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“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”
I looked up to find Vance smiling down at me, the position strange for a long moment until my brain made sense of it.My head is in his lap.
I bolted upright, my cheeks burning. Had I done that by accident? Had I cuddled up to him in my sleep?
How mortifying!
Vance only released an amused chuckle.
Hayden caught our exchange, because he came right over and crouched in front of me. He set his palm on my forehead. It made me feel like a kid again, with someone taking my temperature. “Are you feeling alright?”
I nodded but didn’t push him away. His touch felt nice. It wasn’t physical, but just the sensation of someone being there beside me wasexactlywhat I needed.
He pulled back, making me miss his tough. “No fever.”
“I’m not sick,” I assured him, then went to get up, to grab some water to help wake me up. The grogginess from napping so long made my head fuzzy and my body heavy.
However, as soon as I got mostly to my feet, my uterus decided to act like an armadillo rolling up on itself, and I gasped a sharp breath before giving up on the whole standing idea. Instead, I sat back down and curled forward as if protecting a wound instead of a poorly planned-out reproductive system.
Hayden was on the spot, catching my chin and lifting my gaze to his. He searched my face, checking my eyes, then placed his fingers on my pulse. His motions were surprisingly frantic, something rare from the normally calm man.
I’d seen him face off against attackers with weapons with less concern than he treated this.There’s nothing for him to fight right now.
Or perhaps it was better to say there was nothing to take a hit for, no bullet to jump in front of.
“She isn’t sick,” Vance said with a soft laugh. He sounded like a teenager who enjoyed picking on a kid that didn’t know Santa wasn’t real.
“What’s wrong, then?”
Poor, stupid man.
Hayden was sweet, but he really didn’t know much about women, did he?
Vance sat back, a smirk across his perfect face. “She might seem like a kid, but sheisa woman. Don’t you know about that special time of the month for women?”
Hayden’s tan skin flushed, the color not so obvious as if Char or Vance had done it, but still visible. He yanked backward as if embarrassed. “Oh,” he said.
“I’m not contagious, you jerk,” I muttered.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Hayden rushed out.
I gave him a glare, not all that mad, but pain tended to make people meaner than they would be any other time.
“What can I do?” Hayden asked.
“Nothing.” I brought my knees up, enjoying my soft pajamas that rested loose on my waist. “I’m fine. I just have to take it easy today. By tomorrow, I’ll be fine.”
Hayden pressed his lips together, then rushed out of the room.
How can he be so responsible in some ways and such a kid in others?
“So that’s why you’ve been sleeping?” Char asked. “I thought you were just lazy.”
Vance breathed in loudly, wincing. “Bad choice, buddy.”
“What? I can’t remember the last time I napped all afternoon. Must be nice.”
Vance shook his head, muttering softly under his breath. “I know you’re smarter than this. You can’t tell me you’ve never dealt with a woman in this state? If you think they’re dangerous normally, it’snothingcompared to when they’re continuously bleeding for five days. They get understandably testy at those times.”
