Chapter 8
EIGHT
Anson
A couple of hours later, after hauling a lot of heavy supplies back and forth from the trucks to the place where we’re setting up the vendor booths, I’ve personally volunteered to swing a hammer for the next few hours.
I need to get some of my unwanted frustrations out, and I’ve nearly let go of the argument I had with Bristol. Not that I can forget it.
We never argue. We rarely even have a misunderstanding. If either of us senses the other one is in a bad mood, we steer clear and keep our opinions to ourselves. We make things work because we have to. For Ford’s sake. For her mom.
But it’s hard to hold an opinion in when you think someone is destroying their life over someone else who doesn’t seem to give one fucking iota about their well-being or happiness.
Chris only ever manages to be a self-centered, self-aggrandizing jackass.
He promises her the moon if it’ll get him what he wants, and in the meantime, I have to imagine he has if she’s willing to wait five years for him to grace her with his presence again.
She’s right though. It’s not my business.
It’s her life. Her choice of how to spend it.
Even if that means wasting it on someone who’ll never appreciate it.
I’m lost in the thought, guzzling down some cold water before I get back to the grind of mindless work.
I need it right now. To keep my mind off her.
Arguing with her. Touching her. Kissing her.
Hearing her bloodcurdling scream breaks through the fantasy that’s developing.
My head snaps up as I see the window on the old ranch foreman’s house open, and another screech comes flying out.
I see a flurry of motion reflected in the glass and hear a crash as my boots pound across the path and up the steps to the porch.
I’m through the door and up a second staircase before I manage to yell her name.
She doesn’t answer, but I hear the ongoing commotion. It’s coming from the upstairs bathroom. Sounds of her soft mewls of pain follow in the silence.
“Bristol?” I call for her again before I push through the half-open door.
She screeches again when she sees me, clawing at the overalls that are pooling around her feet and trying to drag them back up her bare legs. But before she can get them up over her calves, I already see a scrape on her right knee and a gash on the left leg.
“What happened?” I ask as I make my way around the clawfoot tub, dropping to my knees to get a closer look at the injuries.
“Anson, don’t. I’m fine. I’m fine. I just—there was a bat in here. I didn’t see it until it was too late. Then I tried to let it out the window, but it flew at me first.”
I look up and around before she confirms my suspicion.
“It already flew out.”
“Did it get you?” My hands are already on the backs of her bare legs, searching to see if there are any other cuts. We’re going to have to wash them all out. Get her to a clinic as fast as possible. Rabies is fatal if it’s not treated.
I can’t lose another one of Debra’s daughters. Not when I’m actually here this time and can stop it.
“No. I don’t think so. The cuts are from my fall. I pulled the overalls down to check on my knee and stumbled over them into the tub like a klutz. God! How many times am I gonna be naked in front of you in a week!” She’s tugging them up around her knees and thighs before I can stop her.
“Let me look!” I demand, flashing her a glare as I glance up at her. Her face is bright red, and her focus is fully on the state of her dress. Or undress, as it were. I don’t give a shit about her clothes.
“No! This is humiliating!”
“Fuck humiliating. You could fucking die, Bristol. I need to see if it got you.”
“It didn’t get me through the denim!”
“You don’t know that. Have you had the vaccine?”
“Yes, I’ve had the vaccine. I root around in old homes and barns looking for antiques for a living.
You don’t think I’ve encountered a bat before?
I just didn’t expect it to come flying at my face when I tried to let it go.
I thought maybe it was dead from the way it was hanging on the drapes.
” She buttons one strap of her overalls, and before she can get to the second, I snatch her from her spot in the tub.
A soft gasp of air leaving her lungs is the only sound she makes at first, too stunned to say anything else.
I’ve got her halfway down the stairs before she speaks again. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Taking you to the inn.” It’s closer than the ranch house, and every minute counts if we’re getting her cleaned up.
“I’ll have Grace give me a room, and we’ll get you cleaned up.
Then you’re going to the clinic. You need a booster.
Maybe the other thing. The antidote. Whatever the fuck they call it. ”
“Oh my god. You are—I don’t even know what you are right now. Overreacting, for starters. I’m fine.”
“We’re not taking chances. You can do that on your own time, all you want. But right now, this is my project. My site. I make the calls. And the call is that you’re letting me administer first aid, and then I’m taking you straight to the clinic to get looked at.”
