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“Brr,” she said.“That’s cold.”
“That’s the point,” he said.“We want it to numb the pain and stop the swelling.”He busied himself with items in the kit, and he wrapped the ice pack around her ankle with a thick, flesh-colored bandage.
He then took her hand and arm and slid her thumb through the splint.“I don’t think this needs to be iced.”He smiled at her and pulled the straps tight.“We also don’t want it to limit blood flow.Too tight?”
Cass bent and stretched her fingers, which had already started to tingle.“Yeah,” she said.“A little.”
Harrison adjusted it, then picked up a bottle of water and handed it to her.“Pills,” he said, dropping them into her palm next.“For the pain.”
She swallowed them while he started packing everything up.“Thank you,” she said.Her stomach growled, and he’d have had to been deaf not to hear it.
He looked up and asked, “When’s the last time you ate?”
“This morning at home,” she said.“My home in Texas.”A lifetime ago, to be honest.
Harrison’s eyes fired concern at her.“You’ve got to eat with those pills.”He stood and lifted the tackle box.“I’ll put this in the truck and be right back.”
He left before she could say anything, and when he returned, she held up her phone.“I can order dinner.”
“Or…” He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets, and she realized he’d changed his clothes completely.She’d been so focused on his bare chest and then that sexy black T-shirt, she hadn’t seen the jeans yet.“I could grill us up something.I was going to make hamburgers and street corn.”He didn’t look at her until the last word had been delivered, and a keen sense of hope shone there.
Cass didn’t want to say no.She just needed to know a few things first.“Harrison,” she said, liking the shape of his name in her mouth.“I’m kind of a planner.”
“Yeah, I know.”He grinned at her.“If you were planning to order something specific, that’s fine.”
“It’s not that.”She wasn’t quite sure how to say what she wanted to.She hadn’t had to consider her words so carefully in a long time.West had known her.She hadn’t had to explain anything to him.He knew who she was, and how she operated, and Harrison didn’t know either of those things.
“What is it?”he asked.
As she took up the whole loveseat, what with her left leg stretched out in front of her, he stood in front of her, so adorable as he waited for her answer.
“I guess I just need to know… Is this a date?”
A blank mask slid over his face.He blinked, and a new kind of resolve took its place.“Yeah, Cass, we can call it a date if you’d like.”
“I want to know whatyou’dlike to call it.”She’d given him her number a week ago, and he’d texted her a few times.Nothing over the top.Nothing inappropriate.She found herself enjoying the conversations, even if they’d been superficial and brief.
“Me cooking for you at my house?”he asked, a flirtatious vibe in his voice.“Yeah, I’d like to call it a date.”
“Okay,” she agreed.“How long until we can eat?”
“Half an hour?”he guessed.“I was going to start dinner when I got home from my walk.”
She smiled at him, feeling younger and more like her old self as she said, “Do you normally take slow, evening walks along the beach?”
He laughed, the sound lifting up to the two-story-high ceiling in the house.“No,” he said among chuckles.“I fell on the job last week, and I hurt my back.My physical therapist says I need to walk, and the beach is good, because the sand shifts.It forces my core and back to work hard to balance.”
Cass couldn’t stop smiling.“I see.”She looked down at her foot.“How am I going to get to your place?”
He followed her gaze, and then their eyes met again.“Easy,” he said, his throat moving powerfully as he swallowed.“I’m going to carry you.”
Cass’s blood turned to lava at the thought of being in his arms again.“All right, Doctor Tate,” she teased.“I think I have all the answers and know the plan for the evening.”
“You ready right now?”He ignored the teasing about him being a doctor.“I could help you around here with…whatever you were doing.Unwrapping the furniture or something.”
“It can be done later,” she said.
“Not if you can’t walk.”
