“Strong connection.”
“She saw my soul.”
“She saw your nurse badge.”
“That too.”
Another small silence settled, easier this time.
I watched his hand shift on the wheel. The faint pull at his mouth when the truck hit a rough patch of road. The way he breathed through discomfort instead of pretending it did not exist. I had seen too many men turn pain into personality. Dylan used to be one of them. Tonight, he looked like a man trying not to lie even to himself.
“Are you hurting?” I asked.
His eyes stayed on the road. “Some.”
“Scale?”
“Not a nurse tonight, Beautiful.”
The nickname slid through the cab.
Soft.
Careful.
I looked out the window before he could see my face.
“I’m always a nurse.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
The answer held weight.
Too much of it.
He knew what it had cost me to be both woman and nurse in his room. To check his wounds while my own stayed open. To do the right thing with hands that wanted the wrong man. Or maybe not wrong. Maybe just badly timed. Badly handled. Badly loved.
“Four,” he said after a moment.
I looked at him.
“Pain’s a four,” he said. “Maybe five if you ask again with that face.”
“What face?”
“The one that says you’ll call Callum and have him drag me home by the back of my neck.”
“Tempting.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re recovering.”
“I’m recovering,” he agreed.
That mattered too.
No heroic denial.
