Page 20 of Courting Catherine
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll hold on to my keys until you’re less distracted.”
“Suit yourself.” Two minutes passed in humming silence broken only by the radio’s prediction of thunderstorms that evening. “Look, if you’re just going to stand around, why don’t you do something useful? Get in and start her up.”
“Start her up?”
“Yeah, you know. Turn the key, pump the gas.” She cocked her head up and blew at her bangs. “Think you can handle it?”
“Probably.” It wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind, but Trent walked around to the driver’s side. He noted that there was a car seat strapped in the front, and something pink and gooey on the carpet. He slid in and turned the key. The engine turned over and purred, quite nicely, he thought. Apparently C.C. thought differently.
Taking up her timing light, she began to make adjustments.
“It sounds fine,” Trent pointed out.
“No, there’s a miss.”
“How can you hear anything with the radio blasting?”
“How can you not hear it? Better,” she murmured. “Better.”
Curious, he got out to lean over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“My job.” Her shoulders moved irritably, as if there were an itch between the blades. “Back off, will you?”
“I’m only expressing normal curiosity.” Without thinking, he set a hand lightly on her back and leaned farther in. C.C. jolted, felt a flash of pain, then swore like a sailor.
“Let me see.” He grabbed the hand she was busy shaking.
“It’s nothing. Take off, will you? If you hadn’t been in my way, my hand wouldn’t have slipped.”
“Stop dancing around and let me see.” He took a firm grip on her wrist and examined her scraped knuckles. The faint well of blood beneath the engine grease caused him a sharp and ridiculous sense of guilt. “You’ll need something on this.”
“It’s just a scratch.” God, why wouldn’t he let go of her hand? “What I need to do is finish this job.”
“Don’t be a baby,” he said mildly. “Where’s the first-aid kit?”
“It’s in the bathroom, and I can do it myself.”
Ignoring her, he kept hold of her wrist as he walked around to shut the engine off. “Where’s the bathroom?”
She jerked her head toward the hallway that separated the garage from the office. “If you’d just leave your keys—”
“You said it was my fault you hurt your hand, so I’ll take the responsibility.”
“I wish you’d stop pulling me around,” she said as he hauled her toward the hallway.
“Then keep up.” He pushed open a door into a white-tiled bathroom the size of a broom closet. Ignoring her protests, he held C.C.’s hand under a spray of cool water. The dimensions of the room had them standing hip to hip. They both did their level best to ignore that as he took the soap and, with surprising gentleness, began to clean her hand. “It isn’t deep,” he said, annoyed that his throat was dry.
“I told you, it’s just a scratch.”
“Scratches get infected.”
“Yes, doctor.”
With a retort on the tip of his tongue, he glanced up. She looked so cute, he thought, with grease on her nose and her mouth in a five-year-old’s pout. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself say, and the petulance faded from her eyes.
“It wasn’t your fault.” Wanting something to do, she opened the mirrored cabinet over the sink for the first-aid kit. “I can take care of it, really.”
“I like to finish what I start.” He took the kit from her and found the antiseptic. “I guess I should say this is going to sting.”
