Chapter 16
-Sadie-
The steady patter against the windshield had Sadie’s unease growing as she drew closer to the manor.
The cold front—and the rain it brought—had rolled in the previous evening.
It was precisely the sort of weather that could set old injuries throbbing, and she suspected today might be especially difficult for Corbyn.
When she arrived, Edie greeted her in the kitchen as usual. She was wiping flour-dusted hands on her apron, but Sadie instantly noticed the way the other woman’s lips pursed.
“Morning, love,” Edie sighed, her voice taking on an edge she hadn’t heard from her before. “He’s in the study as usual. I’ve put the kettle on.”
“Thanks,” Sadie replied, hanging her coat on the rack by the door. “I’ll take him some tea.”
“Good luck with him today,” Edie added, lowering her voice slightly. “Weather makes his hand act up something fierce, though he’d rather bite his tongue than admit it.”
Sadie nodded, preparing two mugs of tea. She’d learned exactly how Corbyn preferred his, a splash of milk, no sugar, steeped precisely four minutes. It gave her a moment to collect herself, knowing that if Edie was on edge, then there had likely already been tension in the house.
When she approached the study, she paused at the threshold.
Through the partially open door, she could see Corbyn hunched over his desk, his shoulders tense as he typed.
His right hand tapped out a steady rhythm while his left hovered awkwardly over the keys, darting in every so often to tap a letter before retreating.
A grimace flickered across his face as he flexed and stretched his scarred fingers, clearly trying to work through the stiffness.
Typing up the pages of his handwritten manuscript was a necessity, and he kept his laptop under lock and key. His fear that his work would be stolen once more meant it had to be hardwired to the printer, not connected to the internet.
Sprawled by the hearth, Riley lifted his head at her entrance, his tail thumping a gentle greeting against the floor. The sound caused Corbyn to look up, and Sadie caught the flash of pain that crossed his features before he could mask it.
“Morning,” she said, keeping her voice light as she crossed the room. “Thought we could use some fortification before diving into the day’s work.”
“Thank you,” Corbyn said, his voice rougher than usual as she set one mug on the desk where he could reach it. He flexed his fingers again, a barely suppressed wince betraying the cost of even that tiny movement.
Sadie settled into what had become her chair, angled slightly toward his desk, and kept her voice as neutral as possible. “Bad day?”
Corbyn’s mouth tightened, his instinctive denial visibly forming. Then, surprisingly, his shoulders dropped, and he grumbled, “Blasted rain.” That simple statement gave her all the confirmation she needed.
“My mom’s hand acts up whenever a storm front moves through,” Sadie told him, sipping her tea.
That earned her a curious look, and she noticed that his expression seemed to soften.
She needed to be careful to not push too hard, but her familiarity with what he was experiencing seemed to ease his temper.
He gestured toward the laptop screen, his voice tight when he replied, “I’ve been trying to type up those edits we agreed on yesterday. It’s going at a bloody snail’s pace.”
“I could type them for you,” she suggested, knowing that her offer, no matter how sincere, would likely be rejected. “Since we’ve already decided on the wording…”
“No.”
The word was clipped, definitive, and Sadie nodded, accepting the boundary without comment. His independence was something he guarded as closely as his writing, and she had come to understand how important that was to him.
“Alright then,” she said, reaching for her notebook. “Why don’t we talk through the climax of the book instead? We can work out where it’s heading.”
Relief briefly softened Corbyn’s expression, though he tried to hide it behind his mug as he took a long sip of his tea.
They fell into a productive rhythm, discussing how the various plot threads would converge in the climax.
Sadie sketched a rough timeline on her notepad, capturing Corbyn’s ideas and adding her own suggestions.
The work absorbed them both, and for nearly an hour, the frustration with the laptop was forgotten.
When Sadie looked up to ask about a character’s motivation, she found Corbyn grimacing, massaging the scarred fingers of his left hand with his right. After a moment, he pulled a small tube from his desk, and the name on the label was instantly familiar.
“Arnica was my mom’s go-to as well,” Sadie commented, keeping her voice soft. As their professional tolerance had shifted into something like friendship, she had been sharing more of these little asides, hoping to find more common ground.