She opens her mouth to protest and then closes it when she sees the determined look on my face.
Thank fuck. I don’t want to have to keep arguing with her. I just need to know she’s okay.
“You don’t have to do this. I can do it.” She shoos me toward the door as she unsnaps the button on her overalls and toes out of her shoes once we’re at the inn.
“If it’s all the same, I’d rather look myself.”
“I’m going to have to strip down to my underwear. Is that what you want?”
“With all due respect, I don’t think you have anything I haven’t seen before.”
“Well, you haven’t seen mine.”
“Fair enough, but I’ve had my hands all over yours, so I don’t think we’ve got a lot of secrets left between us at this point.
Keep the panties and the bra on. I doubt he bit you through there,” I instruct, and she cedes the ground.
I can tell she’s worried herself but doesn’t want to let on for fear of distressing me more.
As if that’s fucking possible. I’m so focused on the task at hand that I couldn’t give a shit about her lack of clothes. I just want her to be okay.
“How do you know it’s a he?”
“What?” I ask as I begin scanning her arms for bites or scratches.
“You said he bit me. It could have been a she. Maybe she was having a bad day, and I made it worse by disturbing her peace. I can understand her getting bite-y under those circumstances.” She steps out of the overalls but lets me finish checking her arms before she goes to shrug out of the short-sleeved shirt she has on under them.
“And if it was a he, it’s inexcusable?”
“I didn’t say that,” she says as she pulls the shirt over her head, her hair cascading out of it and down her back again.
“It was implied.” I drop to my knees as she turns in a slow circle, my hand guiding her on her hip as I check her stomach.
“Well, maybe you’re just extra sensitive given how bite-y you are today.” She leans over the sink to turn the water on.
“My peace has been thoroughly disturbed,” I answer her honestly but absently as I ghost my hands down her left leg, noting the bruise and the gash there she claims was from the fall before I move to the right.
The scrape is bloody, still seeping from where she’s torn the flesh, but it’s not very deep, thankfully.
“I can tell,” she responds bluntly. “I think you’ve said more words today than you normally say in a month.”
“Sometimes the occasion calls for it.” I make her turn her back to me and move up the backs of her legs, searching her body clinically for signs of a wound.
I’m not noticing the curve of her calf or how long her legs are right now.
I can’t say I won’t be remembering it. But right now, I just want this woman safe.
“The occasion being me pissing you off,” she laments as I stand again. I don’t answer immediately, my attention on her back and shoulders, then moving to her neck and clavicle as I hunt for any sign of a bite.
“You don’t piss me off. You worry me,” I correct, staying her hip when she starts to turn away and reach for her overalls.
“Wait. What’s this?” I run my finger over a shallow scrape on her chest, just over her right breast. “Did you have this before?” It doesn’t look fresh, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.
“Oh yeah. That’s a bite all right.” She winces as she glances down at it, like it might still be hurting.
“What?” The panic wells again.
“Yep. Species Ansonis Briggsus, I believe.” She tries to keep a straight face and fails, a giggle popping free, and her laughter momentarily quells the fear in my gut before I realize what she means.
“I put a fucking mark like this on you?”
“You did.”
“Christ. I’m fucking sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was hot,” she admits freely until she remembers who she’s talking to and then presses her lips together. “Until it wasn’t.” She swallows hard and pulls away. “As strangers in the dark, you know, it was kind of hot, is what I mean.”
A flash of her soft cries of approval and her hands running over my skin runs through my mind before I quash it. I can’t get distracted right now.
“We should get the fresh wounds cleaned up and then get you to the clinic. Let the doctors decide what’s a good precaution here. In case we missed anything.”
“I feel like that was a pretty thorough inspection.”
“I’m just worried, Bristol. I’m not trying to—” She cuts me off with her hand on my forearm and a quick shake of her head.
“I know you’re not trying to do anything.
It’s okay. Thank you for being so worried.
For caring this much.” Her voice is sincere, and she holds my gaze for a moment before she tears it away and goes in search of soap and a washcloth.
“I can take it from here. You can go back to the guys. I’ll go to the clinic. ”
“I’d rather take you. If they have to give you something… If you need observation. I’d rather have an eye on you.”
She looks at me through the mirror in the bathroom and nods her okay.
“I’ll be outside if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” she murmurs softly before she turns on the water and sets to work on her wounds.