Ember #2
There was another crash, and then a streak of swearing that even had Darby’s brows jumping.
Finally, a door slammed, and there was silence.
I stepped out of the powder room and glanced down the hall, Darby poking her head around the corner to do the same.
I could see Jack’s back, his head bowed, shoulders tense.
The small slice of kitchen I could see was littered with debris, and one of the cabinet doors was hanging off its hinges.
Darby looked at me. I looked at Darby.
“I don’t hear the raccoon,” she noted.
I didn’t either, and Jack’s body language—combined with the slamming door—told me he’d probably gotten the animal out. Still, I moved slowly as I crept back down the hallway and finally took in the carnage in the kitchen.
The cereal boxes were shredded, their contents scattered all over the kitchen.
The open cabinet with the broken door had once housed bottles of spices, which were now smashed and scattered all over the counters and tiles.
A chair was overturned, and the table had been shoved up against the wall. The fridge door was hanging open.
Jack turned, clutching his arm. Blood welled between his fingers, and his face was caught in a grimace. “Fucker bit me,” he growled.
“Dad. Swear jar,” Darby said. “The F-word is ten bucks.”
Jack shot her a glance, and I saw annoyance and amusement warring in his gaze. “I need to go clean this up, and then we’ll work on the kitchen.”
“What? No.” I shook my head. “You’re going to go clean that up, and then the three of us are going to go get you guys your rabies shots.”
Jack stared at me, furious.
I crossed my arms. “You know I’m right.”
“Yeah, Dad. You don’t want to die, do you?”
He took his hand off his arm and pointed a bloody finger, waving it back and forth between me and Darby. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I don’t like what’s going on here.”
“Now you know how I feel,” I grumbled, staring at the carnage in the kitchen.
I edged toward the closed door, glancing through the window panes in the top half of it to see if the raccoon still lingered outside.
There was no sign of it, but I would definitely sprint to the car when I had to go out.
Not that that was saying much; I wasn’t exactly a running enthusiast.
Unlike Jack, who was an avid runner, according to the research I’d done. My supposed love of running was only one of the many lies I’d told in my application. Lies I was now regretting. A lot.
Grumbling, Jack stalked out of the room.
Darby walked to the skinny cupboard next to the fridge and pulled out a broom.
We had made a small dent in the clean-up when Jack reappeared wearing a white T-shirt that showed off corded forearms and beautiful biceps.
Not that I was staring, or anything. Most of my attention was on the bright red bite mark marring the meaty part of his forearm.
A trickle of blood dribbled toward his wrist, and he crossed the kitchen to grab a paper towel.
He mopped up the blood and pressed the paper towel to the wound, then hunted through three or four drawers until he found scotch tape.
I watched, horrified, as he wrapped scotch tape around his forearm to keep the bloody paper towel in place. Another dribble of blood leaked past a wrinkle in the paper towel and headed for his wrist again.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up from the worst wound care I’d ever witnessed. “I don’t want to bleed all over my car when I go make sure I don’t die of rabies.”
“Do you not have gauze? A bandage? Something sterile, for God’s sake?”
He looked at me like I’d started speaking Mandarin.
Huffing, I pointed at him. “Stay here.” I looked at Darby. “Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“What’s something stupid?”
“You’ll know when you see it. It’ll involve him doing or saying something.”
Darby looked at Jack. Jack looked at her, then at me.
Then Darby told me, “‘Stupid’ is one dollar for the swear jar, by the way.” She looked at her dad. “I don’t have to pay because I was only repeating it.”
I turned for the door and paused. Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the broom from Darby’s hands, then marched to the door and threw it open.
Pausing at the top of the three concrete steps, I scanned the lawn and the closest trees.
No sign of the raccoon, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Holding the broom in front of me like a spear, I hurried down the steps and sprinted to my car.
My shoulder blades prickled as I fumbled with my keys and finally got the passenger door unlocked and opened.
I glanced over my shoulder half a dozen times, twisting awkwardly as I got the glove compartment open and ripped out my small first-aid kit.
Still no raccoon.
Slamming the car door, I tucked the little red pouch under one arm and held the broom in the other hand, and I ran for my life for the kitchen door.
Darby and Jack were right where I’d left them. I closed the door with a gusted breath, leaned the broom against the wall, and marched toward Jack. “Sink,” I ordered, waving the red pouch toward the stainless steel sink.
