Chapter 7 Ella #2
He didn’t have to answer for her to know she was right. Obviously, he’d been out here all day without gloves, without help, without taking breaks, and he’d torn his hands to shreds.
And when they started to bleed, instead of taking care of himself, he’d wrapped them in rags and kept going.
“Why?” she asked softly.
But he didn’t answer, and when she looked up, his eyes were on the barn door, over her shoulder.
So he’s not going to talk to me, she thought to herself. It’s nothing more than I deserve for cutting off our friendship these last few weeks.
“Let’s clean you up,” she said, her mom-side taking over. “Come on.”
But he stood stubbornly in place.
“I don’t want your parents to worry about it,” he said gruffly.
“We’ve got a first aid kit out here,” she told him. “And there’s a sink in the old tack room. Come on.”
“Why do you have a tack room?” he grumbled, letting himself be led away from the boxes at last. “You have one pony.”
“My grandparents had horses,” she told him, hoping to distract him long enough to get him properly taken care of. “I always wished my parents had kept that tradition going. But I guess horses are a lot of work, even Goldie.”
She pulled the chain to turn on the bulb in the tack room, and she swore she caught the faint ghost of leather and citrus from back in the days when her grandparents cleaned the horses’ gear every day in the little room.
Nowadays, Dove just scrambled up on Goldie bareback from time to time.
The pony wore nothing but a nylon halter.
“Makes sense,” Dalton said, nodding. “I guess it is a lot of work to take care of horses.”
“You grew up kind of the opposite of this, I guess,” she laughed weakly.
“Exactly the opposite,” he told her.
“So, not on a family farm?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said, his voice a little warmer than before. “I would have loved all this.”
“What would you have loved about it?” she asked.
She expected him to say the wide-open spaces or the beautiful views. That was normally what city people said about Trinity Falls—they liked that it was picturesque, or that you felt like you could throw your arms out and take a real breath here.
“Hard work, good food, family all around,” he said. “Anyone would love it.”
“Wow,” she said softly, grabbing the first aid kit down from the wall.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t think a lot of kids would put hard work high up on the list of things to be grateful for,” she said, digging through the kit for everything she needed.
“Kids need something to do,” he said. “Dove likes to work at the farmers market.”
“That’s true,” Ella said, nodding.
“You didn’t like to work on the farm?” he asked.
“I always did chores,” she told him, shrugging as she laid out gauze and bandages. “Most of my friends did too. You’re supposed to say you hate them. And no one likes to get up super early, especially in high school. But I guess it was okay.”
“You were a real part of this farm,” he said, shaking his head. “That didn’t mean anything to you?”
“Not at the time,” she admitted. “Now it’s different. I appreciate it more. Let’s unwrap those hands.”
She braced herself for what she was about to see, but nothing could have prepared her for the open wounds all over his fingers and palms.
“Dalton,” she murmured.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“You’re not fine,” she said firmly. “And you’re going to be in real pain in a minute because we have to wash these thoroughly.”
“It’s fine,” he told her.
“Rinse first, then we’ll wash with soap,” she told him, starting the water. “It’ll be extra cold, but maybe that will numb your hands a little.”
She doubted that was actually true, but it was a nice idea.
He stuck his hands into the icy cold water and didn’t make a sound. But she could tell that it hurt from the ripple of tension in his jaw.
She handed him the bar of soap and watched carefully as he applied it to his ruined hands and then rinsed again.
“Good,” she said, handing him a piece of clean gauze. “Dab them dry as best you can.”
The big man did as he was told, and when he was finished, he turned his hands over for her to examine again.
They looked awful, but at least they didn’t look infected. The next part, she would have to do herself.
“Sit,” she told him, pointing to the wooden stool by the sink. “I’m just going to take care of the rest of this for you.”
He sat down and she realized that this brought them practically eye-to-eye, and the glow of the bulb above put a halo of light around Dalton’s head.
Suddenly, the tack room felt small.
His hair was slightly damp with sweat and she breathed in the masculine scent of him without meaning to.
His icy blue eyes burned into hers until she dropped her gaze, only to find herself noticing the way his flannel shirt strained around his biceps, like those thick muscles could hardly be contained by the soft cotton.
She sucked in a breath and felt her pulse pounding as she forced her addled mind to focus on the task at hand.
“This will hurt,” she told him, tearing open an alcohol wipe. “But we have to make sure they don’t get infected.”
He nodded and held his left hand out to her.
She took it automatically, and almost pulled back at the heat of his skin.
She had forgotten what it was like to touch a man, and her mind helplessly catalogued his long, thick fingers, the rasp of hair, the tiny seam of a scar on the back of his index finger, markers of raw masculinity that made her heart thunder in her chest.
Stop that, she scolded herself.
She was supposed to be helping him, easing his pain and keeping him from hurting himself even more, not drooling over him like some lovesick schoolgirl.
“Ready?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
He nodded once, so she gently dabbed the little cloth on a deep cut on his thumb.
He swallowed, but didn’t make a sound. There was only their breathing and the shudder of the single window from the wind outside.
It was too dark out there to see it, but she could just picture those spooky branches writhing in the moonlight. Here inside the tack room, it was cozy and safe.
She worked slowly and carefully, cleaning each place where his skin was torn or scraped and following with antibiotic cream afterward. Finally, she slowly wrapped a bandage around his left hand and tucked it in place.
“Do you need a break before we do the other one?” she whispered.
He just shook his head and gave her his other hand, so she repeated the process.
She knew he could handle the pain this time. But that only made it strange torture to touch him, noticing every intake of breath, and the way his throat moved when he swallowed.
His eyes were on her now, she could feel them searching her face, even as she kept her focus firmly on his hand.
Heat seemed to pour off him, and she found herself wondering what it would be like to slide into his warm arms, nuzzle in his neck and drink down that enticing scent.
Stop it, Ella, please…
She forced herself to finish up quickly, until at last she was securing the bandage around his right hand.
She moved to let go and step back, but he grasped her wrist with his other bandaged hand, holding her where she was, and she stumbled a little, falling forward until he caught her by her elbow with his other hand and held her suspended, her lips a trembling inch from his.
“Ella,” he murmured, his voice a low growl.
His cerulean eyes were filled with desire, and something darker too. She would have pulled away if she hadn’t been so desperate to understand the mystery element in his gaze.
“Kids?” her mother’s voice called from out in the barn. “Is everything okay?”
Ella pulled back hard, and Dalton released her.
She stood frozen for a moment, her heartbeat thundering, wondering what had just happened.
“Back here, Mary,” Dalton called out.
Embarrassed and confused, Ella quickly gathered up the first aid kit items, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice her heated cheeks in the dim room.
“Kids,” Dalton chuckled softly to himself, rising from the stool to help Ella, seemingly unaffected by what had happened, or almost happened, between them.
But when Ella turned back to him with the kit in her hands, his eyes swung to hers like magnets, and she could see the hunger in them that he was trying to hide away again.
And just like before, there was a flicker of something else too.