Page 35 of One Last Promise

It felt weird to have her here, in his home. All his daydreams suddenly front and center. But in those daydreams, she was here for dinner, on the patio, or watching a movie in the theater, or even watching a game of hockey on the flatscreen in the great room. . . .

Never running from her ex?—

Whatever. Because he refused to wrap his head around the idea that a thug like Rigger could be thefatherof her child.

Her child.

Yep, he might be in way over his head.Back away, back away now.

Instead, “Okay.”

Her gaze landed on his shirtless torso.

“Just a sec. I’ll meet you downstairs.” He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a black T-shirt, pulling it over his head as he came out into the hallway and shut his door.

Axel stood at the stove, frying up some potatoes that had gone cold. The scent of butter and garlic suddenly landed in Moose’s emptystomach, twisted.

Tillie stood by a stool in the kitchen. “With all that blood, I thought I should take a look.”

He sat and rolled up his shorts. She pulled up another stool and bent to examine the wound.

“What are you, a doctor too?”

She laughed. “No. But I’ve been in my share of scrapes.”

He wanted to ask, but there were too many questions.

Frankly, he didn’t know where to start.

Her fingers probed the skin on either side of the cut. “It’s a pretty clean slice. I’m concerned that the knife wasn’t clean, but we’ll put some antibacterial on it.” She glanced over at Axel, who’d turned, folded his arms, and leaned against the counter, watching.

Moose wanted to fist-bump his brother for directing her here, because in his darkest nightmares, she was out there, alone and scared.

“I’m going to pinch this closed, then glue it. It’ll take a couple seconds to set up, but it should work. Axel, do you have any bandages, some ointment?”

His brother turned the heat off the cast-iron skillet. “Do you want Batman or Spider-Man Band-Aids for the superhero?”

Moose gave him a look, and Axel raised his hand. But okay, they’d probably gone through more superhero Band-Aids than the average kids, growing up in the woods at their homestead outside Copper Mountain.

“This’ll hurt,” she said.

He said nothing as she drew the edges of his wound together, then applied the glue. Held the wound closed, then continued to the next section. “You’re lucky he didn’t get the knife straight in. This could have been a deep wound.”

“Providence, not luck.”

She glanced up at him, shook her head, then went back to work, finishing up. Axel appeared, holding a gauze cloth and some medical tape, along with a tube ofointment. “No Band-Aids.”

“I don’t need that, either.”

“Just long enough for the ointment to stick,” she said and finished doctoring the wound. Then she stood back. “I can’t believe they didn’t make you go to the hospital.”

“They tried,” Axel said, back at the stove. “He ditched them.”

“The media was already on the scene. The last thing I wanted was questions. We already have trouble because of the media.”

Axel glanced over as he plated the potatoes, frowned.Oops. Moose hadn’t told his brother—hadn’t toldanyone—about the lawsuit.

He didn’t need anyone worrying but himself.

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