“You’ll be alright,” I tell her, but my tone is gruff. It angers me they were out doing something so fucking dangerous. If she wasn’t fucking injured, I’d shake her. “Shouldn’t have fuckin’ been out there at twilight with the ice over the snow like that, dammit. Do you have a death wish?”
“Save the bloody lecture.” She winces. “Looks like Mother Nature already chastised me.”
I close my mouth but still glare.
“Am I too heavy?” she asks softly.
Until then, I’d made myself focus on my mission, on keeping her still and moving swiftly. I didn’t think about who I held. I didn’t think about how she affects me. I have one job to do: bring her tosafety. But at her question, I look down at her in surprise. I don’t answer right away.
Bloody hell.
Tears and snowflakes dot her thick black lashes like gleaming diamonds. Even injured and bloodied, the woman’s gorgeous. Her deep brown eyes, like crushed velvet, look up at me, and for one startling moment, I’m afraid I might kiss her.
Until recently, Fran was married. Off limits. But now…
Jesus, I’m carrying the woman to the doctor and have to get my damn act together.
“Too heavy? You girls are out of your bloody minds. Always worrying about being too heavy, like I can’t bloody carry you.” I roll my eyes. “Didn’t even get winded.”
She opens her mouth to protest, then winces.
“Lie still and stop troubling your damn head,” I mutter. Concern’s made me irritable as fuck.
I try to think of this as a job, like Fran is one of my sisters I’ve been bound in duty to protect.
She isn’t my bloody sister, though, dammit.
We dated once—so briefly it hardly even counts, but I’ve had my eye on her ever since.
She married last year, and I fucking hated that she did something so stupid. Met her ex-husband online, married him a week after they met in person, and caught him cheating on their wedding night.
You’d think it bloody ended there, but it fucking didn’t.
I shove the memory away and keep going. It only makes me angrier.
Islan’s ahead of us, and she opens the door.
“As luck would have it, the doctor’s nearby,” she says. “He said to bring her into the study, since the light’s good in there and you can lay her on the chaise.”
I walk in through the kitchen, the entire staff watching us as I traipse through. A fire burns in the hearth, and someone stirs food at the stove, but I walk past and go straight to the study.
Leith’s waiting for me when I arrive, watching me somberly.
“What happened?” he asks Islan, who quickly tells him. I’m assuming his wife Cairstina filled him in before we got here.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “Knew we should’ve cut that damn tree down when they started sledding down that bloody hill.”
Islan snorts. “Leave it to you to level a damn tree like we’re children that need protecting.”
He scowls.
Fran opens her mouth as if to say something, then winces, closes her eyes, and doesn’t say a word. I imagine the pain’s intense.
Bright lights shine, as the Clan doctor waits.
“Rest her here, Tate,” he says. I put her down with reluctance, as gently as I can.
I liked holding her. When I held her, I knew that she was safe, almost like I could control this. Control… something.
