When he eases the boot off, I manage not to make too embarrassing a noise.
"Breathe," he says, still not looking at me.
"Iambreathing."
"You're holding it."
I exhale, feeling a little foolish.
“Now the leggings. If you can, try to slide them down over your hips but don’t put any pressure on your ankle.”
The blanket covers me from neck to knees, so I unwrap my hands and hook my thumbs into the waistband of my leggings. I feel like an idiot, wriggling and rocking to get them over my butt, but thankfully Gibb averts his eyes. I manage to get them as far as my knees, but I can’t go any further without attempting to balance myself with my feet.
He seems to recognize my predicament and gestures towards my legs. “May I?”
A blush heats my cheeks. I’m certain I’m imagining the heat in his tone, but something about his voice, that low, whiskey-rough rasp is pure temptation.
Swallowing, I bob my head and watch as he slowly reaches under the blanket. He’s not anywhere near my girly bits, but they wake up anyway, distracting me from the pain in my ankle. His hands move over mine as he gently slides the fabric down my legs. He doesn’t touch my skin, but it feels electric all the same and I hope he doesn’t notice that I’m holding my breath again, but for a completely different reason.
Easing the leggings off, with the same deliberate consideration he removed my boots, Gibb lifts my injured leg into his lap.
His hands move over my ankle with slow, deliberate pressure, thumbs tracing the joint, testing where the swelling is worst. It should hurt. It does hurt, but there's something about the way he's doing it, like he has all the time in the world, like testing the injury and understanding it is what matters, thatImatter. It makes the pain a secondary thing.
"Not broken," he says. "We’ll have to have it looked at, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a bad sprain. You'll be off it for a few days, but you’ll be fine."
"Good. That’s great. Really great news. I’ll definitely get it checked out when I get home." I am babbling again. He glances up at me and I see the ghost of something in his expression, not quite amusement, more like he's trying to figure me out. "Sorry. I'm not great with pain."
"You sat on a rock in an ice storm for over an hour."
"Well. That was different. There was a baby to protect."
He looks at me for a second longer than necessary, then drops his gaze back to my ankle.
"Is she okay?" I ask. "Stevie. I tried to keep her warm, but she’s so loud for something so small and I couldn't tell if she was scared or if that's just?—"
"That's just Stevie," he says. "She has a lot of opinions."
"After Stevie Nicks," I say.
"She was once quoted, ‘don’t be a lady, be a legend.’ My Stevie came out of the womb bossing everyone around. The name picked itself." He stands, and the loss of his proximity is immediate and specific. "I’ll wrap it, then you can change into those dry clothes, and I’ll carry you to the couch so you can rest.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
"I'm getting the bandage," he says, already moving toward the hall. "Do you want me to take you to the washroom first?”
Heat crawls up my neck. "I'm not going to?—"
"You're not going to argue with me about it. You need help." His tone is firm but not unkind. He looks back over his shoulder, and his eyes are dark, a little guarded, but steady. "Poppy. You're safe here."
The simplicity of it hits me somewhere in the middle of my chest.
"Okay," I say.
My ankle feels much betterwith the bandage and a second dose of ibuprofen. I swallowed my pride and let him carry me to the washroom, but I drew the line at having him stay in there with me. I can manage to hobble around enough to wash my face and hands and get dressed in the clothes he’s left on the counter.
I’m already wearing his sweatpants, which are soft and warm and even though they’re a little snug over my butt, they are bigenough for the waist to be comfortable. I’m swimming in the length, however, but it’s not a fashion show.
Thank God it’s not. There were actual pine needles in my cleavage, and I picked a small twig out of what was left of my drooping ponytail. Half of my hair is a tangled mess, and the other half is wet from where it fell loose around my face, but I managed to brush out the worst of it. Now that I’m relatively mud-free, I pull the maroon-colored sweatshirt over my head, pausing to inhale the clean scent. Cedar and laundry soap and something else that makes me want to bury my nose in it.
