She went to bend down but he was already in the way. Frustration and the shock of the fall were almost choking her. Even picking a bunch of keys up for her seemed too much to bear at the moment.
‘Get out of the way, Ross.’
‘Will you stop being so pig-headed, Laurie?’
As he straightened up, she saw the hurt on his face. Suddenly this didn’t seem fair and it occurred to Laurie that she was lashing out at the wrong person. Tears started to course down her face, and when he extended his arms she almost fell into them. He held her gently, silentl
y, for what seemed like a long time.
‘I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you.’ Laurie felt his chest rise and then fall as she said the words.
‘You should be. I haven’t given you much room to breathe, have I?’
‘It was my father that did that.’
‘And then I made things worse. I knew that you had to stay here if you wanted to save your sporting career. It wasn’t really a choice at all, you only had one option.’
‘It was the right option.’ Laurie wiped her face with her fingers, looking up at him.
He shook his head. ‘I’m not entirely sure that makes any difference. I shouldn’t have boxed you into a corner like that.’
‘Make me a cup of tea, and you’re forgiven. And give me a hug, because I fell right on my hip...’ He knew what that meant. How scared she was.
His arms closed around her again, and she nestled against him. The first time anyone had ever hugged her when she’d fallen down. It was too short-lived, but maybe it was too much to ask for this one time to make up for all the others.
He opened the door, waiting for her to beckon him inside after her. Laurie fetched the first-aid kit from the kitchenette, putting it down on the coffee table and lowering herself onto the sofa.
‘Tea first, eh?’ Ross put the kettle on, watching as Laurie carefully rolled up the leg of her trousers. They hadn’t ripped, but the force of the impact had left a red weal across her knee, which was oozing blood.
He brought the tea, and Laurie proffered her injured hand, knowing that he wouldn’t ask to see the damage. Ross rotated her wrist, applying gentle pressure to all the same places that his mother had, but she let him do it. This was the beginning of trust, and it felt like a step away from the harsh regimes of her childhood. When he’d finished, she handed him the tweezers.
‘Ow!’
‘Sorry...’ Each time he tweezed out one of the pieces of gravel that were embedded under her skin it seemed to hurt him more than it did her. ‘That’s the last one.’
‘It’s great. Thanks.’ Laurie tried not to wince at the sting of the antiseptic as he gently cleaned her hand and then the weal on her leg.
‘How’s your hip feeling?’
‘I’ll have a bruise, but it doesn’t feel too bad now. I don’t think I’ve done any real damage.’
‘Just had a bit of a fright.’
She nodded. ‘Will you take a look?’
Ross smiled suddenly. ‘I’m not your doctor, you know. Just an informed individual.’
‘Maybe I’d just appreciate your opinion, eh?’
She rolled onto her side on the couch, feeling his touch through the thin fabric of her trousers, carefully working around the main areas of inflammation. ‘I don’t feel anything. In fact, there’s a marked improvement on what I would have expected from your scans when you arrived.’
That was actually good to know. Her hip had been feeling better, but Laurie had been working blind, unable to examine it properly herself and loth to ask either Sam or Ross to do so.
‘I may take a warm bath, just to ease everything a little.’
‘Good idea. I’ll go and let my mother know that you really are okay before she starts banging the door down to make sure.’
‘Thanks. You’ll come back?’ Laurie didn’t want him to go back to his own apartment just yet.