Chapter 10
BLAKE
“Keep it elevated when you sleep, okay? And if the swelling gets worse, you need to get to urgent care."
Her voice cuts through the noise of the camp like a blade, and my whole body goes still. I'm halfway through unloading boxes of canned goods from Danny's truck, a case of beans in my hands, and I just... stop.
Fuck.
I knew she'd come back eventually. Danny mentioned she'd signed up for more shifts, said it like it was good news I should be happy about. And I am. I am happy. She's not letting what happened with me and Reid destroy something she cares about.
But knowing she'd be here and actually hearing her voice are two very different things.
"Blake? You gonna stand there all night or what?"
Danny's watching me from the truck bed, eyebrows raised. I shake my head and set the box down on the supply table.
"Sorry. Got distracted."
"Uh-huh." He doesn't push, but there's a look in his eyes that says he knows exactly what distracted me. Danny doesn't miss much. "We've got about six more boxes, then I need someone to help get the heat lamps set up near the medical station. Weather's supposed to drop below forty tonight."
"I'll handle the lamps."
The words are out before I think them through. Stupid. The last thing I should be doing is volunteering to work anywhere near her. But the idea of Laine out here in the cold, fingers going numb while she tries to help someone, bothers me. A lot.
I grab another box and focus on the work.
The camp's busier than usual tonight, maybe thirty people scattered across the clearing.
Someone's got a fire going in one of the metal drums, and a handful of regulars are huddled around it, passing a thermos back and forth.
The tarps we strung up last week are holding, but barely—the wind's picking up and I can see a couple spots where the grommets are starting to pull loose.
I'll add it all to the list.
I finish unloading the truck and head for the storage shed where we keep the heat lamps. The path takes me past the medical station, and I tell myself I'm not going to look. I'm just going to walk past like a normal fucking person and get the equipment and do my job.
I look.
She's kneeling on a foam pad next to an older woman I don't recognize, examining what looks like a nasty cut on the woman's leg.
Her hair's pulled back in a messy ponytail, strands escaping around her face, and she's wearing a puffy jacket that's about two sizes too big for her.
Probably borrowed. She never dresses warm enough.
The thought lands wrong. How do I know that? How do I know she runs cold, that she never dresses warm enough, that she wraps both hands around her coffee like she's trying to pull the heat straight through the ceramic?
I know because I watched her. Every second she was in our house, I was collecting shit I had no business collecting. Filing it away somewhere I had no right to keep it.
Her laugh. The way her head tilts when she's actually listening. How she takes her coffee — too much cream, barely any sugar. The way she looked at Reid like he hung the fucking moon.
I make my legs keep moving. Storage shed. Heat lamps. That's the job.
The shed's padlocked and I fuck around with the combination longer than I should. Fingers are stiff from the cold and my brain's not where it needs to be. I finally get it open, grab two of the portable propane heaters, and haul them back toward the medical station.
Laine looks up when I approach. Her expression doesn't change—no smile, no frown, just that steady nurse's gaze that takes in everything and gives nothing away. I wish she'd give me something. Some sign of how to talk to her. Do I give her space? Is she okay with me around her?
"Danny said you needed heat," I finally say. Smooth, asshole. Real eloquent.
"The temperature's dropping faster than they predicted." She gestures to a spot near the supply table. "Over there would be good. Mrs. Grady is shivering, and I've got three more people waiting who probably are too."
I set up the first heater, checking the propane level and adjusting the angle so it'll warm the treatment area without creating a fire hazard.
"Thank you," Laine says quietly. She's not looking at me, focused on wrapping the leg in gauze. I want her eyes on me.
This is so fucked up. How am I supposed to carry on like this? How am I supposed to pretend that I don't love everything about her. Like, how the fuck does that version of Blake look at her? Talk to her? How do I be that?
"No problem."
I should leave. Set up the second heater somewhere else, find another task, put distance between us. That's what a decent person would do. Give her space. Let her work without the reminder of everything I fucked up.
But then the woman winces, and Laine's brow furrows, and I hear myself asking, "You need another set of hands?"
Laine pauses. Looks up at me. I can't read her expression, and that bothers me more than it should.
"You want to help with medical?"
