Page 22 of Mountain Men’s Nanny

I threaded the needle and looked down at Gunner. His eyes glazed over, his eyes blinking slowly and his breathing slow and loud while I threaded the stitching needle.

When I agreed to take this job, I never imagined I would be stitching up the leg of a grown man who was fighting to keep the pain out of his face and failing. I had imagined I’d be tending to Lexi’s scraped knees, the occasional headache and stomach bug. The reality just then wasn’t something I had prepared for, nor was the pressure.

We were miles away from the hospital and in the dark, the route was treacherous at the very least. I was his only hope. I had been a little girl’s only hope weeks ago, and that hadn’t ended well. It scared me.

I was hyperventilating, terrified that I would fail again, when failing meant someone could die.

“I can’t do this,” I said softly between heavy breaths. “I just— I can’t. Call an ambulance.”

Tobias shook his head and handed me another towel to tie around Gunner’s leg.

“You can do it,” Gunner said breathlessly. “I trust you.”

I tried to steady my breath and held onto Gunner’s leg, but my hands were shaking. I was breaking into a sweat, my lips were dry, and I became hyper aware of how hard my heart was pounding. I knew this feeling. It had come over me on my last day at the hospital, too. A panic attack.

Tobias and Gideon stood by and watched quietly, ready for any commands or instructions.

“Honey,” Gunner whispered, putting his hand over mine, “I’ve seen your resume. I know you can do it and I kinda need you to just do it, don’t overthink it, just breathe.”

I nodded and took a deep breath, then waited a few seconds before breathing out again.

“Perfect, breathe with me, okay? You’ve got this.”

I pushed the needle into Gunner’s flesh and winced with him. He didn’t have so much as a painkiller, and it terrified me.

I threaded the needle through his skin, pretending it was just a game, like how we practiced stitches on silicone dolls at college. The only difference was that Gunner was awake, talking me through his own stitches with the voice of a calm and supportive coach.

I winced when he winced, sucked air between my teeth and did one of the best stitch jobs I had ever done in all my years of nursing sports injuries, home accidents and the long list of boo-boos my little patients came to the hospital with.

“You did it,” Gunner whispered when I cut the end of the suture. “You’ve passed the test.”

A test? I touched the back of my hand to his forehead. A fever made sense after something like this, so did hallucinating and speaking gibberish. He had just gotten 8 stitches without any real anesthetic.

“Going to college is one thing, but handling a real emergency like you did? You were amazing.”

Gunner reached up and touched my face, and I smiled, as grateful to him for helping me through this as he was to me for doing it. I couldn’t have done it without him validating me every shaking step of the way.

“Sorry. I—” The rest of my sentence had nowhere to go.

Because he pulled me down and pressed his lips to mine, holding our faces together while Gideon and Tobias stood by, still ready to jump in and help. His lips were warm and soft, so much softer than I had imagined they would be.

11

The Second Location

~

Brie

I had never gotten used to the idea of weekends. Designated off-days every five days to rest, socialize, and run errands. People formed habits, a favorite farmer’s market, church services around weekends because it was guaranteed time off work. There was no such thing at the hospital, and when I suddenly didn’t work there anymore, I had weekends and no idea what to do with them.

A sat in bed listening to the wind howl and recounted what had happened the night before. Gunner had kissed me full on the lips in the middle of the living room, our hands covered in blood, in full view of both Gideon and Tobias. And no one had said anything about it. It was as if it had never happened, or it was the norm and there was nothing more to say about it.

I turned the memory over and over in my head, but couldn’t make any sense of it. I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself for the day either. The wind was still beating around outside, and it wouldn’t subside, only seemed to get stronger as it dragged heavy clouds across the sky and blocked out the weak fall sun I had gotten used to.

I was about to give up the morning and just go to sleep when I heard a light knock. I climbed out of bed and quickly ran my hand through my hair and over my face, then opened the door. It was Tobias. Even though I hadn’t expected it to be him, he had done all he could to limit our contact to intense staring since that night, and now here he was. At the scene of the crime.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said apologetically.