Page 27 of Flirting With Forever
“I’ll help! It’ll be faster!”
Since he’d waste time arguing, he decided to keep going. Sloane gathered up the cushions and wrapped them with the bungee cords Gage brought from the truck, tying them to one of the pilings while he tied the chairs together and attached them to another. It would have been better to have stored them inside the closed garage, but it was too late now. “You’re done! Get inside,” he ordered again.
The wind blasted them, and Sloane struggled to stay upright as she grabbed hold of a piling to keep her balance. The rain soaked them to the skin, and Sloane sent him a frown, but seeing he was almost finished with his task, she nodded.
She headed off toward home, and Gage went back to securing the last of the chairs. He’d just latched the bungee cord when he heard Sloane scream.
Heart pounding, he raced to where she’d fallen, knocked down by a broken tree branch halfway between the two properties.
He ran as fast as he could, the wind slowing him as it pushed against him in the opposite direction. Sloane worked to get the limb off her and scramble out from beneath, but the wind held it tangled around her legs and lower body.
Given the thick heat of the day, they’d both worn shorts and tees to work in, and he saw the blood on her thighs and arm where the branch had struck her. He helped untangle her, heart beating hard in his chest as he took in her pained and terrified expression.
Once she was loose, he helped her stand and swung her up in his arms, shielding her as much as he could from anything that would hurt her. Sloane’s arms were curled tight around his neck, her breath hot against his skin as the icy rain pelted them like wind-driven glass shards.
Somehow they managed to get the number punched into the keypad, and the door unlocked. He carried her up the stairs and hated himself for locking the door to his private space because it slowed him down now when she needed medical aid.
Finally inside, he settled her on one of the stools at the kitchen counter and took a step back to assess her. He tangled his fingers into the curly hair that had slipped from the tie and gently pushed it off her face, taking in the tiny cut on her lower lip as though she’d bitten it when she’d fallen to the ground. Or one of the limbs had smacked her in the face.
He gently ran his thumb over the cut, wiping away the rain and blood.
“It’s fine,” she whispered, looking more than a little glassy-eyed and dazed. “I’m okay.”
“You should have gone inside when I told you.”
“You’d still be out there if I had. I helped.”
A low sound rumbled out of him, and she drew back. Or at least she tried to. He stepped forward and maintained his hold on her, though he made sure to keep his touch gentle as he cradled her jaw and lightly stroked a thumb beneath the cut. “Yes, you helped. And now you’re hurt, so you’re going to let me help you. Don’t move. You hear me?”
He watched as her lips quirked up.
“What’ll you do if I don’t listen?”
He leaned in. “But you will,” he said, gaze shifting low as he watched his thumb stroke over her jaw. “Won’t you?”
The man needed a warning label, Sloane thought as Gage drew away and straightened to his full height. She inhaled an unsteady breath and watched as he headed out of the room.
She shoved her sodden hair back and shivered in the AC-cooled room, body aching now that the adrenaline was starting to fade.
She’d been so focused on getting to the door of Gage’s home and out of the rain that she’d been completely blindsided by the limb that had taken her to the ground. She’d landed hard, and in addition to the bloody scrapes and bits of rock and sand, her bones throbbed from the jolting impact.
She also became more and more aware of the approaching hurricane as the wind buffeted the house with blasts that vibrated the structure like an earthquake. Yeah, storms were not her favorite. Especially not when her mother had been killed in one.
By a fallen tree, no less.
The fact that she’d been hit by a falling limb? Was there some kind of lesson to be learned here? Life repeating itself?
The thought left her reeling and a little dizzy and wondering why on earth she’d stayed. Yeah, she liked the town. The people. Her bosses. But now that it was time to face the fury, the fear was there, clawing its way through her body to remind her of how quickly bad things happen.
Gage returned, and she fought to still her trembling. She watched as he quickly opened the first aid kit to find what he needed amongst the contents.
“This is going to sting like crazy, but we’ve got to get those cleaned up.”
She needed a moment. Time to get out of her head and away from the image of her mother’s car beneath that massive old tree in the storm. “I should take a quick shower first. Let me do that before you,” she waved a hand, “do that.”
Her voice shook, but she couldn’t help it. She was spiraling down a dark and twisted memory lane, and her brain was making comparisons whether warranted or not.
Gage seemed to want to get the scrapes cleaned up, but there was no point if she then went to shower and had to redo everything. “Just a quick one to get the dirt and sweat off.”
