Match My Breathing
The Blackwood Ridge Search and Rescue station sat behind a stand of pines, its exterior lights blurred by snow.
The main building resembled a converted firehouse, with two tall equipment-bay doors and a low office section attached. Behind it stood a smaller log cabin connected by a covered walkway.
Eli parked beside the cabin.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
He studied her face.
“I can.”
“All right.”
He came around the truck anyway.
Natalie climbed down without taking his offered hand. Her boots touched the ground, and dizziness moved through her in a slow wave.
Eli’s hand closed around her elbow.
She did not pull away.
Inside, the cabin was warmer than the truck. A wood stove glowed behind glass in one corner. A narrow kitchen opened into a sitting area with a couch, two heavy chairs, and a table beneath a wall map of the surrounding roads.
The place smelled of coffee, pine smoke, and damp clothing.
Eli set her bag down.
“Sit.”
“I need to wash the cut.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m capable of cleaning a laceration.”
“I know.”
“Then where’s the bathroom?”
He pointed down the short hall.
Natalie took two steps before he spoke.
“Leave the door open.”
She turned.
“No.”
“If you get dizzy and fall, I need to hear it.”
“I’m not leaving a bathroom door open for a stranger.”
His gaze rested on her for a moment.
“Fair. Don’t lock it.”
She went inside and shut the door.
The woman in the mirror looked unlike her.
Her dark hair had come loose from its tie. Blood marked a thin path from her temple to her cheek. Her face was too pale, her eyes wide and bright.
Natalie ran cold water over a washcloth.
The movement made her fingers shake again.
She pressed the cloth to the cut and hissed.
A knock sounded.
“I’m fine.”
“Open the door.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You also said the cut was superficial.”
“It is.”
“Then you won’t mind showing me.”
Natalie looked at herself again.
The urge to keep the door closed had nothing to do with modesty. It was the need to complete one simple task without him watching.
Her hand shook hard enough to send a drop of water onto the counter.
She opened the door.
Eli stood with a red medical bag in one hand and folded clothes in the other.
His gaze moved over her face, then down to the wet coat she still wore.
“Take that off.”
“I was about to.”
He set the bag on the counter and reached for the zipper.
Natalie caught his wrist.
His skin was bare again. Warm. His pulse moved steadily beneath her fingers.
“I can undress myself.”
“I need you out of wet layers before you get colder.”
“I understand thermoregulation.”
“Then stop making me explain it.”
His voice held no impatience, only refusal.
Natalie released him.
Eli lowered the zipper and eased the coat from her shoulders. He paused when the fabric dragged across the bruise near her collarbone.
“Pain?”
“Three.”
“Out of ten?”
“Yes.”
He removed the coat carefully, then knelt in front of her.
“What are you doing?”
“Boots.”
“I can remove my boots.”
“You’re balancing against the sink.”
She looked down. Her left hand had flattened against the counter without her noticing.
Eli loosened the laces. His broad fingers worked quickly despite the knots pulled tight by wet leather.
Natalie became aware of the position: him on one knee, his head bent, her body bracketed between his shoulders and the bathroom counter.
He drew off one boot and pressed his thumb against the toes of her sock.
“Feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Any numbness?”
“No.”
He removed the other boot.
Her socks were wet at the heels. Eli stripped them off and wrapped one hand around her foot.
Natalie flinched.
His gaze lifted.
“Cold?”
“Your hand is warm.”
He pressed the pad of his thumb against each toe, checking color and sensation. Then he repeated the examination on the other foot.
The touch was professional.
Her body did not care.
She had touched thousands of patients in precisely this manner. She knew what competence felt like through another person’s hands: the absence of hesitation, the confidence to apply pressure without causing harm, the attention to responses too small to require words.
Eli rose.
The bathroom seemed smaller with him standing again.
“Your sweater is damp.”
“It’s fine.”
“It isn’t.”
He held out a charcoal thermal shirt and gray sweatpants.
“The shirt is mine. The pants are station supply.”
Natalie accepted them.
“I’ll change.”
“I need to look at the seat-belt injury.”
“I can tell you there’s no crepitus or deformity.”
“That isn’t the only concern.”
She tightened her grip on the clothes.
