Page 61 of Wish You Were Mine

“Still, I should have been more careful. Other people would have.” He shuffled around beside me and wrapped his arm under my left armpit. “I’ll help you back to the car. Keep your weight on the other foot. The right ankle is okay, isn’t it?”

“Seems so.”

Using him for support, I straightened, and together, we limped down the trail toward his car. It took far longer to get there than it ought to, but in the meantime, I had plenty of opportunity to appreciate Asher’s strength. I knew he was fit, but he must have been taking half my weight and didn’t show any strain at all.

At his car, he walked me around to the driver’s door so he could unlock it, and then escorted me back around to the passenger side. He opened the door, guided me onto the seat, and shifted it as far back as it would go, then instructed me to put my foot on the dashboard.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, his eyes serious. “Shout if you need anything. I mean it.”

“I will,” I promised.

As soon as he was gone, I leaned forward and set to work picking stones out of the scrapes on my shins. Most of them either brushed off or came out without too much fuss, but a couple were embedded more deeply, and I winced as I wriggled them loose.

“What are you doing?”

I squeaked, my hand flying to my chest. Eyes wide, I turned to look out the passenger door. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Asher smirked. “Sorry.

I huffed. “You don’t look it.”

He lowered the bikes—of which he was controlling one with each hand—to the ground. “Maybe because you should have been waiting for me rather than trying to deal with your injuries yourself.”

I rolled my eyes. “All I was doing was getting the stones out.”

“And yet, I’m a paramedic and you’re not. Should have waited for me.” He opened the back door and rifled around, returning a moment later with a first aid kit. “Turn toward me.”

“I’m a vet,” I told him as I pivoted to make it easier for him to see my legs. “I’m perfectly capable of cleaning wounds.”

“Do vets practice on humans?” he asked facetiously.

I eyeballed him and curled my lip.

“Because paramedics do,” he continued, unzipping the first aid kit and withdrawing a handful of antiseptic wipes.

“I can handle the basics,” I said defensively.

To my surprise, he smiled at me. “I know, but you don’t have to when I’m here. Let me help you. After all, I’m the one who got you into this mess.”

His gently spoken words took the wind out of my sails.

I nodded. “Okay, then. Thank you.”

He knelt in front of me, took hold of my uninjured ankle and held it in place as he used an antiseptic wipe to clean the cuts and scrapes on my right leg. I gritted my teeth through the stinging pain and did my best not to let him see how much it hurt. It was ridiculous how painful the smallest abrasions could be. In contrast, the gash on my knee hardly hurt at all.

He discarded the wipe and cleaned my other leg, then ran a wipe over both and dabbed at my knee. The wound there had stopped leaking blood and was beginning to crust. He carefully removed debris, one hand cupped around my calf to hold it in place.

That done, he dug a Band Aid out of the first aid kit and used it to cover the gash, then scanned the other cuts and scrapes up my shins.

“I don’t think there’s any point in covering them,” he said. “Unless you want me to, so we can ensure they’re kept clean.”

I shook my head. “No, I’ll just be careful.”

“Okay.” He lifted my lower leg to examine the ankle. “I have a compression sock we can put over this for the time being, but we need to ice it as soon as we can. Are you sore anywhere else?”

“My hip.”

He set my leg down and searched the first aid kit, presumably for the compression sock. “Is the skin broken?”

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