Page 62 of Snake

Not knowing the layout of this building, she followed Cox, arriving at the door to a bathroom about half a second before he closed it. Autumn threw her hand up to keep it from reaching the latch.

His expression was his usual faint frown. “I ain’t need help, Autumn. I been cleanin’ myself up since I’s a kid.”

Normally, he didn’t have much of an accent. An occasional tendency to drop his Gs, but little more. Sometimes, though, it was like the ghost of an Appalachian—or, she supposed, an Ozark—ancestor took hold of his tongue.

She looked pointedly at his right hand, which dripped blood steadily onto the peel-and-stick flooring of the bathroom. “I assume you punch with your dominant hand?”

A slight pinch of his lips was his only answer. She took it for yes.

“My two hands are smarter than your one dumb hand. Also, I suppose you got hurt defending my honor—again—so, again, it’s the least I can do.” She pushed into the bathroom; the fact that she was successful indicated his acquiescence. If he’d wanted to stop her, he certainly could have.

She pushed him toward the toilet. He dropped the lid and sat down. She opened the medicine chest above the mirror, but that was packed full of new soaps in both liquid and solid forms. Generally practical, but not helpful at the moment.

“Under,” he said, and Autumn opened the vanity cabinet. Beside a caddy of cleaning supplies and an 18-roll pack of toilet paper, she found a small red tackle box with a black cross inked on the top in Sharpie. She pulled it out and set it on the narrow countertop.

Inside were enough supplies to outfit a doll’s emergency room: antibiotic ointments, disinfectant washes, gauze in various forms, tape, bandages, butterflies, even suturing thread and needles in sterile packs.

Autumn collected some large gauze pads and disinfectant wash. “If you need stitches, we’re going to have to call someone else in. That’s above my nursing level.”

Cox made an odd sound that might have been a chuckle. “I don’t need stitches. Just a clean-up.” He worked his big signet ring off his hand and dropped it in a pocket of his kutte.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said and picked up his hand. She hissed and set the disinfectant aside. “These are a mess. I don’t want to hurt you.”

He looked up at her with that calm frown that was uniquely Cox. For the first time, she saw how much variety of color and light his eyes held. They weren’t merely blue, but sky blue, steel blue, cobalt blue, navy blue, even silver.

“You won’t hurt me.” His voice was soft as a whisper, and Autumn felt it roll down her spine and around her hips.

Clearing her throat, she broke the pull of that shared gaze and grabbed the disinfectant again. She soaked a gauze pad and lifted his hand, dabbing the gauze tenderly over each torn knuckle in turn. If he felt pain, he didn’t show it. Cox’s stoicism was far greater than the tang of some medicine could overtake.

It occurred to Autumn that she’d never tended to anyone like this before Cox, and for him, she was on round two. When Pops had his appendix out, she’d brought him soup and gelato and hung out with him for a couple of days cuddled up on the sofa watching classic movies, and she always kept Pom company after one of his youth-clinging ‘procedures,’ but until Cox’s surprising habit of saving her, she’d never actually treated another person’s injury.

His hand in hers. Her body against his. His eyes on her. Her touch causing both discomfort and succor.

It was unexpectedly intimate. Autumn found it difficult to keep her mind still. Or her heart, for that matter.

She liked this man—no, that wasn’t right. She didn’t know him well enough, and there was too much animosity too close behind them, to like him. But she was attracted to him.

Powerfully.

Now that she’d admitted it to herself, she also acknowledged that she’d been attracted to him for a while. Since that night in the spring. That was why he’d been so stubbornly lodged in her mind.

With his knuckles clean and bleeding less, she saw that they were more than shredded. His first two were swollen as well—considerably. “Can you move your fingers?”

As an answer, he flexed his hand a few times—which got the blood flowing again, but apparently also meant nothing was broken. As far as she could tell.

“Nothin’s broken,” he murmured.

“Good. I’m glad.” She rummaged through the first-aid kit, trying to think how she’d bandage knuckles this badly hurt. Was there a joint on the human body that moved more? Finally, she decided on the roll of gauze. At least she could wrap his hand up and keep them covered like that, as she’d done in the spring.

But Cox said, “No. In that compartment on the right, there’s band-aids made for knuckles.”

“Oh, okay.” She hadn’t known band-aids came in different shapes—other than the little dots nurses used after they administered a shot.

The knuckle-shaped band-aids were pretty ingenious, honestly. Autumn was able to dab antibiotic ointment on each knuckle and then—after one false start where she put it on the wrong way—secure each wounded knob.

As she was unwrapping the last band-aid, Cox asked, “Why d’you work for that guy?”

Surprised by the question, Autumn paused with the band-aid still in its paper. “I’ve been with MWGP since I got out of school, and I’ve had a lot of success there. I’ve accomplished important things because there’s support for innovation at MWGP. I have room to try things that could do good in the world. I know it’s just real estate, but real estate is where people have their lives—home, work, play, it all needs real estate, and that industry needs people who are in it for more than just a paycheck. Chase is a jerk, and his ideas about women are prehistoric, but he appreciates innovation. He wants the paycheck, absolutely, but he’s willing to make room for trying new things. I know how to manage him, and except for his boorish behavior, I love my job.”

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