We didn’t know why it worked on me—maybe it was a stitched thing. It did nothing at all for the Neds. But as long as it worked, I was happy for it and did my best to keep a supply stocked.
“You’re lucky I was a nosy and willful child,” I said as I rolled up the sleeves of my checkered shirt. “Even luckier Quinten answered my questions. Well, most of them, anyway. Let’s get to patching that gash of yours.”
I braced my knees against the box spring and lifted him a bit, then tugged off his jacket sleeve by sleeve.
I put him down as easy as I could, but it must not have been that easy. He moaned a little, and his eyes rolled under the lids.
“Now I’m going to take off your shirt,” I said in a friendly voice. I wasn’t sure if he could hear me, but I didn’t want him to wake up fighting. I’m strong, but preferred not to stitch up a wound while ducking a fist.
His hands, covered in half-dried blood, were twice the size of mine. And the rest of him matched that proportion.
Not much could knock me out cold, but I figured if he clocked me, I’d be seeing stars.
“I’m starting here with your sleeves.” I made sure all the cuff buttons were undone, then leaned over him. “Rolling up the right sleeve, my friend.” My fingers brushed against the ridge of stitches that circled his forearm.
I’d never touched another person life-stitched like me. Never touched a man, unless the few times I’d patched up Neds’ cuts counted. My father, then brother, had insisted I stay hidden. Said if I let any other person find out I was stitched, they’d come to kill me, kill us all—land, beasts, and every last Case included.
So I didn’t have the experience with men that other woman my age had. I had long ago accepted that was just the way it would be.
Unless I found someone whom I could trust with my secret. Whom I could trust with my life.
And that only happened in fairy tales.
Gently, I dragged one finger along the stitches on the man’s arm again. It wasn’t a horrible feeling; it wasn’t frightening or odd.
Being stitched was evidence of a mending, an overcoming of pain. Our scars were proof that we were strong enough to keep living.
I carefully slid the button at the top of his collar through the hole. His collar loosened. He caught his breath just slightly as my knuckle brushed the bare skin of his neck.
I didn’t think the galvanized had much feeling. Just in case I was causing him pain, I decided to keep talking.
“My farmhand says you’re trouble. I hope you prove him wrong and see that I’m just here trying to help you.”
I thumbed the next button open. “So just stay still. I’ll try to be gentle.”
I hadn’t put my hands on this much of a man, well, ever. I was trying not to get distracted by it, but couldn’t help but let my imagination wander over him a bit.
I undid the rest of his buttons, then assessed the situation of his torn-up undershirt. Seemed a shame to cut up a man’s shirt, but it already had a slash through the front from whatever sharp edge he’d gotten into an argument with.
Didn’t look like a crocboar did it. Too clean, and he had too many of his guts still on the inside.
I tugged his undershirt up out of his pants, exposing just an inch or two of his bare stomach above his belt. His skin was a shade lighter than his hands, several shades lighter than my skin.
No stitches at his belt line, just smooth ridges of muscles.
I took up the scissors and cut along the seam of his undershirt, holding the material in one hand away from his skin. Even at rest, he had a body of a fighter: muscular arms, chest, stomach, and thighs. I knew the galvanized fought for show, but I’d always suspected it was just for show.
I was wrong.
“Hold still. I’d hate to stab something important.” I slid the scissors under the narrow strap over his shoulders. Snipped, blew a breath to get my hair out of my eyes, stretched across his chest, and cut the other shoulder free.
I folded the material down and away to one side, leaving him bare beneath me.
Stitches ran from the muscles of his left shoulder, crossed with another set over his well-defined chest to make an X over his heart. The stitches continued over the tight muscles of his stomach, skirted the edge of his wound, and ticked down across the muscle ridge above his left hip bone. Three thinner lines of stitches tracked from the center of his chest and buried in the knotted muscles across his right ribs.
Other stitches ringed his right shoulder, elbow, wrist, and ring finger.
I’d seen Neds shirtless once when he’d gone swimming in the creek. He was put together in a pleasant, natural sort of way: skin and muscles all the same smoothness, tone, and stretch, making a well-built man who happened to brace a bit wide at the upper back and shoulders to make room for both heads.
