He sighed and wiped at his forehead absently before going back inside the barn. The temperature had soared over the last few days and it was even higher inside the old structure. The air was thick around him and Bennett had to concede that he’d spent way too much time inside lately. His body wasn’t used to this much physical labor anymore.
Glancing around, he reached over his head and yanked his shirt off. He wrinkled his nose at the sight of the sweat stains on it. Taking the shirt off wasn’t helping that much as far as temperature but at least he didn’t have the clammy material clinging to his skin anymore. He turned his attention back to the machine in front of him and concentrated on removing the broken axle. It would likely cost a pretty penny to try to get it repaired, but it was worth a try.
Something made him look up just then and his eyes met Katie’s again. The heat that overtook him was altogether foreign and unfamiliar. The past two weeks, by unspoken agreement, they’d decided to enjoy whatever this thing was developing between them.
He wasn’t sure what to call it and she hadn’t offered any suggestions for defining it either. Truthfully he was a little scared to push her for anything more than what she’d already granted. He knew it was a huge step for her to trust another man with her body and her heart but she’d managed to worm her way into every area of his life until he couldn’t imagine her not being there.
The one thing she wouldn’t budge on was spending the night. Bennett scowled as he yanked at the wrench, trying to pull the mangled axle away from the body of the machine. He channeled his frustration into the metal. He understood that she couldn’t just blow off her responsibilities, he truly did. She had children and they were her first priority, rightly so. But there was definitely a part of him that wondered if it said something that she seemed to have no interest in putting him anywhere other than last on her list.
Something ugly and twisted sprang up in his mind as he remembered the horror show of dating in college. The girls who were more than happy to take advantage of his sexual prowess under cover of night but didn’t want any of their friends to know they were together. Good enough to fuck but not enough to be seen in public.
Katie wasn’t like that, though. She’d never acted like she was embarrassed by him and they’d been out in public plenty of times.
Not as a couple, though. That was a practice date and it wasn’t like we were kissing in public. Be honest: how do you think she’d react if you tried that move?
Bennett flinched, the mental image of Katie recoiling from him in public so vivid that he dropped the wrench. On reflex, he tried to grab it before it fell into the body of the machine and his arm made contact with the ripped metal.
“Fuck!” His anguished shout carried throughout the barn but he was in too much pain to care. Blood streamed from the long gash on his arm and he took several deep breaths before carefully maneuvering his arm back out of the machine.
When he turned around, he stopped short. Katie stood right behind him.
“Bennett, what’s wrong?” When her eyes landed on his bloody arm, she swayed slightly. “Oh my god, what happened?”
He grabbed his shirt from the ground and pressed it against the long gash, hoping the dirt on it wasn’t going to give him an infection. “I need you to call someone for me. Take my phone out of my back pocket.”
She did so, her fingers shaking slightly and then input the passcode he dictated for her. Bennett had hurt himself plenty of times around the farm; it was an inevitability when there were machines, and tons of work to do. However, he knew that Katie wasn’t used to this sort of thing.
“Find the contact information for Grant.”
She scrolled the list and when she found the right one, she glanced up at him. ?
?Grant Alexander?”
He nodded. “Yeah, he’s my cousin. I need you to tell him I got hurt and ask him to come.”
She hit the contact and waited patiently as it rang. And rang. He could see the panic rising until she finally hung up.
“He’s not answering. Let me take you to the emergency room.”
Bennett froze. There was no way in hell. He hated hospitals. They were filled with everything he tended to avoid in one place: people, germs and lots of questions.
“No, I’m fine. It’s just a scratch. We can just wait until Grant can come out. He’s patched me up plenty of times before.”
Katie swallowed and then motioned toward his arm. “Um, Bennett. That’s way more than just a scratch.”
He looked down at his arm. The shirt he was holding against the cut was soaked with bright red blood.
?
Katie focused on the action at hand instead of the blood-soaked fabric on the table. It had gotten her through plenty of unpleasant situations before.
Hold steady.
Wrap the gauze.
Tuck the ends under.
She followed Bennett’s soft verbal instructions until his entire arm looked like it had been mummified. It made him look even worse which was hard to do after he’d almost keeled over at the sight of his bloody arm.