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“Well, unfortunately for you, I do feel like making a big deal of it. You helped save my brother, you brought him to me even though you were terrified. That makes you family. And when you’re family, you have to follow the rules.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “More rules. If you threaten to spank me, we’re going to have a problem.” She pointed at Regent.
“Can see why you like her,” Victor said to Maxim.
“Uh, thanks. But why do you keep saying bare feet, pajamas, knife?” Maxim asked.
“Because she was brave enough or foolish enough, depending on how you look at it, to rush into a fight to save you with bare feet, wearing pajamas, and armed with a kitchen knife.”
“What the fuck? No one said anything about a knife!” Maxim roared.
Uh-oh. She tried to inch her way off the bed. Maxim turned to her, then hissed in pain.
She froze. “Do not move!”
“A knife?”
“Maxim—”
“You rushed in with a knife? You picked up a knife, but didn’t bother with shoes?”
“No time for shoes.”
“No time for shoes?” he yelled.
She hated to think how painful it was for him to yell with a hole in his side. All right, the wound had been stitched, but still. He needed to be calm.
“It’s not a big deal,” she told him.
“Wrong play,” Victor muttered.
She glared at him. She thought he’d helped enough.
And by that, she meant that he hadn’t helped at all.
“It’s really not. I couldn’t even feel my feet. I didn’t notice.”
“You could have stepped on anything. A bit of glass. A rusty nail. You could have cut your feet up, so it is a big deal.”
“Maxim, you were being beaten up in an alley! You were stabbed! You had a huge hole in you. A small cut on my foot hardly matters.”
His good eye narrowed. “You cut your foot? Show me.”
“It’s barely a scratch.”
His gaze moved to Regent. “Did she get seen to by that asshole?”
Regent nodded. “He washed her feet and put a few bandages on them. None of them were deep enough to need stitches, but she’s supposed to keep off them as much as possible for a few days.”
“I carried her back up here after we learned that she’d hurt them,” Victor offered.
“I didn’t need to be carried,” she muttered.
That had been embarrassing. Especially when Gracen had greeted them in the bedroom. She’d thought the other woman might get mad that her fiancée was carrying her around. But she’d been full of concern. And then she’d hustled to get Aston some clothes. Which were a bit small on her since Gracen was so short, but they were better than wearing those pajamas.
She’d never had anyone take care of her like that. Fuss over her. Well, other than Maxim.
And it had been lovely.
It’d made her wonder what it would have been like if her mom had stuck around. Or if she’d ever had anyone in her life that had actually cared about her. Even just a little bit.
“Did you not hear the doctor when he said that you had to stay off your feet?” Maxim asked her.
“Yes, but I had to walk on my feet to get you to the car. I also walked on my feet to get into the house, then to go up the stairs to see you, and then down the stairs again to talk. So I think I would have been fine to walk back up again.”
It wasn’t until she finished talking that she realized he’d gone tense. His face was hard. He was upset.
No, more than that. He was mad.
She froze for a moment, worried that he was mad at her. But his anger all seemed to be aimed at his brothers.
“Why didn’t my woman get seen to first?” he asked in a low rumble.
Huh? What did he mean?
“The doctor should have seen to her first,” Maxim said.
Oh crap. They were back to the ‘my woman is more important than I am’ conversation.
“Maxim, you were bleeding out. And unconscious. Of course the doctor saw you first. I just had a couple of cuts on my feet and a few bruises on my back. There’s no way I needed his attention before you.”
“What bruises?” he asked.
“Lord help me. What happened to the easygoing, doesn’t have a care in the world, Maxim?” she muttered.
“He got himself a trouble-attracting, too brave for her own good, sassy woman. That’s what happened.”
“Jardin is going to be pissed,” Victor commented.
What? Who was Jardin?
“That’s my other brother.” Maxim had obviously seen her confusion. “He’s in Texas visiting our cousins. They’ve got some legal issues. They often have legal issues.”
She wondered what that meant.
“So pissed to miss this,” Victor said.
“You’re not helping, Victor,” Regent said firmly. “Maxim, it was my fault.”
“Damn straight it was.”
“You need to calm down,” she told Maxim. “You’re getting worked up over nothing.”