“You don’t need to examine my chest.”
“I need to examine where the belt caught you. Nothing more.”
“I’m a nurse.”
“You keep saying that like it changes what happened.”
The truth of it landed harder than accusation would have.
Natalie looked away.
Eli stepped back into the hall.
“Change. Call me when you’re ready.”
He closed the door.
Natalie removed her sweater and long-sleeved shirt. A darkening red band crossed the upper slope of her left breast and continued beneath her arm. The bruise looked worse than it felt.
She pulled on Eli’s thermal shirt. The fabric was soft from wear and far too large, falling past her hips. It smelled faintly of him.
That unsettled her more than the bruise.
She changed into the sweatpants and opened the door.
Eli waited in the sitting room beside the medical bag. He had removed his rescue jacket. A black henley stretched across his shoulders, the sleeves pushed up over strong forearms.
He pointed to the couch.
Natalie sat.
He moved a lamp closer, then stood between her knees as he separated the hair near her temple.
She went still.
“Hold this.”
He placed a clean pad in her hand and guided it to the cut.
His fingers remained over hers for a second, applying the pressure he wanted.
“Five minutes.”
“It stopped bleeding.”
“Nearly.”
He crouched and opened the medical bag.
“What are you using?”
“Saline first.”
“You don’t need antiseptic on a shallow scalp laceration.”
“I wasn’t planning to use it.”
He removed gauze and a small closure strip.
Natalie watched his hands.
“You’ve done this before.”
“A few times.”
“How many?”
“I stopped counting years ago.”
He took the pad from her and cleaned the cut. The saline stung. Natalie’s fingers tightened against the couch cushion.
Eli’s other hand settled beneath her jaw, holding her head steady.
His thumb rested near the corner of her mouth.
“Almost done.”
“I know how long irrigation takes.”
His gaze dropped briefly to her lips before returning to the wound.
“So do I.”
The air between them changed.
Natalie felt it distinctly, then told herself she had imagined it.
Eli applied the closure strip and smoothed the edges against her skin.
“Now the bruise.”
She hesitated, then pulled the neckline of the thermal shirt aside enough to expose the upper part of it.
His expression hardened.
“Does it hurt when you breathe deeply?”
“No.”
“Do it.”
Natalie inhaled. His fingertips moved along her collarbone, pressing gently, then followed the bruise toward her shoulder.
“No focal pain?”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am.”
His hand passed lower, along the red band where it crossed the top of her breast. He did not touch more than necessary. The care he took made each point of contact more noticeable.
Natalie’s breathing changed.
Eli stopped.
“Pain?”
“No.”
His eyes lifted to hers.
Neither of them moved.
She became acutely conscious of the shirt hanging loose around her body, of his knees close to hers, of the heat from the stove at her back.
He withdrew his hand.
“I want to check your pulse again.”
“It will still be elevated.”
“Give me your wrist.”
Natalie extended it.
His fingers settled over the artery. His attention shifted to his watch.
She watched his face instead.
The quiet concentration disturbed her. He did not seem to need her to be calm in order to remain calm himself.
“Still fast,” he said.
“One twenty?”
“One eighteen.”
“Improving.”
“Yes.”
A radio on the table crackled.
Eli glanced toward it, but his fingers remained around her wrist.
Natalie felt another wave of breathlessness rise without warning.
Her chest tightened. The room seemed to lose depth.
Eli noticed before she spoke.
“Look at me.”
“I am.”
“Not at the room. At me.”
He turned her hand and placed her palm against the center of his chest.
Natalie froze.
His heart beat beneath the henley, slow and powerful.
“Match my breathing.”
“I can count.”
“Don’t count.”
He covered her hand with his.
“In.”
His chest expanded beneath her palm.
Natalie drew in air.
“Hold.”
She held it.
“Out.”
He exhaled slowly.
They repeated it.
The third breath reached deeper.
The fourth did not catch.
Eli’s eyes remained on hers. There was nothing soft or pitying in his expression. Only attention.
Her pulse gradually slowed beneath his other hand.
The intimacy of it became almost unbearable.
Natalie pulled her hand away.
Eli let her.
“There,” she said. “Resolved.”
“For now.”
She disliked the qualification.
She disliked more that he was right.