AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Who knows? Maybe this is the first time with her eyes truly open. A knock to the head could have done her good. Shaken up the priorities and shifted that spoilt little fucker off her conscience. “Why’d you come here? To Red River?”
She hesitates at the end of a sofa.
I gesture for her to take a seat.
“What does it matter?” Rae cautiously lowers herself onto the leather.
“It matters,” I say as I drag the coffee table closer. “Because I need to know I can trustyou.”
She stays quiet, tracking my movements as I retrieve a cushion and set it on the tabletop. “I came here because it’s the farthest I could afford to go.”
Hands to her calf and foot, I set the injured leg straight and prop her heel on the cushion.
"I didn't hurt my leg.”
"You sure about that?"
She nods, chewing on her bottom lip.
I call bullshit. Her already straight back goes ramrod tight when I drop to my knee beside her and take ahold of her ankle. Eyes wide, she mutters, "What are you doing?”
"This hurt?" I rotate her the joint and tip her foot up and down.
"No."
I slide my palms higher, measuring the swell of her calf before stopping below her knee. "This?" I make her move her lower leg in and out, flexing the joint.
"It's tight, but I wouldn't say it's sore."
"How about now?" One hand circling her ankle, the other wrapped around the back of her calf, I lift her leg up to raise the knee above her hip and then move her lower leg in a circle to test her knee's range of motion.
She winces, muscles taut beneath my hands. "Ah, yeah. No, stop."
"There." With deliberate care, I straighten her leg and set her foot on the cushion. "Keep it elevated, Rae. I'll get ice." Also rip Cassidy a new one for missing the injury.
"You don't need to." Her mouth twists as she shifts herself around, disturbing her leg. "It'll come right."
"And it'll come right with proper care." I'm already halfway to the icebox in the bar fridge tucked in the end of the low bookshelves. "Did you call your boss?"
There's a pause before she quietly answers. "I forgot."
"You can do it tomorrow.” Her focus never leaves me as I set the ice against her knee, seated on the table beside her foot. “What were you runnin’ from?”
“When?”
“When you went as far as you could and ended up here.”
She studies the icepack balanced over her injury. “Myself.”
There isn’t an ounce of sarcasm in her reply, only soul-deep disappointment. “What’d you do?”
Rae snorts a derisive little huff out her nose. “That’s exactly it. WhatIdid. Nothing was ever anyone else’s fault. Oh no,” she mocks. “The whole fucking thing was all mine.”
“Okay then.” I tip my head and shift spots so I’m seated on the sofa beside her. “What happened before you left?”
She turns her head, regarding me carefully, before expelling a soft sigh. “I’m on probation, Tyke. For smashing up a guy’s car.”
My lips creep higher on one side, the amusement building the more my imagination conjures up images of this woman going wild on some fucker’s pride and joy. “You must have had a good reason for it.”
