‘Ecco,’ he said, gesturing wildly for her to lean forward. Sliding an arm under her knees, he hefted her with an, ‘Oof.’
‘Yikes, Gabri, what are you—?’ She clamped an arm around his neck as he splashed back to the beach. His brain was still a fog of worry, but her hand clutching him,needinghim, was an adrenaline surge he hadn’t felt in… long enough.
Holding her against him got his heart pounding. Too much skin.
Setting her down carefully on the lounger, he took a bottle of water and braced himself to look at the wound again.
‘I don’t think it’s too?—’
‘We’ll wash it.’
‘I can do it.’ This time, the doubt in her voice couldn’t be ignored. ‘It’s a cut. Maybe a little deep, but it’ll be okay.’
He stilled, the red stain on his shirt at odds with her steady words.
‘I’m okay – really. Although thank you for the lift back over here.’ If she was smiling, she must be right. It was just a cut.
‘We should still wash it to make sure there’s nothing in the wound,’ he insisted and she extended her leg obediently – with rather indulgent obedience, he suspected.
Unwrapping his blood-stained shirt, he couldn’t entirely control his revulsion when he saw the jagged cut one more time, but the bleeding was slowing already. ‘I’m sorry, this will hurt.’
She nodded bravely, but her hiss when the water flowed over the wound pricked him again.
‘Here.’ He took her hand and placed it on his shoulder, gratified when she squeezed at the next painful splash of water. At least he could feel some of it with her. ‘What were you doing?I thought you had a book to read!’
Glancing up, he found her biting her lip in a sheepish expression. ‘I think… that was too ambitious for today.’
‘Too ambitious? So you went off to explore the rocks instead?’
He wondered if she had had a little too much sun after all. ‘I don’t think I’m good at it – this relaxing,’ she mumbled. He took the opportunity of her distraction to fold his shirt and wrap it around her leg again, with more care this time. With the wound covered, he could breathe again – at least until he looked up into her face and found her expression grave, her gaze out to sea. ‘You won’t understand what it’s like, being a single mother.’
‘Hmm,’ he prompted, uncertain whether he truly wanted the explanation.
‘I haven’t had a week away like this in…ever. Everything I do, I have to think of Cilli first and I can’t just switch that off in a day.’
‘Cilli. That’s your son’s name?’
‘Cillian,’ she said in a tone of voice he hadn’t heard yet. It almost made Gabri want to know more about this boy who defined her life. ‘I miss him.’ She sounded more upset when she said that than she’d been when the blood was dribbling down her shin.
‘Of course you do.’
Shaking her head, she continued. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been looking forward to a break. Every day is full-on, getting him to school, going to work myself, homework, dinner, fruit and vegetables, brush your teeth, an emotional breakdown or two.’
He stifled his wince but suspected she still noticed.
‘I suppose it’s just hard to go from that to concentrating for a whole hour on reading a book.’
‘I—’ Swallowing, he reconsidered what he’d been about to say.
‘What?’
‘I don’t have kids, but it makes sense.’ At least what she described reminded him viscerally of a time in his life he’d rather forget. ‘The anxiety doesn’t just go away by magic.’
The way her eyes widened made him think she was dismayed that he’d put a name to it. ‘How does it go away then?’
‘I’m not the right person to ask.’
‘You’re not the right person for a lot of things,’ she said hesitantly. The breeze blew a strand of hair into her face. Without thinking, he smoothed it back, his thumb brushing her cheek. So easily, he could imagine closing the short distance between them and pressing a kiss to that cheek – those lips – making her close her eyes so she wouldn’t look at him like thatany more, as though she could see through to the heart in pieces beneath his ribcage.
