Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Megan set the costume box in the storage room and leaned her forehead against the metal shelf. Her pulse hammered at her throat.
We need to talk.
Braxton’s parting shot echoed in the empty space. Territorial. Like he had any claim at all. One conference. One night after her mother’s memorial when grief made her reckless and desperate to feel anything. She regretted it before morning and had been dodging him ever since.
And now he’d shown up in front of Holden. Asking her to dinner like their mistake meant something.
Her face burned at the memory.
She pushed off the shelf and headed back to the gym. Holden stood where she’d left him, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed outside.
“Let me explain about Braxton.”
“You don’t owe me explanations.” His gaze rested on her, calm but unreadable.
“Braxton and I aren’t—we’re not—” Words tangled. “It was a mistake. One time. I don’t—”
“Megan.” Neutral tone, though something shuttered behind his eyes. “It’s not my business.”
Except everything since Saturday night made it feel like his business.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“All right.”
“I mean it.”
“I believe you.” His expression didn’t soften.
She grabbed her coat, shoved her arms into the sleeves. Keys. Bag. Out. Her head needed air.
“We should go.” She motioned to the door.
Holden followed.
The parking lot stretched gray under cloud cover. Only her sedan remained. She unlocked it.
A loud clang.
She turned. Timothy stood behind the gym near the rusted pile of old equipment. Monkey bars. A slide missing rungs. A bent tetherball pole. She’d meant to have it hauled away two weeks ago. Meant to follow up.
Forgotten.
Timothy climbed the monkey bars, fingers around rusted metal.
“Timothy, get down from there right now!”
He grinned and swung to the next bar.
“Where’s your mother?”
“Late!”
“Well, she’d tell you to get down.”
He stuck out his tongue and climbed higher.
The metal groaned.
“Timothy, stop!”
Holden moved first. Big strides eating the distance. Megan ran after him, heels slapping pavement, lungs burning. Too far.
Timothy reached for the third bar. His hand slipped.
“No!”
Holden lunged. Caught the boy’s arm. Yanked him back. Timothy’s weight dragged them sideways. Holden’s forearm scraped jagged metal where a broken weld jutted like knives.
Red spread across his sleeve.
Megan’s chest seized. Blood.
“Got you.” Holden steadied the boy. “You’re all right.”
Relief tore through her. Then guilt. That equipment. Her responsibility.
Timothy stared up at Holden, wide-eyed. “You saved me.”
He had. While she’d been too slow, wearing the wrong shoes, thinking about anything but old metal and loose bolts.
“Next time, listen when Miss Collins tells you something.” His voice stayed calm despite blood soaking through his flannel.
A minivan pulled into the lot. Timothy’s mom.
“Go to your mother,” Megan said.
The boy ran.
She reached Holden. Blood soaked through his sleeve, dark and spreading. She eased the fabric back. The gash ran four inches down his forearm, deep enough to show what lay beneath. Blood welled but didn’t spurt. Not an artery.
“You need stitches.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. You’re bleeding through your shirt.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“You need a doctor.”
He looked down at the injury like he was seeing it for the first time. “Reckon you’re right.”
Her throat tightened. This could’ve ended with a hurt child. Lawsuit. Headlines. Another failure in a job she was already failing. And Holden had taken the damage instead.
“Come on.” She took his elbow. “Urgent care is ten minutes away.”
He didn’t argue.
She drove too fast. Hands tight on the wheel. Blood dripped onto her passenger seat. She should have grabbed towels. Should have done something besides panic.
“Slow down. I’m not dying.”
“You’re bleeding all over my car.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m not—” She caught her breath. “The equipment’s been sitting for weeks. I kept putting off calling maintenance because of the pageant and—”
“Megan.”
“Timothy could’ve been seriously hurt.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“Because of you.”
“Don’t make it more than it is.”
But it was. Men who saved children didn’t just appear in offices and scramble her insides. They were the same men who rode into blizzards to save towns. And her family erased him.
She pulled into urgent care and parked crooked. “Can you walk?”
“It’s my arm, not my legs.”
He swayed when he stood.
“Holden—”
“I’m fine. Just stood up too fast.”
Shock. Blood loss. Both. She braced him around the waist.
The automatic doors opened. Fluorescent lights. Plastic chairs. The antiseptic sting she’d come to dread since last Christmas. A handful of patients waited.
The receptionist’s eyes widened at Holden’s sleeve. “How can I help you?”
“He needs stitches,” Megan said, fighting the tears crowded behind her eyes.
“Name?”
Holden cleared his throat. “Holden Reed.”
“Date of birth?”
Silence.
“Date of birth?”
Megan’s pulse kicked.
“March 15, 1995,” Holden said.
The receptionist typed. “Social security number?”
Megan sucked in a breath.
“Sir?”
“His wallet was stolen,” Megan said. “License, social security card, everything.”
“Does he know the number?”
“No,” Holden said.
“We need it for billing. Insurance?”
“He’s uninsured.”
“Then payment up front. Visit plus stitches… about four hundred.”
Four hundred. Manageable. But none of this was the real problem. The problem was a man bleeding beside her who legally didn’t exist.
“I’ll pay.” Megan handed over her credit card. “Can you please take him back? He’s losing blood.”
The receptionist softened. “Fill these out. We’ll call him soon.”
Megan took the clipboard and led Holden to a corner. He sat, putting pressure on the wound. She tackled the forms.
Patient Name.
Address. Hers.
Emergency Contact. Hers.
Medical history. Blank.
Current meds. None known.
Allergies. None known.
Holden’s good hand covered hers. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. You got hurt saving a kid from my school. Because of my negligence. You need stitches.”
“I could stitch it myself.”
