Johnny nodded, his forehead still pleated into a frown.
They parted ways in front of the house and Evie climbed the three steps to the front porch. The house was profoundly silent when she entered and she hoped that meant Tanner was sleeping and not lying behind his closed bedroom door stewing.
The clock on the kitchen wall told her it was nearly six. Tanner would want to eat soon. She headed into the kitchen and opened the fridge. A huge tray of lasagne occupied the middle shelf. Evie pulled it out and slid it into the oven, then contemplated the complicated collection of dials and knobs arrayed before her.
It took her no less than four attempts to get the oven to fire up and start making noises. When she put her hand inside, she could feel it starting to warm. She had to do some math to translate degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius, but she finally settled on what she hoped was a reasonable temperature to reheat a lasagne.
She set the timer for half an hour, then decided to have a quick shower before dinner. Her plans changed the moment she saw the large bath next to the shower. The thought of submerging herself in warm water and bubbles sounded like heaven after two days of driving an unfamiliar car on unfamiliar roads in a foreign country.
Five minutes later, she was sinking into fragrant foam thanks to the excellent array of toiletries Helen had left for her, a copy of one of Tanner’s The Horse magazines in hand. She spent the next twenty minutes reading up on the latest advice for feeding broodmares in late gestation.
The water was so warm, the bathtub so welcoming, only the thought of the oven timer going off forced Evie to pull the plug and dry herself off. Clad in a fresh pair of jeans and a tank top, she padded barefoot into the kitchen and checked on dinner. It smelled pretty good to her, which meant it was time to go rouse the master of the house out of hibernation.
Her feet were soundless on the timber floor as she approached Tanner’s bedroom. She tapped on the closed door, hoping she wasn’t waking him.
“Tanner. Hey. It’s just me. There’s hot lasagne ready when you are.”
There was a short pause, then: “Be with you in a minute.”
She heard him moving around and hovered, unsure if she should wait for him to emerge or let him find his way to the kitchen himself. Then she reminded herself that this was his house, and he had a clear run from his bedroom down the hallway to the living room.
Retreating to the kitchen, she dressed the bowl of salad Helen had left, then served up a man-sized portion for Tanner and a slightly smaller size for herself. The smell of melted cheese and rich tomato made her mouth water and she made a happy sound as she ferried both plates to the table.
When she turned, Tanner was standing on the threshold of the room, one hand extended into space as he groped for his next landmark, his head cocked as though he was trying to hear where he was to compensate for not being able to see.
“Just a few more steps,” she said, crossing the room.
Taking his extended hand, she drew him toward the table.
“Thanks,” he said, but she could tell it cost him.
She made a bet with herself that he was probably a terrible patient at the best of times—and that was definitely not now.
She pulled out a chair and sat, then picked up her cutlery. She waited until Tanner had his in hand before offering a little guidance.
“Salad is at two o’clock on your plate, lasagne between six and nine,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said again, and her heart sank as she heard the frustration beneath his politeness.
He’d been more talkative today in the car, more playful, but now he was back in his cave, pushing the world away. A heavy silence fell over the table, and Evie racked her brain for something to talk about.
“I checked out your horse barn. I’ve never heard of Colorado Rangers before.”
“They’re a local breed.”
“Johnny said they’re used for rodeo work?”
“That’s right. And general ranch work, pleasure riding.”
He sounded as though he was a hostile witness giving testimony at a murder trial, every word dragged out of him. Evie studied his face for a moment then let out a small sigh. If he didn’t want to talk, she wouldn’t force him, but maybe she needed to rethink her scheme to stay longer and help him. Tanner hadn’t said an inhospitable word, but she wasn’t a fool. He didn’t want her here.
The thought triggered a sharp pang of regret, but she quelled it. He’d had so much go wrong so quickly, it seemed churlish not to give him the one thing he seemed to crave the most: privacy. She’d already forced herself on him for the drive home. It was time to stop shoe-horning herself into his life.
After dinner, she’d go to her room and book a flight to Santa Fe for tomorrow afternoon. Her final gift to him.
Her stomach got tight, and she set her fork down, her appetite gone. Tanner was almost finished with his meal, and she waited until he was done before taking his plate into the kitchen. When she returned to the table, she found Tanner standing, clearly waiting for her to guide him back to the hallway.
She started to ask if he wanted to listen to some music, or maybe have her read to him, but the set of his shoulders and the flatness to his mouth made her bite her tongue. Wordlessly she led him the few paces to the hallway and watched as he made his way back to his room, one hand gliding along the wall for guidance. The sound of his door closing between them again brought a lump to her throat.
So. Time to book her flight.
Chapter Thirteen
He was being a jerk, and he didn’t know how to stop.
The thought was crystal clear in his mind as Tanner made his way back to his room, but he still didn’t turn around and go back to try to make things up to Evie.
Instead, he shut his bedroom door and dragged off his clothes and crawled back onto the bed.
The last few days of his life had been hell, pure and simple. He’d thought having some time to himself—some privacy—would help relieve the growing pressure in his chest, but being alone had only made things worse.
