“Copper?” She turned her head.
Copper sat next to them, watching her as if she’d disappear on him.
She pulled her hand out from between them and reached for the dog, who backed up. “What happened to my…” She pushed away, and he let her go.
She looked back to where she’d been sleeping. Even in the dim light, the brown stains on the grey stone were obvious. “Fuck.”
Finding his own equilibrium again, he reached for his light. “I need to clean your hands. Where’s your phone?”
She nodded to the small outcropping with the water bottle.
Quickly, he grabbed it up and turned it on, switching his own phone off. Picking up the water bottle, he started to reach for the towel, but it wasn’t there. That’s right. He used the second half for his pillow. Crap.
Riley stood. “I don’t think they’re that bad.” She held out her hands for him to see.
Not bad? The nails were scraped, and cracked with jagged edges, and she’d rubbed the skin off the tips of her fingers. How long had she been doing that? She must have been pushing hard against the unforgiving rock. His stomach roiled again at the implications. “Is this how you dug your way out of that cave?”
She moved her gaze from her hands to his face. “Yes. There was nothing in there I could use, not even rocks. Just more sand. I used my knife to chip off chunks, but they just fell apart when I tried to use them, and my knife moved less sand than those spikes we used.”
“You used your hands.”
She shrugged. “It was all I had. I lost every nail, but as you can see, they grew back.” Despite her nonchalance, she couldn’t hide the shiver as she returned her gaze to her hands.
That had to have been an excruciatingly painful experience. “Well, let’s get you cleaned up and assess the damage.”
She nodded, still inspecting her hands.
Now he’d have to use his other sleeve for rags, but he couldn’t very well ask her to help him rip it off, not with her hands like they were. There was no help for it. Setting the phone against the wall, so the light was angled downward, he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the knife from his back pocket.
Resisting the urge to turn his back on her, he slipped off his shirt and quickly cut his right sleeve off.
“What happened to you?”
He stilled at her question before continuing his movement to shrug back into the now sleeveless shirt. “Fire.”
“That must have been a freaking inferno.”
With his right sleeve gone, there was no hiding the scarred mess his arm was. He sighed and finally met her gaze. “It was a wildfire, so yes, I believe that qualifies as an inferno. Now let’s get your fingers cleaned up before infection sets in.”
She snorted. “Compared to the number of days that they looked worse than this when I was buried alive, I doubt that will happen.”
He grabbed up the water bottle, acutely aware that his arm was now exposed. Snatching up the light, he pointed to her “bed.” “That may be, but this is a different type of gravel, and I’ll not allow you to suffer anymore under my watch. Sit.”
“You’re watch?” Despite her words, she sat.
He knelt next to her. “You must have heard the term before.” He ripped his sleeve length wise and then in quarters. Setting the dirty side down on his thighs, he wet a corner of the first rag.
“Sure, but what makes thisyourwatch. Maybe it’s my watch.”
He immediately dismissed the first justification that came to mind. Telling her it was because he was a male wouldn’t fly nor did it sit well with him. He’d always respected women in the fire service and treated them like their male counterparts. He’d been brought up on a ranch run by his mother, yet certain lessons about a cowboy protecting his woman and his home were engraved deep into his psyche. Not that she was his woman, but he definitely felt as if she were in his care. “Let me have your hand. It’s my watch because I’m not injured. Not to mention, I’m trained in first aide. Are you?”
“I was years ago, but in this case, I imagine your training is more recent and extensive.” He could feel her gaze on him, but didn’t dare look to see if she was watching his ministrations to her left hand or staring at his right arm.
“How’d it happen?”
That cleared that up. “Someone decided they had to set off fireworks for the Fourth of July even though there’d been a fire ban in Yavapai County since Memorial Day. The forest went up like a tinder box.”
“Duh? I hope your department caught the bastard.”
