I huff a quick breath. “Hey. Ready to get out of here?”
“Definitely.” Her pale blue eyes tense with apprehension. “I, um, can’t get my shorts on,” she says in a rush.
“You want help?” I wipe my palms on my jeans. “I can call a nurse.”
Her lips press together in determination. It’s the same look she gives me when she’s getting bossy.
I huff a breath to stifle the heat erupting in my chest.
“If you can get them up to my knees,” she says. “I can do the rest.”
“Okay.” She wants to feel independent. I get that. And she doesn’t want a stranger to help her. It’s fine. I can help. I’ll just pretend she’s one of my patients.
She pulls back the sheet, exposing the pair of nylon running shorts that are hooked over her right foot but that she must have struggled to get up her injured leg.
I take the sides of her shorts and reposition the other leg hole and pull the fabric over her narrow little foot. Her skin is silky soft here and already there’s a slight tan line from the river sandals she wears.
“Not very pretty, is it?” she says, grimacing at her shin.
“It’s colorful,” I reply, shooting her a wink. This is the second time she’s brought this up. What’s behind this thinking? She’s injured, for crying out loud.
Her lips twitch.
“You get to keep it. That’s what matters,” I say, cradling the back of her swollen calf and tugging the shorts up. She flinches and gives a little hiss of pain as the fabric floats over the bite area. But then she relaxes and reaches for the shorts.
I look away while she slides them the rest of the way up.
The door opens and a lanky kid who could be Greta’s age pushes a wheelchair into the room. He’s got a hospital badge clipped to the breast pocket of his scrubs top, so I know he’s at least eighteen, which makes me feel like I’m at least a hundred.
When I help Meg into the wheelchair, her breathing sharpens and her face pales. A part of me wants to question her eagerness to leave the hospital, but if it was me, I’d be long gone, even if I had to crawl my way out.
I grab her backpack and the plastic hospital bag containing the clothes she was wearing and the set of crutches they fitted her with and swing open the door.
I’ve pulled my truck into the turnaround already, but when we get there, it’s clear the only way she’s getting in is if I lift her. I tell myself it’s no big deal, but when she pushes up to stand and I scoop her gently into my arms, her warm skin against my bare arms and her quickening breaths against me and the curves of her body feel like a very big deal.
She wraps one arm around my neck, oblivious to the thoughts clashing inside me.
She’s able to maneuver onto the seat, but it’s tricky with her swollen, injured leg leading, so by the time I get her settled I’m huffing and anxious to get behind the wheel.
Her frame goes limp into the corner of the door as I turn the key. “Thanks for the lift.”
I fight back the urge to take her hand or touch her knee by drawing a measured breath, then pull out of the hospital turnaround. “Of course.”
She fidgets in the seat as I drive and her face is pale. Is she hurting? I try to drive smoothly, but it’s a truck with a manual transmission so I don’t do a very good job.
“Do you need me to stop at the pharmacy?”
“No.”
I know they prescribed painkillers because I saw her discharge paperwork. “How did getting the time off work go with your boss?” I ask her at the stoplight.
She shifts in her seat. A thin sheen of sweat coats her forehead. Shit, I need to get her home.
“My boss is great,” she says. “Though at first, she thought I wasjoking.”
I wince.
“Did you know there are eight thousand venomous snake bites every year?”