In the enforced darkness behind his bandages, his thoughts had become equally dark. He’d tried to think about what needed to happen next—meetings with his agent, conversations with his sponsors—but he kept getting trapped in thought loops that led nowhere.
He’d had so many plans.
He’d been having such a good year, winning events, piling up the prize money. He’d been on track for what he’d hoped would be the season of his career.
And now he was here, his bull-riding career over. It wasn’t just that, though. The past few days had given him a crash course in what it would be like to have compromised eyesight. If they took his bandages off and his left eye was ruined, his life was going to become a lot more complicated.
He had no idea if he could even drive if his left eye didn’t come up to scratch. Did they let people get behind the wheel with only one good eye? The thought of losing his driver’s license made him feel sick to the core. He couldn’t rely on either Helen or Johnny B to be his chauffeur every time he needed to be somewhere. He couldn’t be beholden to them like that, a burden.
He’d had enough of that to last a lifetime over the last few days.
Being helpless and reliant on other people for his simplest needs made him feel like a child, something no person in their right mind would relish. Sitting to pee, spilling food on himself, hearing the pity and worry in people’s voices…
It was more than a man could stomach. And the fact that it was Evie seeing him like this, babying him like this…
He didn’t want to be her patient. He wasn’t a victim. A few days ago, he’d been the guy who’d introduced her to oral sex and made her feel so good she’d been limp as a rag doll. Now he was the guy she had to help walk across his own living room.
It was fucking intolerable—and yet he had no choice but to tolerate it.
In the small corner of his mind still capable of rational thought, he knew this was only temporary. He knew he was lu
cky, that it could have been a million times worse, and that there were people out in the world struggling to cope with greater burdens than this with far fewer resources.
It helped, a little, but it was hard not to get caught up in a million what-ifs when he had nothing to do but lie in the dark and brood.
He tried to sleep for what felt like a long time. Dinner sat like a rock in his belly, and after a while his head started to ache. He rested a hand on his forehead, willing it away, but it only got worse. He had no idea where his meds were. In his luggage, he guessed. Evie had taken care of all of that, and he’d shut her out since he got home.
The thought of fumbling around trying to find where Johnny had left his suitcase, and then rifling through his things trying to find a pack of painkillers made him want to kick something.
He sat up, then pushed himself to his feet. Pissed at the world, determined to prove to himself that he could do one thing for himself, he opened the bedroom door and started up the hallway, one hand gliding along the wall.
There were painkillers on the shelf above the fridge. He’d find them, run himself a glass of water, then go back to his room. Like an adult who could look after himself.
He stopped when he reached the living room doorway. There was a wide-open expanse between the hallway and the kitchen island, with nothing to glide his hand along to find the way. Swearing under his breath, impatient with his own caution, he started walking, both hands held out in front like a freaking mummy in a horror movie.
After what felt like way too many steps, his groping hands found the island bench and he followed its edge until he estimated he was opposite the fridge. He struck out again, one step, two, three. The cool metal of the fridge door met his fingers. He reached up and patted along the shelf above the fridge until he found the familiar blister pack of painkillers. One step to the left took him to the cupboard with the glasses in it. He grabbed one, then turned to go in search of the sink.
He found it with minimal fumbling and set the tablets and glass down so he could use both hands to press some painkillers from the bubble packaging. It was dumb, but he was starting to feel a ridiculous sense of achievement when he reached for the glass to fill it at the sink.
His hand encountered nothing but air. Frowning, he widened his search. Everything happened in a flash after that—the press of cool glass against his elbow, his too-late attempt to halt the sweep of his arm, the slide of the glass across the counter.
And then the explosive crash of the glass smashing to the floor.
*
Evie had no idea how long she’d been asleep when the sound of glass shattering jolted her awake. Her heart pounded against her rib cage as she tried to orient herself, then she remembered where she was and bolted from the bed, not stopping to pull anything on over the tank top and panties she’d worn to bed. Her instinct was to go to Tanner’s room, since it was just the two of them in the house, but the sound had come from the living area. She was almost certain of it.
“Tanner? You okay?” she called as she stepped into the dimly lit space.
A darker shadow shifted in the kitchen. “I’m fine. Go back to bed.”
“What happened?” she asked, fumbling for the light switch. He might not need light right now, but she did.
Her fingers found the switch and light flooded the room—just as Tanner made an impatient noise and moved forward.
“Shit.”
It wasn’t so much what he said but the pain beneath his words that made her rush around the island bench. Shards of broken glass covered the floor—and Tanner had stepped right into the worst of it.
“Don’t move,” she said, one hand reaching out to grip his arm urgently. He was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs and his bandages, about as vulnerable as a person could be as he stood balanced on one leg, his injured foot suspended an inch from the floor. “Not another inch, okay? You’re right in the middle of a whole lot of broken glass.”
He swore again but followed instructions, his chin tucked against his chest as he waited, frustration in every line of his body.
“The countertop is just behind you, here,” she said, taking one of his hands and showing him where the support was. He’d have better luck keeping his injured foot off the floor if he had something to hang on to.
