She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away.
"You're good at this," she says softly.
"I've had practice."
"I bet you have." A pause. "Do you remember when I cut my hand at the packhouse? Slicing tomatoes?"
My hands still. Just for a second. But she notices.
"I remember."
How could I forget? She'd been wearing a yellow sundress with white flowers. The sun had been streaming through the kitchen window, turning her blonde hair to gold. She'd been laughing at something Sergio said, not paying attention to what she was doing, and then there was blood.
I'd been on her in seconds. Holding her wrist. Examining the cut. Telling her it was fine even though the sight of her blood had made something primal and protective roar to life in my chest.
My hands had lingered. Longer than they needed to. And when I'd looked up at her through my glasses, I'd seen it. The way her pupils dilated. The way her breathing changed. The way she looked at me like maybe, just maybe, she felt it too.
And then Callum had walked in, and I'd dropped her hand like it burned me.
"You were so gentle," she says now, and there's something in her voice. Something soft and wondering. "I remember thinking you didn't seem like the grumpy doctor everyone said you were. You seemed... kind."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't know how to tell her that I'm only gentle with her. That everyone else gets the grumpy bastard but she's always gotten something else.
So I say nothing. Just finish taking the blood and press a cotton ball to the puncture site.
"Hold that," I tell her.
Her fingers brush mine as she takes over, and the contact sends heat racing up my arm. I pull back quickly. Too quickly.
She notices. Of course she notices.
I move back to the counter. Put distance between us. Start filling out her chart even though my handwriting is barely legible because my hands won't stop shaking.
"Your body is playing catch-up," I tell her, keeping my eyes on the paper. "All the omega development that should havehappened gradually over years is happening now, all at once. That's why everything feels so intense."
"Is it dangerous?"
Now I look at her. She's still holding the cotton ball to her arm, still sitting on that exam table with her feet dangling, looking at me with trust and hope and fear all mixed together.
"Not if we monitor it carefully." I pause. This is the part I've been dreading. "But you need to know something else.”
Her eyes search my face. Worried. Trusting.
That trust guts me.
"You're going into heat. Your first real heat. Based on your hormone levels, I'd estimate it will hit within the next two weeks. Maybe sooner."
The color drains from her face.
"Heat." The word comes out barely above a whisper.
"Yes."
"But I've never..." She stops. Swallows. Tries again. "I don't know how to... I mean, I've read about it, but I've never..."
"I know."
Her hands are shaking now. She clutches them together in her lap, and I can see the fear radiating off her in waves.
