A hot, clean line of pain.
I pull my hand back by reflex and blood wells up immediately—bright red, a three-inch slice across the fleshy part of my palm where the skin is thin from years of tool work.
“Shit.” I set the mare’s hoof down and straighten, clamping my right hand over the cut.
Blood seeps between my fingers.
It’s not deep—I’ve done worse, much worse—but it’s in a bad spot.
The heel of the hand gets used for everything in farrier work.
This is going to slow me down for a week at least.
Lee is beside me before I process that he’s moved.
One second and he’s fifteen feet away by the fence.
The next he’s right here—close, too close, his hand reaching for mine with a speed and certainty that bypasses whatever careful distance he’s been maintaining for two weeks.
Instinct.
The reaction of a man whose first impulse, always, is to move toward the thing that’s hurt.
“Show me.” His voice is low, direct. Not asking.
“It’s nothing. Rasp slipped.”
“Show me, Bex.”
I show him.
He takes my hand.
Both of his, around mine.
Lifting it, turning it toward the light, his fingers cradling my palm open so he can see the cut.
His hands are bigger than mine.
Rougher in different places—calluses from reins and rope instead of rasps and hammers, the weathering of a man who works leather and horses and ranch fence wire.
His grip is firm without being tight.
Careful.
The hold of someone who knows how to handle something injured without causing more damage.
I stop breathing.
Not dramatically—not a gasp, not a catch.
Just a quiet cessation, like my lungs have decided they have better things to do than function while Lee is holding my hand in a barn in October.
His thumb moves across the base of my palm, just below the cut, checking the depth.
A clinical gesture. A practical gesture. A gesture that sends a line of electricity from my wrist to the base of my skull and makes every hair on my arm stand up.
His wedding ring presses against the inside of my wrist.