Once she was confident he was safe, she raced back to her room, shoving her feet into her boots. She ran back to the laundry room and heaved a sigh of relief when she found a broom in the first cupboard she opened.
“I’ve got a broom, won’t be a second,” she called as she raced back to the kitchen.
Blood dripped onto the floor from his elevated foot, and she bit her lip, wondering how badly injured he was. Carefully she brushed the broken glass away from him, going over the area multiple times. Then and only then did she drag one of the dining rooms chairs over into the kitchen.
“I’m going to check how bad it is, but you need to sit first, okay? I just put a chair behind you,” she said, taking his hand off the countertop and transferring it to the chair.
“I’ve got it,” he said gruffly.
He sank into the chair, and Evie checked the floor for stray fragments of glass before sinking to her knees and grasping his ankle.
She winced when she saw the shallow slice across the arch of his foot, but the anxiety churning her stomach eased a little as she inspected it closely and saw there didn’t appear to be any glass remaining in the wound.
“You’re lucky,” she told him. “It’s a clean cut, shallow, and I can’t see any glass fragments.”
“All right. Thanks.” He tugged on his foot, and she realized he was trying to stand.
As if.
“Are you kidding me? You can’t just walk off. I need to clean the wound and make sure I’m right about the glass. Then I need to do something about the bleeding.”
Tanner’s jaw worked, and she could almost hear his teeth grinding.
“Fine.”
“Do you have a first aid kit in the house?” she asked.
“The master bathroom,” he said.
There was so much anger simmering beneath his calm exterior, he was almost vibrating with it.
Feeling more than a little angry herself—why did he have to be so bloody pigheaded?—she marched up the hallway to his bedroom. She found the first aid kit beneath the vanity and returned to the kitchen with it and a towel in time to catch Tanner rubbing the temple near his bad eye. Her gaze went to the packet of tablets on the countertop next to the stove and suddenly she understood. He’d woken with a headache, and come in search of a glass of water and some pain relief. He’d made it to the kitchen, he’d even found a glass—and then he’d fumbled it somehow.
His one attempt at independence, and it had gone pear-shaped in seconds.
Her anger and frustration drained away instantly. Without saying a word, she crossed to the cupboard and found another glass. Filling it at the sink, she brought it to him along with the packet of painkillers.
“Here,” she said, wrapping his hand around the glass. She slipped two tablets into his other hand.
He stilled, then nodded his thanks and quickly swallowed the tablets.
She took the glass from him, then knelt at his feet and unzipped the kit. She was pleased to find a couple of sterile saline sachets, and she used the scissors in the kit to snip the corners and clean his foot. A closer, more painstaking inspection revealed she’d been right about there being no glass fragments, and she dabbed the cut with an antiseptic solution.
“Give that a second to dry and I’ll put a bandage on it,” she told him.
His heel rested on her bent knee, and she held his ankle in place. She could feel the tension in him still, the muscles of his ankle flexing as he fought to control the impulse to reject her ministrations.
Why won’t you let me help you?
The words filled her throat, but she didn’t dare give voice to them, because she didn’t have the right. They weren’t friends. They we
re two strangers who had found pleasure in each other’s arms a couple of times and then been thrown together by terrible circumstance.
Except Tanner didn’t feel like a stranger to her. He wasn’t some hot guy she’d had a one-night stand with, someone she’d look back on in a few years’ time with a wistful sigh for the good time he’d shown her. He’d stepped up for her when she’d been at her lowest ebb. He’d offered her empathy and pushed her to find closure with Troy. He’d whispered praise in her ear as he stroked his body within hers, and he’d held her afterward as if she mattered.
Before the accident, she’d been warning herself to be sensible, not to get carried away with the way he made her blood fizz and her body sing. She’d been determined to be sophisticated about their liaison, to walk away from her hours in his bed and his arms and not look back.
But then she’d seen him get kicked in the head and go down like a dead man, and all she’d been able to think about ever since was his happiness and wellbeing.
It wasn’t rational; it wasn’t reasonable. That didn’t stop it from being real.
Reaching for a sticky bandage, she peeled off the strips and secured it over the cut. It took two to secure it properly, and when she was done she allowed herself the small luxury of keeping her hands on his leg and gazing up into his face. He stirred restlessly and she lifted her hands, releasing him.
“Okay, we’re done,” she said.
He was on his feet instantly, using an outstretched hand to find the countertop and orient himself. Evie pressed her lips together and packed away the first aid equipment, disposing of the empty sachets and wrappings as he made his way to the hallway.
“Thanks for playing nurse,” he said as he was on the brink of leaving the room.
“My pleasure,” she said quietly.
Then he was gone. Evie stared at the floor for a minute, feeling defeated and lost, her chest aching. She couldn’t stand seeing him like this when she’d seen him at his best. He’d been fearless, courageous, devil-may-care cocky. Larger than life.
She gave herself a little shake. He would be okay. She had to believe that. The Extreme people had flown in a specialist to operate on his eye. He’d had the best care, and he had a good chance of making a full recovery. She was going to go on believing that until she had evidence to suggest otherwise, even if it killed her.
Tanner (American Extreme Bull Riders Tour Book 1) Page 16
