain to subside, not caring that he was being an arsehole. He hadn’t asked her to come in here and harass him. His head felt like someone was trying to hook out his eyeballs with a coat hanger, his stomach was so empty it was practically inside out and now his hand was about to drop off altogether. The only thing that could make his misery any more complete was having Ellie Preston leaning over him with a worried look on her face.
Bingo.
‘I’ve got work to do,’ he added, the pain finally dulling to just about manageable.
r /> Work that gave him a headache at the best of times. And which had transported him into a whole new level of purgatory since Sunday.
‘Dr Grant gave you some heavy duty painkillers, why aren’t you using them?’
Because they made him feel woozy and gave him nightmares. He’d woken up the first night sweating and swearing and thrashing about like a madman in the grip of a dream that had felt far too real. He hadn’t taken the painkillers since.
‘Bugger off.’
‘No.’ She pushed away from the desk and lifted his wrist.
He flinched. ‘Don’t.’
‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just going to take the bandage off.’
‘What for?’
‘Because look at it.’ She cradled his hand, holding it up. ‘It’s filthy.’
She had a point. He’d done his best but it had been next to impossible to wash and dress himself one-handed, let alone eat and write and attend to all the other chores he had piling up around him. Keeping the bandage dry and clean, as the doctor had recommended, had been the least of his worries.
‘You try keeping a bandage clean in a farmyard,’ he said, but the truth was, the fight had drained out of him.
He flinched as she peeled off the surgical tape around his wrist.
‘It’s OK, I’ll be gentle,’ she murmured, her blonde hair close to his nose as she bent over his hand and unwound the grubby bandage.
She eased off the gauze and he sucked in a breath.
Big mistake. His lungs filled with the scent of her shampoo. Spice and musk and summer flowers all overlaid with the scent of her.
He shifted in his seat, disturbed by the liquid tug in his groin.
‘Yikes,’ she whispered and then raised her head.
He winced as he got a look at the raw, reddened skin. The stitches sat like thin black slugs stapled into the swollen flesh.
‘No wonder it hurts.’ Her eyes met his, the concern in them disturbing and captivating at one and the same time. ‘Stay there, I’m going to ring the clinic.’
‘I’m not going back there,’ he said, trying to sound demonstrative, even though he knew he might have to. He wasn’t such an idiot that he’d risk losing his hand. But anything less than that and he was prepared to fight like hell to stay put. He hadn’t had one of those nightmares in years. He did not want them becoming a regular occurrence again.
She nodded slowly, the knowledge in her eyes somehow more disturbing than the argument he’d been expecting. ‘Duly noted, but don’t panic. It might not be necessary.’
She headed for the door. ‘As long as you do exactly what I say.’ She smiled, the twist of her lips decidedly smug. ‘I hope you realise, you’re now entirely at my mercy, Dalton.’
