“Are you giving me the silent treatment?” he asked as they walked across the bridge and onto a path bordered by tall, rustling grasses.
“No, I had to concentrate while we were walking over the bridge. You may not have noticed, but some of the boards were loose. I didn’t want you to trip. This isn’t much better. Be careful.” She nodded at a rock at the edge of the path.
If anyone else coddled him like she was, he’d probably bite off their head. For some reason, it didn’t bother him when she did. But he didn’t want her to make a habit of it, so he said, “You know that I just have my arm around you to keep you warm, right? I don’t want you to catch a chill.”
“You don’t seriously think I buy that, do you?” she asked, then gave an involuntary shiver when a strong wind blew off the Atlantic, dampening their faces with sea spray.
“Believe me now?”
“No, but I’ll take you up on that offer.” She snuggled in a little closer. “Would it be okay if I grab a shower?”
“I was going to suggest that you do. You were lying in stagnant water and no doubt have open wounds. They’ll need to be disinfected.”
She jerked back, throwing him off balance. “You don’t have to take care of them. I can.”
“Would you stop moving like that?” he snapped, more from frustration than anger. It wasn’t solely related to the zing of pain that shot up his leg in response to the aggressive movement. The conversation had inspired an image from earlier to pop into his head. He tried his best to erase the memory of her bending over in front of him, bumping into his groin. His mind wasn’t cooperating. It immediately replaced that image with the one of her standing in front of him in her see-through shirt and bra.
He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t planning to take care of your wounds. You can put an antibacterial cream on them yourself. But you do realize I’m a professional, right? It’s not like you have anything I haven’t seen before.”
He should have shut up while he was ahead. But he didn’t want her to think the thought of stripping her bare was turning him on. Whoa, where the hell had that come from?
She looked up at him.
He pretended he didn’t notice and hurried her along the path to the lighthouse, gritting his teeth the entire way.
Opening the red wooden door, he ushered her inside. “Chase and his crew have been doing the renovations while Griff and Ava are away, so be careful. They’re mostly working in the kitchen though.” Which was fairly obvious since it had been gutted. “You can take the shower off the master. Everything you need should be in there.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind? I can—”
“No, go ahead.” And he hoped she did it quickly because her top and bra were still wet and see-through. He looked away to pull out a chair at the rustic, rough-hewn wooden table. “I should sit for a while anyway.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you lie down? You can prop your leg on some pillows.”
It would be. But there was a problem, and it was a fairly substantial one. “They’re redoing the other bedrooms. There’s only the one bed. It’s in the master.”
“Right, I remember Ava saying something about that now.” Dana chewed on her bottom lip while glancing at his leg, then lifted a shoulder. “It’s not like…I’ll be in the shower, and you’ll be dressed. You will be dressed, won’t you?”
He looked down at his wet jeans and kept his gaze there.
“Oh my gosh, your jeans. I completely forgot. You have to get out of them now.”
“You want me to strip right here, right this minute?”
She nodded. “I’ll look for a garbage bag. You better have your shower first. You don’t want to contaminate Griffin and Ava’s bed with monkshood.”
As Finn soon learned, the woman’s willowy frame and delicate features hid an iron will. She was a force of nature. She wouldn’t let up until he’d handed over his jeans, showered for ten minutes longer than he thought was necessary, changed into his brother’s T-shirt and sweatpants, propped his leg on two pillows, and then accepted a best-selling psychological thriller in his hands, all in under twenty minutes.
Miller lay at the end of the bed snoring while Finn stared unseeing at the page, listening to the water running in the shower. He rubbed his eyes and tried to refocus on the book. Maybe there was something with this monkshood thing after all. There had to be a logical explanation for him being unable to get an image of Dana in the shower out of his head.
Her cell phone rang. It was on the nightstand within easy reach. It rang again. He glanced from the phone to the closed bathroom door. He remembered the haunted look on her face, the panic attack when she saw the number on the screen. She was lying. Whoever had been on the other end terrified her.
Finn didn’t want to invade Dana’s privacy, but for her sake, he needed to know what she was dealing with. Because whether she’d admit it or not, she needed his help. On the third ring, he picked up the phone.
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A Princess in Maine Page 13
