“You want me to wince?” Knox asked. “I can fake it if it makes you feel better about your needlework.”
“My needlework is excellent.”
“Then why do you look nervous?”
“I’m not nervous.”Not about stitches at least.
“You’re biting your lip.”
I stopped the needle and felt my mouth curl slightly. “I concentrate when I work. Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Nurse …”
“Harper.”
“Harper.” My name rolled off his tongue like he was testing how it sounded. “Suits you.”
His necklace shifted as he moved, catching the light again. Whatever hung from it remained hidden beneath his shirt, but the string itself looked delicate. Leather maybe? The kind of thing someone kept because it meant something, not because it looked good.
Strange, that a man with fists like weapons would wear something so fragile.
“So,” Knox said, watching me work, “you from around here?”
I looked up. “Small talk?”
“Do you prefer awkward silence?”
I bit my lip and caught the way he raised his eyebrow, as if to say,See? You did it again.
“No,” I replied. “I guess not.”
“So, you from the Chicagoland area?”
“I moved here from Indiana.”
“To get closer to family?”
“No. They’re back in Indiana.”
“Closer to friends then?”
I thought of Faith, her chaotic dog. But I’d met her after the move. Before that, I’d had no one here. Not a single person.
“No.”
Knox tilted his head, studying me with those silver eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t move hundreds of miles to work here. All due respect, this place is a shithole.”
A laugh caught in my throat before I could stop it. “I knew it wasn’t a spa when I took the job.”
“So, that’s a yes? You left your friends and family and moved hundreds of miles away to work here?”
I kept my eyes on the suture. Pulled the thread through. Steady hands. Steady voice. “I wanted a fresh chapter.”
He was quiet for a moment. I could feel him studying me like he was reading something I hadn’t meant to show him. Based on the look he wore, he was officially intrigued by whatever he’d found.
“Fresh chapter,” he repeated, like he was turning the words over. “Isn’t that what people say when they’re running from something?”
So much for letting it go.