“With what? A sewing needle?” He probably would. She pulled the form closer. “Let me do this.”
She turned in the clipboard. They waited.
His sleeve was completely soaked. “Does it hurt?”
“Some.”
“Holden Reed?” A nurse appeared. “This way.”
Holden stood. Megan followed.
“Are you his wife?” the nurse asked.
“I’m his emergency contact.”
She nodded and led them to room three.
White walls. Paper-covered table. Supplies. A convex security mirror in the corner—an awful reminder of last Christmas. Megan bit back the memory.
“Up on the table,” the nurse said. “Shirt off.”
Holden unbuttoned his flannel. Megan helped ease the sleeve from the wound. Blood crusted at the edges, fresh at the center.
The nurse cleaned it. Holden didn’t flinch.
“Doctor will be right in. Looks like eight, maybe ten stitches.” She left.
Holden sat shirtless, forearm resting on his thigh. The wound gaped open. Angry, red.
Megan’s gaze slid. Chest. Shoulders. Muscle shifting under skin.
Perfect timing to notice that. Fantastic. She forced her attention to the wall.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Holden said.
“What?”
“The equipment. You’re blaming yourself.”
She stared at the convex mirror. Was she a principal worth anything? A daughter her mother would be proud of? A woman who understood the cost of truth?
Her family stole his story. Built their name on his sacrifice. Her mother had known for twenty years and stayed silent.
The pageant was Wednesday. No more avoiding it. No middle ground. She had to expose the lie. Holden deserved history that told the truth.
* * *
Holden sat on the gurney.
Megan crossed to him, adjusted the thin blanket over his legs, smoothed it, and moved to the pillow behind him, trying to fluff it even though it was as flat as a flapjack.
His chest tightened. He’d ridden a hundred miles with a bullet lodged under his ribs once. A split arm was nothing. He didn’t need coddling.
“You don’t have to fuss.”
“I’m not fussing.”
“Sure you are.”
She interlaced her fingers and stepped back, but her gaze kept drifting to his arm.
The door opened. A man in a white coat stepped in. The doctor. Beard trimmed neat. He washed his hands in a steel basin, dried them, then pulled strange blue gloves from a box. The sound they made, thin, elastic, alien, raised the hairs on Holden’s neck.
“Let’s take a peek.” The doctor bent over Holden’s arm. “You’ll need stitches.”
Megan bit her bottom lip.
“This’ll numb it.” The doctor drew clear liquid from a vial with a needle.
“Numb?”
“You won’t feel a thing.”
The needle sank in. Fire spread, then faded.
He sure felt that. But then while the pressure stayed, but the pain disappeared.
Holden’s pulse kicked. He’d been stitched by lamplight with whiskey for courage and a belt between his teeth.
Pain meant you were alive. Whatever this was felt like cheating.
The doctor worked fast. Thread—smooth and black—slid through his skin like silk through water.
Megan moved closer. Her gaze locked on his arm, breath hitching whenever the needle pierced again.
“How’d this happen?” The doctor didn’t glance up from his work.
“Old playground equipment waiting to get hauled off. A boy climbed it and started to fall. I caught him but my arm nicked the edge of rusted metal.”
“When was your last tetanus shot?”
Holden had no idea what that was. “Can’t rightly recall.”
“You’ll need one then.” The doctor’s gaze flicked to Megan. “You’re the principal, right? Evergreen Elementary?”
She straightened. “Yes.”
“My son’s in second grade. Miss Gifford’s class.”
“She’s a gifted teacher.”
“Yeah, she is.” The man tied another knot. “That’s the equipment behind the gym?”
Megan’s shoulders tightened. “I had maintenance scheduled to remove it, but holiday delays.”
Guilt thinned her voice. She blamed herself for this. For him bleeding. For needing stitches. But if he hadn’t been there, that boy would’ve fallen hard. Maybe broken a bone. Or worse.
Worth a split arm.
The doctor wrapped more white fabric around Holden’s forearm. No pins, no knots—just clung to itself. “Keep it clean and dry. Come back in ten days to have the stitches removed. The nurse will bring that tetanus shot.”
Ahh, but would he be here in ten days? Who knew the mystery of that dad burn Christmas card?
The doctor stripped off the gloves, dropped them in the trash and left.
Megan crossed to the chair, picked up the flannel shirt she’d bought him, and held it out.
Holden took it, starting to work the buttons with one hand. His fingers fumbled. Useless.
“Allow me.”
She stepped closer, her fingers slipping easily over the fabric. Her hair brushed his shoulder. She smelled like vanilla. Button by button, she tracked down his chest. Her fingertips grazed his skin. Warm. Careful. Each touch sent heat through him.
He couldn’t button his own shirt. Couldn’t exist in this world without lying about who he was. Couldn’t get stitches without her driving him here, standing beside him, smoothing the way.
Couldn’t do any of it alone.
The realization should’ve chafed. Should’ve felt like losing ground he’d spent his whole life defending.
It didn’t.
Her hands on his chest weren’t taking anything from him. They were giving something he didn’t know he needed. He’d spent his life depending only on himself, needing nothing from no one. He thought that made him strong.
But letting her help? That was hard for him. That took a different kind of strength.
She finished the last button, palms lingering against his chest. For once in his life, he didn’t want to fight needing someone.
The nurse returned with another needle, announcing, “Tetanus shot.”
Holden took it without flinching.
“All set. You’re free to leave,” the nurse said.
Megan picked up her purse. Holden stood.
She came to his side and slipped her hand around his other arm, as if he might need steadying, as if he couldn’t walk on his own two feet after a few stitches.
He opened his mouth to say so.
Closed it.
Let her keep her hand where it was, right close to his heart.