“Wrong way around, Len. He wasn’t such a jackass, he might get a shot,” Gray returned.
This was true.
Len agreed with me and I knew this because he kept grinning and also nodding. Then his eyes flicked up to Gray’s forehead before going back to his.
“I got any shot you’ll go to the clinic and get that stitched?”
“I’ll be all right,” Gray answered.
That meant no.
Len looked back down at our hands then to me then to Gray, all quickly.
Then his grin turned to a smile but he did this right before he looked to his boots and said, “’Spect so.” He looked back to me. “You sure you’ll be all right, miss?”
I nodded. “I’m just fine. Thank you for intervening.”
“Like I said. My job,” he replied, jerked up his chin then moved toward his cruiser.
Gray’s hand around mine squeezed and I looked to him to see him looking down at me.
“No lie, you all right?” he asked.
And right then, without me even trying to stop it, I did something stupid. Something unsafe. Something I’d never done and something I never expected I’d do.
I answered, “I will be, you let me see to that cut.”
And that was when I got it, probably what I was looking for, definitely what I wanted.
He smiled at me and I saw his dimple.
Chapter Six
Feels Good Though
“You think, you’re cleanin’ blood off my face and all, you might give me your name?”
That was Gray, sitting on the end of my bed in the hotel room as I stood over him doing exactly what he said, cleaning blood off his face.
Blood he shed for me.
Hells bells.
My eyes went from the short but deep and gaping cut to his.
He was close, really close. I’d turned on most the lights in the room so I could see what I was doing and I saw that his eyelashes weren’t russet. They were dark brown.
The tips were russet.
Oh my.
“Dollface?” he called and I blinked as my body started.
I needed to pull myself together.
“Ivey,” I muttered, looking back at the cut.
“Ivey,” he muttered back and I could swear, him saying my name gave me goosebumps.
“Yeah,” I whispered then ran the damp cloth down his face, wiping off the blood.
“What we got?” he asked and my eyes flicked to his but I’d learned.
Don’t look long. Don’t get captivated.
I looked back to the blood, kept gently wiping and asked back, “What we got?”
“The cut,” he explained. “How bad is it?”
My eyes went to his cut then I went back to cleaning his face while answering, “Short but deep. You should get stitches.”
“No stitches,” he murmured and I looked to him but I braced myself beforehand.
Nope. Bracing myself didn’t work so I tried to look at him while not so I ended up mostly looking at his nose.
“No stitches?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“It’s deep.”
“It’ll heal.”
“You’ll have a scar.”
“Yeah, but it’ll heal.”
I looked back to his eyes. “Gray, really, you should have it seen to. If you don’t get stitches you should have plasters and it should be disinfected.”
“You got a first aid kit?”
I did but it was in Casey’s car.
“It’s in my brother’s car.”
“So he’s your brother.”
Darn!
This was why you didn’t connect. This was why you played it safe. You played with fire; you were going to get burned.
But he’d bled for me so what could I do?
“Yeah, Casey. He’s my brother,” I whispered.
Gray grinned at me, with dimple and that made it worth it.
I moved away from him to the bathroom.
“When’s he gonna be back?” Gray asked my back and I turned to him.
“Sorry?”
“Your brother. When’s he due back?”
I couldn’t tell him this.
I told him this.
“Late, very late and that’s the earliest. Probably not until morning.”
Gray’s face changed and it wasn’t a good change. He looked mildly angry.
“Not until morning?”
“He…uh…well, he’s busy doing something so no, not until very late or morning.”
That was when Gray stood and announced, “You’re comin’ home with me.”
My body froze and I stared at him.
Then I forced my mouth to whisper, “Sorry?”
“You’re comin’ home with me.”
“I –”
He interrupted me. “First, I got a first aid kit. You can disinfect and put shit on the cut. Second, I got a grandma who lives with me, she’s not ancient, she’s not young but she could be three hundred years old and still she’d have the hearing of a German Shepherd. She goes to church every Sunday and she’d lose her mind if I brought a girl home with any intent other than to make her dinner or study the Bible.”
I couldn’t help it. That was so funny, it made my mouth twitch.
Gray watched my mouth move and flat out smiled.
Then he started speaking again.
“And last, got an extra bed. Manny takes pride in his place,” his arm moved, indicating the space around us that was clean and to my practiced eye I knew it had been renovated sometime in the last five years and although the cable was basic and I wouldn’t want to live the rest of my life there, it was pretty nice for what it was and a whole lot nicer than many places I’d laid my head, “but I bet the bed at my house is more comfortable and I can guarantee a thousand other people haven’t slept in it. So, what I’m sayin’ is, you’re safe, you’ll be comfortable and last, and most important, you’re safe.”
I read him and my eyes locked to his.
“You think they’ll come back,” I said quietly.
“No tellin’. Jim, Ted and Pete, no way. ‘Specially Pete. Buddy is an ass**le and he was pissed. You were immune to his charms then you bested him then he got bested by me. That shit doesn’t lay well with him so…” he trailed off and shrugged.
This wasn’t good.
Another trickle of blood slid down his face. It wasn’t much but the cut was still bleeding.
That wasn’t good either.
Darn it all to heck.
I closed my eyes.
“Ivey, swear to God, you’ll be safe with me.” I heard him say softly.