Rhodes glanced up from under those thick, curly lashes. He set my leg back down and touched the back of my other calf. “This one too?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I answered, hearing the sulkiness I was trying to hide in my voice. “And my hands.” I sniffled again. “And my elbows.”
Rhodes kept kneeling as he reached for one of my hands and flipped it, instantly wincing. “Jesus Christ, how far did you fall?”
“Not that far,” I said, letting him look at my palms. His eyebrows knit together in a pained expression before he took my other hand and inspected it too.
“You didn’t clean it?” he asked as he lifted that arm up a bit, grimacing again. I’d taken my UPF shirt off not even thirty minutes before falling. My skin might have been more protected if I’d left it on. Too late now.
“No,” I replied. “That’s why I turned around. I don’t have anything on me. Ouch, that hurt.”
He lowered my arm slowly and took the other, lifting it high up to check out that elbow too and earning him another “Oww” from me when it made my shoulder ache.
“I think I hurt my shoulder when I tried to break my fall.”
His gaze met mine. “You know that’s the worst thing you can do when you fall?”
I gave him a flat look. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I fall on my face,” I grumbled.
I was pretty sure his mouth might have twisted a little as he stood up. Rhodes gave me a single nod for sure though. “Let’s go, I’ll walk you down and get you cleaned up.”
“You will?”
He slanted me a look before picking up his trekking poles and backpack, slipping the straps on, then maneuvering the two sticks through crisscrossing cords on his back, leaving his arms free. Finally aiming his body back up the trail toward me, he held out his hand.
I hesitated but set my forearm into his open palm, and I watched as some emotion I didn’t initially recognize slid over his face.
“I meant your backpack, angel. I’ll take it for you. The trail’s not wide enough for both of us to go down at the same time,” he said, his voice sounding oddly hoarse.
Maybe if I hadn’t been in so much pain, and been so damn cranky, I would’ve been embarrassed. But I wasn’t, so I nodded, shrugged, and gingerly tried to take my backpack off. Luckily, I just started to shimmy a strap off when I felt the weight leave my shoulders as he tugged it away.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive” was all he replied with. “Come on. We’ve got half an hour to get back to the trailhead.”
My whole body slumped. “Half an hour?” I’d thought I had… ten minutes max.
My landlord pressed his lips together and nodded.
Was he trying not to laugh? I wasn’t sure because he turned around and started heading down the path ahead of me. But I was pretty sure I saw his shoulders shaking a little.
“Let me know when you want water” was one of the only two things he said on the way down.
The other being, “Are you humming what I think you’re humming?”
And me replying with “Yes.”
“Big Girls Don’t Cry.” I had no shame.
I tripped twice, and he turned around both times, but I gave him a tight smile and acted like nothing had happened.
Like he predicted, thirty minutes later, when I was basically wheezing and he was acting like this was a stroll down a paved path, I spotted the parking lot and almost cried.
We’d made it.
I’d made it.
And my hands hurt even worse from how dry the cuts were, and my elbows felt the same way, and I was sure my knees would too, but their joints were so bad, they didn’t have room to wonder about any other pain.
But just as I started heading toward my car, Rhodes slipped his fingers around my biceps and steered me toward his work truck. He didn’t say another word as he unlocked it and dropped the tailgate, shooting me a look over his shoulder as he patted it briefly before heading around to the passenger door.
I went straight for the tailgate and eyed it, trying to figure out how to sit on it without using my hands to boost myself up.
That was how he found me: staring at it and trying to decide if I went face-first and shimmied up on my stomach, I could wiggle around and sit up on my butt eventually.
“I’m trying to figure out how to—okay.”
He scooped me up, one arm under the backs of my knees, the other around my lower back, and planted me on the truck. In a sitting position. Like it was no big deal. I smiled at him.
“Thanks.” I would’ve figured it out, but it was the thought that counted.
It didn’t change the fact he was confusing, but I wasn’t going to pick at that thought any longer. I still hadn’t moved past him calling me beautiful. I probably wouldn’t.
From under his arm though, he set a red kit beside my hip. Wordlessly, those big hands went straight for my foot, and I watched as he undid the lace and tugged the boot off by the heel as I said, “Hold your breath. I’ve been sweating, and I’d like to think my feet don’t smell, but they might.”
That gaze flicked up for a second, and he lowered it again before doing the same to my other boot.
I sighed in relief. Man, did that feel good. I wiggled my poor, tormented toes and sighed again just as he started rolling my pant legs up, stopping the folds just above my knee. His hands were gentle as they did the same to the knee that hadn’t totally torn.
And I watched, silently, as his palm cupped my calf and he extended my leg, the side of it pressing against his hip. He tilted his head and examined it some more before doing the same to the other. He had just started digging through his case when I asked, “Whatcha doing here?”
