Page 24 of Protected from Reprisal
She covers her bandaged hand with her other, as if that’s somehow going to make me forget. “Nothing. Just a dumb accident.”
“An accident?” Concern gives politeness a hard shove to the side. Stepping through the doorway, I carefully take her injured hand in mine. “What did you do to it? Is is broken? Sprained?”
“It’s not broken. Or sprained. Just bruised?—”
Dropping my duffel bag on the floor, I set the paper bag on top of it, then pull the door closed behind me. With Yara’s hand still held in mine, I turn it over gently. “Just bruised? Why the bandages, then?”
The pink in her cheeks deepens. “I cut my hand, too. Nothing that needed stitches or anything. I?—”
“You cut your hand? How? Where?” Before she has a chance to answer, I drag her over to the couch and pull her down beside me. “Have you had a doctor check it out?”
Looking slightly nonplussed, she answers, “No. I’ve had basic medical training, just like you. And in my assessment, a doctor wasn’t necessary. A few butterfly bandages and I was good. The gauze is more for protection.”
I glare at her injured hand so hard it’s a miracle it doesn’t burst into flames. I’m not sure why I’m so angry or why I want to track down whatever caused this injury and destroy it. I just do.
Tamping down my irrational anger and a surge of protectiveness I wasn’t expecting, I take a steadying breath before asking, “Can I look at it?”
“Why?”
Why, indeed? If any of the guys on my B and A team showed up with an injury and claimed it was perfectly fine, I’d take them at their word and that would be the end of it.
But you took Yara’s word that she was fine in Tacoma, and look what almost happened to her.
But it didn’t, because she defended herself. Despite being in the middle of what looked like a bad panic attack, she kept her wits about her enough to fight back. Yara didn’t really need my help, just like I’m sure she doesn’t need it now.
Still. Knowing that doesn’t make me let her hand go. And it doesn’t stop me from saying, “Humor me. Sometimes two sets of eyes are better than one.”
Yara huffs softly. “Fine. But it happened two days ago. Too late for stitches at this point.”
Too late for stitches? Does that mean they were a consideration before?
While I carefully unwind the gauze, I ask again, “How did it happen? In the workshop?”
She hesitates. “No. I closed my hand in the car door. Dumb accident, like I said.”
It sounds like a reasonable explanation. But there’s something in the way she says it that doesn’t ring true.
Once I remove the long strip of gauze, I hide a wince at her injuries. The back of her hand is swollen and bruised, with two nasty looking inch-long cuts held closed with several butterfly bandages. And on her palm, there’s another, longer cut across it.
They’re not life-threatening by any means. But seeing any injury on her feels wrong.
“Have you been icing it?” I ask as I start wrapping the gauze back up again. “Taking any pain killers?”
“Ace.” Yara gives me another of her patentedwhat’s going on herelooks. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been injured, you know. I know how to take care of myself.”
Of course she does. I know that.
But the instant the thought goes through my head, it’s immediately followed by the one of finding Yara sittingmotionless on the couch in the Puget Sound room, pale and shaking.
Could she have gotten through it on her own? Yes. But shit, I didn’t want her to. Just like I don’t want her taking care of her injured hand by herself. And I really don’t want her struggling to get through whatever put the dark circles beneath her eyes and the heavy slump to her shoulders.
“I know you can,” I finally reply. “But I’m here. So it didn’t hurt for me to look at it, too.”
“Maybe not.” Yara pulls her re-bandaged hand into her lap. Her gaze shifts from mine to the duffel and paper bag still sitting by the front door. “Why did you bring your go-bag here?”
Rather than answering that, I hop up to grab the paper bag. Then I bring it back to the couch and hand it to her. “I brought some of those cookies I was telling you about. The s’mores cookies from that bakery in Williston.”
Yara’s eyes light up. “S’mores?”
