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When he knocked gently on the bedroom door, she said, “come in” in a more robust voice.
She was dressed in those little red panties and was doing up her bra, so he immediately apologised and backed out.
“It’s okay,” she called out even before he’d closed the door. “I’m decent now.”
Which wasn’t strictly true because she was still pulling her dress over her head. He couldn’t help his gaze being tugged yet again to the scar that curved up the outer edge of her thigh like a scythe.
Dress in place, she moved over to the bed and grabbed her cardigan and shrugged it on, flicking her semi dry hair round her shoulders. “I’m so sorry about that. It’s just I am really terrified of spiders. They’re like my worst nightmare and… that one was humungous.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. Totally fine.” She was lying. He could see pain etched around her lips.
Had she had some terrible accident? If so, how come Alice or Aaron hadn’t mentioned it?
“I hope you didn’t think I was being presumptuous to er, carry you like that. I—” He was strangely lost for words.
“No, it’s fine. I was totally frozen. There was no way I would have got out of there in one piece.”
There was a moment’s pause, then she grabbed a hairbrush and started to brush her hair vigorously.
It seemed he had two choices. Pretend he hadn’t seen the scar on her leg or be open about it. He decided on the latter. “Your leg… is it okay?”
She let out a sigh. Her shoulders sagged a little “Oh this…” She touched her left thigh lightly with the brush. “It’ll play up for a few hours probably.”
“Do you need to see a doctor?”
“Oh no, it’s an old war wound. Doesn’t like me face planting, that’s all. I have medication with me if I need it, but I only use it as a last resort.”
He stood, gripping the door handle. He could walk out, and they’d have awkward silence around the issue, or he could just ask. He took a deep breath. “How did it happen?”
She shook her head, slowly. “Sarcoma.”
Oliver frowned, rifling through his knowledge of medical terminology.
“Bone cancer,” she replied, dipping her chin as she did up the buttons on her bright yellow cardigan. “In my femur.”
He stared at her, aghast. “How long ago?”
He thought he saw a shade of sadness flit across her features before she lifted her face and said casually, “When I was sixteen.”
* * *
She didwhat she always did when people first saw Scarlet.
Shrugged it off, made light of it.
As if it hadn’t destroyed her life for a while there.
Without realising it, she’d braced, pinned the smile so hard onto her face it almost hurt as much as her leg. Expecting the usual awkward reaction she’d had from guys in the past. Frankly, it had all got too hard to date since her and Mitchell split up. Even if things went well initially, when it got to the moment of clothes being shed, she’d feel she had to fess up, as if Scarlet was a naughty younger sister about to invade their date.
How ridiculous. There was nodatehappening here. Just a spider-induced moment of bodily contact that meant squat diddly nothing.
And then she looked at him again from under her lashes and her breath caught on a hiccup.
Open sympathy shone out of those jet-black eyes, searing through her with the precision of a diamond cutter. Fingers suddenly shaky, she frowned down at her buttons, eyes hazy as she fumbled to do them up. There was a stupid sniffly feeling in her nose which only got worse when he said softly, “That must have been really tough.”
“Yes, I guess… But it’s a long time ago now.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Almost forgotten really. Life goes on. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all that jazz.” Goodness, could she come up with any more platitudes?