"I want to help. Period." I shove my hands in my jacket pockets. "Whatever you need."
There's a long moment where she just studies me. I don't know what she's looking for—some sign that I'm going to lose my shit again, maybe. Some hint of the asshole who said things I can never take back.
Whatever she sees, it must be okay, because she nods.
"I could use someone to handle intake. Talk to people, figure out what they need, help them get settled while they wait." She pauses. "Think you can manage that?"
"Yeah. I can manage that."
The next hour passes in a blur of faces and problems. Blisters.
Frostbite. A guy with a cough that sounds like his lungs are full of gravel.
A young woman with a gash on her arm from climbing a fence—she won't say where, won't say why, and I don't ask.
Everyone's got their own story out here, their own reasons for ending up in a camp instead of a bed.
I keep busy. Talk to people. Write down names and symptoms on the clipboard Laine handed me. Fetch supplies when she needs them. Refill the propane heater when it starts sputtering.
And I watch her work.
Can't help it. She moves through the chaos like she was born for it, calm and efficient and so fucking competent.
She touches people gently, even when she's doing things that must sting like hell.
She talks to them—actually talks, not just medical instructions but real conversation.
Asks about their lives. Remembers details from previous visits.
She's good at this. Really good. And watching her be good at something, watching her exist in a space where she's confident and capable and completely herself—
It's the closest thing to peace I've felt in months.
"Blake?"
I snap back to attention. Laine's looking at me expectantly, and I realize I've been standing here like an idiot with an empty clipboard.
"Sorry. What do you need?"
"Mr. Wiley." She nods toward an older guy shuffling toward the station, favoring his left leg. "Can you get him settled? Looks like something's wrong with his foot."
"On it."
Mr. Wiley turns out to be a talker. Ex-Navy, served in Vietnam, hasn't trusted the government since Nixon.
He tells me all of this while I help him onto the foam pad and get his boot off, which takes longer than it should because the laces are knotted to hell and his fingers are too cold to work them.
"Goddamn thing's been bothering me for a week," he says, gesturing at his foot. "Stepped on something sharp. Thought it would heal up on its own."
I get the boot off and peel back his sock, and—
Fuck.
The wound on the bottom of his foot isn't just a cut. It's infected, angry red streaks radiating out from a puncture that's gone green and yellow around the edges. The smell hits me a second later, sweet and rotten, and my stomach does a slow roll.
"Laine." My voice sounds weird. Too tight. "You should look at this."
She finishes taping a bandage on her current patient and moves over to us. I step back—way back—as she kneels down to examine the foot.
"When did you say this happened?" she asks, her voice carefully neutral.
"Week ago. Maybe eight days."
"And you've been walking on it?"
He snorts and shakes his head. "Gotta walk, don't I?"
Laine makes a small sound that might be frustration or might be resignation. She reaches for the antiseptic, and I watch her irrigate the wound, watch the water run cloudy with—
The world tilts.
I grab the edge of the supply table, blinking hard. My mouth's gone dry and there's a cold sweat prickling along my spine, which is fucking ridiculous.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"I've seen worse," I mumble. "I've caused worse. I once held a guy's intestines inside his body while we waited for medevac, and I didn't even flinch."
But that was different. That was bullets flying and adrenaline flooding my system and the absolute certainty that if I didn't keep it together, people would die.
This is just... an old man with a bad foot. In a camp. In Oregon. Where nothing's trying to kill me.
My body doesn't seem to understand the difference.
"Blake." Laine's voice cuts through the fog. "Sit down."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're gray. Sit."
I sit. Right there on the cold ground, because my legs have apparently decided they're done supporting my weight. Wiley's watching me with something between worry and concern.
"Son, you don't look so good."
"Thanks," I manage. "You're real fucking observant." He grins and shakes his head. I'm thrilled he finds this shit so funny.
Laine's still working on his foot, hands steady even as she glances over at me. "Put your head between your knees. Breathe slow."
I want to argue. I want to tell her I don't need to be babied, that I'm fine, that this is embarrassing as fuck and I'd really appreciate it if we could all just pretend it's not happening. But my body has other plans, so I drop my head and focus on not throwing up or passing out.