Warm, callused hands meet my upper arms, and I’m walked backward until Jake helps me sit on the bench. He kneels in front of me.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and even my whisper falters as my lower lip trembles.
“You’re welcome,” Jake says, and I look up to find those brownish hazel eyes studying me. He puts a gentle hand on my knee, his thumb stroking the top of my thigh. “Let’s get your shoes off.”
I nod, petting along Stormy’s back. Her little heart is still pounding and so is mine. Jake hitches my boot off one foot, then the other. My legs shake and Jake’s hand meets my calf.
He’s not watching my face now, his eyes instead combing over my scratches. “Where do you keep Band-Aids?”
I clear my throat. “Um, under the bathroom sink downstairs. I can get them, though. You’ve done enough.”
Jake just gives my leg two pats and stands, heading into the house. “Stay put.”
But I can’t stay put. What I need to do is move, so on wobbly legs, I stand and pace through the kitchen, fighting tears. I’m in over my head, and I almost lost my cat, who’s the only companion I have left. Well, only companion from my day-to-day life. I can still call a friend and I have my family, but Stormy’s been around for so much. She’s all I have to show for the last four years of my life. I give Jake a weak smile as he enters the room with a small plastic box in his hand.
Jake flicks his head toward the kitchen sink. “Over here.”
I clutch Stormy a little tighter as tears brim in my eyes. Jake’s gaze softens as he watches me. “She’s all I have left,” I squeak. “I know she’s just a cat, but she’s my buddy, you know?”
Jake nods and approaches me with a wry smile. “I think we both know she’s not just a cat. She’s your familiar.”
My laugh is watery. “You sure are changing your tune after thinking she was going to pee all over the cabin.”
He shrugs. “We’ve been into battle together. I get her now.”
I sniffle, trying to get myself together. “If she’s my familiar, does that make me a witch?”
Jake’s thumb passes over my cheek, a movement that, two hours ago, I would have considered the strangest thing on the planet. But he’s right about the being in battle thing. The coyote fight and the Barkley skirmish brought us together, fast. “That’s for you to decide. Come on. Let’s get you fixed up.”
Jake walks me to the sink, where he washes his hands and I watch him like it’s some advanced demonstration. Without asking, he lifts me by the waist to sit on the counter, turning my legs in so they’re propped over the sink. “Look at that. Like it’s made for this.”
He turns on cool water, testing the temperature with his finger before gently splashing it over my scratched thighs. I hiss, jumping from the shock of the cold and the stinging wound. Jake tuts and puts a reassuring hand on my outer thigh.
My cheeks grow hot. Why am I letting this man I barely know tend to my wounds? “I’ve got it. Not the first time Stormy’s scratched me.”
“Nah, I’m a professional. What’s the fun in getting EMT training if you’re not going to use it to show off when somebody gets hurt?”
I cock an eyebrow, grateful for something else to think about other than my life in shambles. “EMT, huh? Saving lives?”
“For a while in college, yeah. My way of deciding if I really wanted to be a doctor or if I should put all my science credits to some other discipline.” His hands work a pump of soap into a lather, carefully tracing it around the broken skin. “In a college town, it’s mostly caffeine overdoses, alcohol poisoning, and dehydration.”
“No cat scratches?”
He clicks his tongue and sucks air through his teeth while he turns off the water and opens the box, grabbing some gauze. “These are my first.”
Jake dabs the gauze over the scratches to dry them. I notice the red streaking up his arm. I draw a gentle finger around his scratches. “You got hit too.”
He lifts his arm and flips it to examine it. “Guess I did.”
He uncaps a tube of ointment, applies some to his fingers, and dots it over my two scratches. He’s focused on his work, rifling through the box for bandages. He grimaces. “Probably going to have to be a patchwork job unless I do tape and gauze.”
“Tape and gauze are fine,” I say. “Then I need to treat you. You can heckle me if I do a bad job.”
Jake snorts a laugh. “I wouldn’t heckle you, boss.”
He lifts his eyes to mine and I plant him with a look. “You spent this entire morning heckling me.”
Jake looks offended. “I was not heckling you. I was just . . . bad with words.”