“My sister’s special blend,” he said, looking up at her. To Sadie’s surprise, the answer was delivered without the anger that had colored his tone earlier. “She left it during her last visit with explicit instructions that I’d better use it or face her wrath.”
Setting down her notebook and pen, she asked, “She’s a doctor, right? Your sister?”
“Surgeon,” Corbyn confirmed. “Orthopedic. She had this particular formula made up by some herbalist colleague.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips before he continued, “She once threatened to sedate me if I didn’t follow post-surgical protocols.”
“Would she have done it?” Sadie inquired, glancing over at him with a smirk.
“Without hesitation,” he countered, returning her smirk with one of his own.
Sadie laughed, and she heard him huff a noise that might have been the start of a chuckle.
There was a warmth that bloomed in her chest as she watched him relax for a moment.
A fleeting thought drifted through her mind that she would like to bring out that smirk more often, and perhaps at some point even get him to laugh.
She quickly pushed the thought aside, focusing back on the conversation.
“She sounds formidable.”
“It’s a Pearce family trait,” Corbyn admitted with an amused shake of his head. He attempted to unscrew the cap with one hand, and she noticed his jaw tightened in frustration when the tube slipped from his grip.
Sadie watched his struggle, weighing her options.
Three weeks ago, she would have pretended not to notice, respecting the walls he’d built around his limitations.
But things between them had changed so drastically since those early days.
Taking a breath, she decided to put that trust to the test, praying she wasn’t making the wrong choice.
“May I?” she asked simply, holding out her hand.
Corbyn stilled, his blue eyes lifting to meet hers. A complicated series of emotions crossed his face: pride, resistance, and then, surprisingly, acceptance.
“If you insist,” he said gruffly, sliding the tube across the desk.
Sadie uncapped it quickly, but instead of returning it, she hesitated, biting her lip as she worked up her nerve.
“It might be more effective if…” She paused, then gestured toward his hand. “I used to do this for my mom. If you’d rather not, that’s completely…”
“Alright.”
The single word hung in the air between them. Sadie glanced up, finding Corbyn watching her with an unreadable expression. All of his usual defenses were momentarily lowered, and she felt her stomach flutter as she realized he was allowing her to help.
She pulled her chair around to his side of the desk, the movement deliberate but unhurried.
After she settled, she cautiously reached for his left hand, taking it gently in hers.
The scarring was more extensive than Sadie had realized, angry red ridges extending across his fingers and palm, the skin pulled tight across knuckles that no longer bent with ease.
Sadie squeezed a small amount of the arnica cream onto her fingertips, its familiar herbal scent sharp, overwhelming the earthy aroma of paper that she was used to.
She began working it into his palm with gentle pressure, carefully following the natural lines of his hand.
When Corbyn stiffened slightly at her touch on a particular spot near the base of his thumb, she immediately lightened her pressure.
“Too much?” she asked softly.
“No,” Corbyn said, his voice unusually subdued. “Just… sensitive there.”
Sadie nodded, adjusting her technique. As she continued, she noticed the subtle shifts in his body language, allowing them to be her guide.
In her peripheral vision, she saw his shoulders gradually relax when she found the correct pressure, and his breath eased when she worked through a particularly tight spot.
His hand was larger than she’d expected, the bones strong despite their limited mobility. She could feel the places where the skin had been grafted, the subtle differences in texture beneath her fingertips.
“You’re good at this,” Corbyn observed after a few minutes of silence.
“I had lots of practice,” Sadie replied, focusing on a tight spot near his thumb. “My mom injured her hand when I was thirteen, and my dad traveled constantly for his job, so I became the designated massage therapist.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for a thirteen-year-old.”
Sadie shrugged slightly, her fingers still working over his hand. “It was what it was, but you adapt.”
Something in her tone must have resonated with him because Corbyn’s following words were softer than usual, and he murmured, “Yes, you do.”
A comfortable silence fell between them as Sadie continued her careful ministrations.
Every time she was this close to him, she was hyper-aware of every detail: the heat from his body, the scent of his cologne with its hints of sandalwood, the way her warmth spread through her body at the nearness.
It created a heady mixture she found herself getting lost in as her fingers continued to move against his skin.