Page 47 of A Beach House Beginning

She, on the other hand, looked like she had gone a few rounds with an angry badger. She had tried to hold her arm above her heart to slow the blood flow. As a result, blood had dripped through her makeshift bandage to streak down her arm.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing. I stumbled while we were walking. When I reached out to catch myself, I landed on a broken shell with a sharp edge in the sand.”

“That looks like it really hurt,” Brielle exclaimed.

“It looks worse than it is.”

“My mom didn’t cry at all. She’s tough.”

Addie’s admiring tone made Jenna feel about a thousand feet tall. She only hoped her daughter still looked up to her after she reached the difficult teenage years, just on the horizon.

“Let me take a look at it,” Wes said, holding out a hand.

She didn’t want to show him, though she wasn’t sure if that was embarrassment at her own clumsiness or hesitation to have him touch her again, given the heat that flared between them at any given moment.

“You don’t have time,” she protested. “We’re late returning from our walk. You’ll be late for work. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

“I have time for this,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

When her gaze met his, the implacable hardness there told her she had no choice. He intended to look at her hand. She should be grateful for his concern, not frustrated by his stubbornness.

With a resigned sigh, she unlocked her apartment and opened the door for all of them to follow her inside.

Theo, who had caused the whole disaster, trotted into the house, planted himself on his haunches and grinned at the four of them, clearly delighted to have his favorite people all together.

“Addie, will you clean up the breakfast dishes and load the dishwasher?”

“Okay.” Her daughter headed for the kitchen, Brielle right behind her.

“I’ll help,” her friend said.

Meanwhile, Wes pointed toward Addie’s bathroom, the closest to the living room. “Let’s start by rinsing it to get the sand and blood off so we can see what we’re up against.”

She followed him to the bathroom, wondering why she had never noticed how small the room was.

“I don’t want to get blood all over you.”

“By the end of the day, I usually have oil and brake fluid and any manner of other things all over me. This is nothing.”

He turned on the water while he unwound the scrap of T-shirt from her palm. She winced as the fabric caught in her jagged wound.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault I’m so clumsy. I still don’t know quite how I tripped. I think I got tangled in the leash and caught myself before I could fall on Theo.”

“Bad luck that you would land right on a broken shell.”

“Yes. Out of the entire beach filled with soft, forgiving sand where I could have fallen, I had to choose that very spot.”

She shook her head, trying at the same time to catch her breath as he gently held her hand this way and that under the stream of warm water.

He smelled so good. He was obviously just out of the shower and smelled like a combination of laundry soap and some outdoorsy kind of male shampoo.

He was warm, too. After their chilly walk along the beach, she couldn’t help wishing she could snuggle up against him to draw some of his heat back inside her.

“How bad is it, Dr. Calhoun?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to need stitches. It’s not long, but it’s pretty deep. You said you landed on a broken shell? When was your last tetanus shot?”

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