Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
He deliberately kept his back to her as he walked to the kitchen. He’d spotted the dustpan under the kitchen sink earlier that weekend but spent at least a minute opening and closing cupboard doors as if searching for it. By the time he finally “found it,” Catie was seated on the chair, one leg bent at the knee, the other stretched out in front of her, her party dress a golden shine.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Her voice wobbled.
“How bad is it?” he asked as he began to pick up the shards like he’d said he would. His muscles strained at his skin, his abdomen clenched against the urge to pick her up and hold her tight.
“I don’t know!” It came out a yell. “Shit! I’ve walked in and out those doors a thousand times. Why the fuck did I trip today?”
“Er, because you’re human?” No matter the painful pounding of his heart, he knew better than to offer her sympathy. She’d murder him for that. “Did you damage the prosthesis?” Though she hadn’t yet changed out of her dress, she had taken off her skins, and he couldn’t see any obvious damage—to the rods or her body. But he knew she was in pain and it was taking everything he had not to react.
She didn’t respond for so long that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she said, “It’s my stump” in a voice so small and quiet that it hurt him. Catie was never small and quiet.
“You bruised it when you fell?” Putting aside the dustpan, he made himself go and get the vacuum. She’d stop talking to him if he made it a big deal.
“It’s swelling,” she said when he got back, then swallowed. “I can feel it.”
He knew that meant she had to remove the prosthesis. “Can you walk on the leg?”
“I can walk on my stumps,” she muttered.
“Sure, and get a shard in there.” He raised both eyebrows. “You’re just being dumb stubborn now.”
Her lower lip quivered, shattering him. “I hate you sometimes.”
“I know.” He kept it together, kept things light, through sheer raw will. “But you also know I understand injuries, so let’s get you to your room where you can sulk in luxury.”
It took her three more minutes to say, “Fine.”
Not saying anything in return, he just went to her side, bent, and put his arm around her waist. She slid her own arm around his shoulders, then used him and her uninjured leg as braces to get herself up.
He caught the wave of relief on her face when her other leg held firm. But the spark of joy was fleeting, her expression settling back into grim lines as they walked toward her room. It didn’t take them long to get there.
“Bed or chair?” he asked.
“Bed,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
He left the moment she was down in a seated position on the edge of the bed. Catie would not want him nearby right now—that he knew without having to be told. But worry gnawed at him, and he couldn’t keep still. The first thing he did was to track down both a heating pad and an ice pack. He’d known she’d have both; she was a runner.
Since he didn’t know which one she’d need, he prepared the heating pad, then took both it and the cold pack to her door. Knocking, he wasn’t surprised not to get a response. “Hey, I’m leaving a heat pad and an ice pack outside your door.” Then he forced himself to get the hell away from her door and return to where the vase had shattered. He wanted to get that cleaned up so that Catie wasn’t at risk of injuring herself on any stray shards.
He was all but done when he heard her door crack open, then close moments later.
He exhaled. At least she’d taken what he’d left.
But now that he was finished with cleanup, he found himself edgy and restless. So he did what he always did when he was stressed. He went into the kitchen and started hunting for ingredients. He didn’t know what he was going to make until he found a half-eaten jar of morello cherry jam in the back of the fridge.
He already knew there was dark chocolate in the pantry along with all the other staple supplies. But when he found an unopened pack of pecans back there, he thanked Jacqueline’s chef all over again. The man had great taste.
He got to adding together the ingredients, but halfway through, he went and knocked on Catie’s door. “Are you alive?” It was the kind of question she might actually answer.
“I’m fine,” came the curt response.
He caught the tone in her voice though. Shit. She was crying. He’d never actually seen Catie cry—she didn’t do it in front of anyone. Or maybe she did it in front of Ísa, but she’d certainly never done it in front of him. He hated the idea of her crying alone in her room, but he also knew he wouldn’t be welcome right now, so he forced himself to go back to his baking.