Page 42 of Juicy Pickle

“I bet so.” He unlatches the front, careful to slide it beneath the most protected part of the tarp.

Inside are bandages, peroxide, gauze, Q-Tips, antibiotic packets, adhesive tape, and the cold packs you shake to activate.

“Let’s take this to the shed, and we’ll get you treated. You don’t want to get an infection out here.” Rhett’s eyes meet mine. “Okay?”

This hesitancy gives me pause. He’s not ordering me now. He’s hoping I’ll go along.

“Okay, sure.” I look lovingly at my pickle bucket. “Can we bring that?”

“Sure.” Rhett snaps the kit closed and carries it in one hand, and the handle of the pickle bucket in the other.

I reluctantly leave my margarita packet on the counter. “I’ll be back,” I whisper.

The rain washes the blood off my arm and most of the mud off my cover-up. We duck through the shed doors and sit on the floor.

Rhett unrolls a length of gauze. My cut is too long for Band-Aids.

I guess he’s doing this. It’s my right arm, so I doubt I could manage with my left, anyway.

I brace my elbow on my prized pickle bucket.

“This might sting.” He squeezes a packet of antibiotic ointment down the cut, then covers it with the gauze.

Fire licks across my skin. “Yowsa!” I cry out.

“Sorry,” he says.

His fingers are gentle as he holds the gauze in place and tears off a length of tape with his teeth.

They’re good teeth, too, long and straight and white. For a moment, I have a startling vision of him biting the inside of my wrist. It’s one of my weaknesses. I think it comes from all my teen years of watching Gomez kissing Morticia onThe Addams Familyfollowed too quickly by vampire shows.

Ilovevampire shows.

I immediately push that thought away. This is Rhett we’re talking about. Evil incarnate.

He’s neatly surrounded the gauze with a double line of tape. “That should hold,” he says. “I guess we’ll have to be careful around those loungers.”

I pull my arm away from him, afraid that my body might betray my unexpected yearning to be the Bella to his Edward. “Yeah, we will.”

He points out the open door. “Rain is finally letting up.”

Huh. He’s right. The storm is passing.

He stands up, and every muscle works in perfect coordination as he reaches his full height. I hug my pickle bucket. I can’t think of anything useful to say, so I blurt, “Can we make pickle margaritas now? We can mix the packets with the pickle water.”

His mouth flirts with a smile. “That wise?”

“What else are we going to do here? Make a treehouse and play Tarzan?”

“That’s a jungle, and this is?—”

“Shut up, Rhett. I know it’s an island.”

“I know you know. I’m teasing you.”

Rhett Armstrong, teasing? That’s new.

He doesn’t even complain when we have to lug the pickle bucket back to the hut. The clouds part as we make our way across the sand, and by the time I’m ripping open the first margarita packet with my teeth, the sun is actually shining.

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