Jack’s brow arched, a smile playing over his lips. “Darbs, go get your jacket. We’d better go get these rabies shots, or Ember won’t be able to sleep tonight.”
“I know you’re joking, but do you know how the symptoms of rabies progress?” I asked, shoving aside broken bottles of spices so I could put the first-aid kit down on a clear patch of countertop.
Jack settled beside me, his hip leaning against the edge of the sink. “No, but it sounds like you want to tell me.”
I grabbed nitrile gloves and snapped them onto my wrists, not meeting his gaze.
I grabbed a little pair of scissors from my kit and started slicing through the scotch tape he’d wrapped around his arm.
Ridiculous. How this man had taken care of a daughter on his own when this was how he took care of himself, I would never know.
I ripped the tape off his arm hair and didn’t even feel bad when he let out a startled yelp.
“First, you might feel fatigued. You’ll get a fever, have a headache.
The area of the bite might tingle. By then, it’s too late. ”
I used my elbow to turn on the water and shoved his arm under the spray.
“The symptoms progress to the acute phase, when you become agitated, hyperactive, confused, and suffer hallucinations. Most horrifying is the hydrophobia. The fear of water. You become severely dehydrated, but you’re terrified of water.
Your throat convulses any time you try to drink.
Your confusion and fear increase rapidly. ”
Using the hand soap sitting on the edge of the sink, I washed Jack’s bite, ignoring the way the warmth of his arm soaked through the gloves and the way his muscles shifted and tensed as I touched him.
“Then what?” he asked. He stood very still, leaning against the sink, his chest just a few inches from my face. His arm was extended in front of me, and my shoulder kept brushing his biceps. He was too close. His breath ruffled over my neck every time he exhaled.
“Then your muscles gradually become paralyzed, you fall into a coma, and you die.” I rinsed his wound and used some sterile gauze from my pack to pat it dry.
When I tried to put a big bandage on the bite, my gloves stuck to the adhesive, so I grimaced, took them off, and smoothed the white fabric tape over his arm.
My fingertips brushed his warm skin, sending little shivers darting up my arms. He still stood too close.
His hum vibrated in my bones, and I made the mistake of looking up.
The arm I’d just tended to shifted, his palm pressing against the counter beside my stomach.
The heat of it seared me, even though I wore a thick sweater and a shirt underneath.
His eyes caught me in their snare, and I found myself unable to look away.
“I don’t think I’ve met anyone quite like you,” he mused, studying me.
I lifted my chin, trying not to feel offended. “I’m an actuary. It’s my job to assess risk and quantify it. As you can imagine, anything with a hundred percent mortality rate makes an impact.”
Jack hummed, his lips curling with amusement. A slight dimple appeared in his cheek, and then he shifted slowly, so slowly, to lift his uninjured arm toward me. His fingertips brushed my temple, pushing my hair off my face as I stood there, trembling, on fire.
“Thank you for taking care of my daughter earlier,” he murmured. “Even if you were just doing it because of the mortality rate of rabies.” He grinned. Still mocking me. “And thank you for taking care of me.”
I harrumphed. My heart rate hadn’t been steady since I parked outside Etta Mars’s mansion all those hours ago, and I knew that now, its erratic beat wasn’t due to the raccoon. It was the other beast in the kitchen, the one I was married to. Almost married to.
The clomp of heavy feet on hundred-year-old floorboards made us both turn. Darby had a jacket bundled in her arms and sneakers on her feet. She paused, frowning at us. “Why do you guys look so weird?”
I skittered away from her father. “I always look like this,” I blurted.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Jack turn to look at me, and I pointedly did not meet his gaze.
Darby gave me a look so steeped in sass that only a young teenager could pull it off.
She snorted, crossed to the door, scanned the surroundings for (I assumed) a rabid raccoon, then pushed her way outside.
When I followed, Jack called out, “Where are you going?”
I spun around in the doorway, frowning at him. “I’m driving you to the hospital.”
“I can drive, Ember. I have a minor wound. I’m not going to go into a coma in the next hour.”
“Your adrenaline probably spiked during the confrontation. It’s safer if—”
“How much of your life is ruled by doing what’s safe?” he asked as his slow, measured steps brought him closer to where I stood.