Chapter 9
Tillman strode away, angry with himself. Although he wasn’t sure why. There was nothing that he could have done to keep Phoebe from hurting herself. Nothing he could do to fix it, other than take her to the ER, which he kind of bullied her into.
Not intentionally.
He hadn’t meant to say the things he had, to even allude to the fact that losing his ranch had been a huge blow to his manly pride. He wasn’t supposed to have any manly pride. He wasn’t supposed to have his identity tied to a place or a tangible thing.
He knew that, and yet, he couldn’t help the fact that he had, he did, and it had been shattered when he lost it all.
Maybe that was why the Lord had taken it away.
He had been too arrogant about it, too full of pride in himself. He didn’t want to think that way, but he needed to own it, to examine himself and see what areas he needed to grow.
Still, he had been surprised at the strength of his reaction when he saw blood on Phoebe. First, he hadn’t been sure what it was, and then it had been obvious that she didn’t even know. He thought maybe she’d been shot, but of course, that wasn’t reasonable.
When a person was in a panic, sometimes they weren’t reasonable.
Which made no sense. Why was he panicking over someone he just met? Of course, she was the sister of one of his best friends from college, but still, the strength of his reaction had shocked him.
He probably shouldn’t examine it too much.
He got in his truck, started it, and drove back to the field. Phoebe had gone back to work, the little turkey. She was pounding a stake in with one hand while holding his T-shirt to her head with her other.
He should have stopped and grabbed a T-shirt from the bunkhouse. They’d probably let him in the ER without one, but it would be better for him to be fully clothed. He’d stop on the way out.
All he’d been thinking about was getting her in, getting the bleeding stopped, and there she was working again.
He wanted to grab her by the throat. Except, he really didn’t, he just wanted to grab her, pull her close, and hold her.
Which was crazy. And ridiculous, especially after the contortions his ex-wife had put him through. He shouldn’t want to have anything to do with any woman ever again.
But in the last few days since he’d met Phoebe, he watched her be selfless, watched her do whatever needed to be done, watched her say yes every time one of her siblings needed her for something, watched her be accommodating to him and work more than her share. She must have spent hours making her spreadsheets, figuring out the things they needed, getting estimates, and getting everything ready so that they could have a discussion about things they had to have and the things that they could chop due to budget constraints.
That was going to be an uncomfortable and hard discussion, and maybe then he’d see that she would demand her way. But so far, nothing of the sort. She’d been the easiest person to get along with he’d ever met.
“What are you doing?” he said with more force than necessary when he got out of his truck after parking beside her.
“We’re never going to get this stuff done if we have to take off in the middle of the day for me to go to the ER.”
“This is the first time in four days. Once every four days won’t be that bad.”
“This is not funny,” she said, although there was a small smile in her eyes as she lifted her head. But it was obvious to him she was frustrated with herself. She didn’t like the fact that she was the one holding them up from work.
“This could happen to anyone. I’ve actually done that myself, although not to the point where I needed stitches.”
“Or maybe you just didn’t go.”
“Getting cold feet?” he teased her, just because he thought she would have the reaction that he wanted, insisting that she go, and that would make him feel better.
“Never. I can do this. I am attached to my hair, but I don’t have to be.”
He laughed at her little bit of humor. “If you’re not attached to it, you can let me give you a haircut when you get home.”
“I don’t think I want to make that big of a sacrifice,” she said, with her eyes narrowed and shifting to him. She seemed to realize he was teasing her, pushing her, and maybe even prodding her a bit.
But again, she didn’t get upset. She was probably used to being pushed and prodded and teased to within an inch of her life because of her brothers.
He supposed he was a typical man in that regard, where he couldn’t help but pick and poke, mostly because he wanted to get a smile out of her, not because he wanted to hurt her or do anything to harm her. On the contrary, he wanted to push her into going to the ER, which is what he felt was best for her.
He put a hand on her arm, the one that held the hammer, and waited until she met his eyes before he moved his hand down to her hand and gently removed the hammer from it.
“Now you can get in my truck.”
She laughed. “Maybe we can stop at the house and get some Tylenol. My head is starting to pound, and it feels like this is going to be a doozy.”
“When you hit yourself in the head with a hammer, it has a tendency to hurt for a while and induce headaches.”
“I see. I wish someone would have told me that earlier.”
“And that would have stopped you?” he asked as he opened the pickup door and put his hand out in case she wanted help inside.
To his surprise, she took it. He almost thought she wouldn’t, insisting that she could do it herself. But Phoebe didn’t seem to be prideful. Which is why he was so surprised when she started talking about how she didn’t want her hair shaved off. He wouldn’t have thought that she had any feminine vanity, but he’d been wrong. Interesting.
Of course, his admission about feeling the same way about his ranch had shut her up pretty quick. And she was putting her money where her mouth was, so to speak.
“I need to run in and grab a shirt anyway. I should have done it when I was there before. So I’ll grab some pain pills while I’m in.”
“Thanks. Some water too?”
“Water, pain pills, T-shirt. I kind of feel like you’re delaying the inevitable.”
“No. I promise. Just grabbing the necessities. Although, the T-shirt is not exactly a necessity.” She didn’t seem to mean anything by those words, although he thought about them after he slammed the door shut and walked around the front of his truck. What was she trying to say?
But he dismissed the idea that she was saying anything more than he could live without a T-shirt. That was probably for the best. Especially if he wanted to stick to his determination to stay away from women. Funny how he determined in his heart that was what he was going to do, and then the Lord sent him Phoebe, who was...almost perfect. Even her clumsiness was endearing.
But it didn’t matter, he wasn’t going to be swayed from his position. Maybe... Just maybe, they could become friends, but they definitely were not going to be anything more.
He was going to take care of her, the same way he would take care of anyone around him, although he knew that that was probably not entirely true. If it had been one of Phoebe’s sisters who had gotten hurt, he would definitely help them stop the bleeding, and then he would have found someone else to help them. But he hadn’t even considered going after one of Phoebe’s brothers. Or anyone else to take her to the ER. Nothing in his head except for him taking care of her.
“There’s no ER in Sweet Water, so we’ll have to go to Rockerton. It’s...just a couple blocks down from the jail, where we first met.”
If he wasn’t mistaken, there was some humor in her tone as he got back in the truck and handed her first the pain pills and then the water which he opened for her. He put the shirt on while he was out of the truck, and she didn’t say anything about it.
She murmured thank you for both the water and pills and downed them immediately.
“Mind if I get a drink? I should have grabbed two.”
“No. Go right ahead. I wasn’t so thirsty. I just needed to swallow the pills.”
She handed him the water back. He wasn’t thirsty at all, but...he met her eyes as he put the bottle to his mouth and took a long drink.
She looked away. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of the pain in her head, or because she wasn’t interested. He didn’t know what he was doing, because he wasn’t interested either. And he needed to remember that.