He didn’t look over as he pulled a couple packets out and set them on top of my thigh.
Not the tailgate. My thigh.
“Someone reported illegal hunting; I was coming to see if I heard anything,” he answered, setting out a small clear bottle too.
I watched him put on some gloves, then take the top off the bottle and give it a swirl. “I thought hunting season hadn’t started yet?”
He still didn’t look at me as he lifted my leg again at an angle and squirted the clear fluid over my knee. It was cold and it stung just a little, but mostly because the skin was broken. I hoped. “It hasn’t, but that doesn’t matter to some people,” he explained, focused below.
I guess that made sense.
But what were the chances…?
Had Amos told him I was here?
He did the same to the other knee, which was scraped up but not as bad.
“Are you going to get in trouble for not going up there?” I asked him with a hiss as it stung too.
He shook his head, setting the bottle aside and nabbing some precut strips of gauze that he used to dab under the wounds, drying them. Rhodes worked on me some more before grabbing a couple more gauze pads and putting them over the treated wounds, taping them down.
“Thank you,” I told him quietly.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, meeting my gaze briefly. “Hands or elbows first?”
“Elbows are good. I need to work up to my hands; I think those will hurt the most.”
He nodded again, taking my arm and starting the whole process over again with the solution. He was drying it off as he asked quietly, “Why are you by yourself?”
“Because I don’t have anyone else to come with me.” With his head ducked, I got a really great view of his incredible hair. The silver and brown mixed together perfectly. One could only hope to gray that nicely. At least I did.
Those almost purple eyes flicked to me again as he applied something to my elbow. “You know it’s not safe to go hiking alone.”
Here was the inner Dad and game warden. “I know.” Because I did. Better than anyone, probably. “But I don’t really have a choice. I texted my uncle and told him where I was. Clara knows too.” I watched his face. “Amos asked when I was leaving this morning. He knew too.”
His features didn’t shift in the slightest. Amos had definitely told him. Right?
But what? He drove all this way… to check on me? Drive two and half hours away… for me?
Yeah, right.
“You turned around at the ridge then?” he asked as he covered my elbow with a big Band-Aid.
“Yeah,” I told him sheepishly. “It was a lot harder than I expected.”
He grunted. “Told you it was difficult.”
He remembered? “Yeah, I know you did, but I thought you were exaggerating.”
He made a soft sound that might have been a snort… coming from anyone else… and I smiled. He didn’t see it though. Fortunately.
“I need to train harder before I try this again,” I told him.
Rhodes took my other elbow. His hands were nice and warm even through the gloves. “Probably a good idea.”
“Yeah—oww.”
His thumb brushed right below the wound of my elbow, and his eyes flicked up. “Okay?”
“Yeah, just being a baby. It hurts.”
“Mm-hmm. You scraped them up pretty bad.”
“It feels like—owwie.”
He snorted really softly again. It was definitely a snort.
What the hell was going on? Did he take his chill pill again?
“Thank you for doing this,” I said once he’d tenderly—and I mean tenderly—put another Band-Aid on my other elbow.
Rhodes took my hand then, flipping the palm up and setting it on top of my leg. “How were you planning on driving home?” he asked softly.
“With my hands,” I joked and grimaced when the pad of his index finger grazed one of the puncture-like wounds. “I don’t really have another choice. I figured I’d just cry and bleed all the way home.”
Those gray eyes moved toward my face again.
I smiled at him as he took ahold of the solution again, working it over my hands. His thumb grazing over the tiny wounds there like he was making sure there was nothing else embedded in my skin; then he poured some more. I gritted my teeth and tried to get my mind off what he was doing. So I did what came second nature. I kept on talking.
“Do you like your job?” I asked, making a face he didn’t see.
His eyebrows knit together as he kept on working. “Sure. More now.”
That distracted me. “Why now?”
“I’m on my own now,” he actually answered.
“You weren’t before?”
One gray eye peeked at me. “No, I was a cadet.” He didn’t say anything for so long, I didn’t expect him to say more. “I didn’t like starting over and having people tell me what to do again.”
“They really treated you like a rookie? At your age?”
That had his head jerking up, the funniest expression on his handsome face. “At my age?”
I pressed my lips together and lifted my shoulders. “You’re not twenty-four.”
Rhodes’s mouth twisted before he lowered his gaze once more. “They still call me Rookie Rhodes.”
I watched his fingers on my palm. “Were you… in charge of a lot of people? In the military?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“How many?”
He seemed to think about it. “A lot. I retired a Master Chief Petty Officer.”
I didn’t know what that was, but it sounded pretty important. “Do you miss it?”
He thought about it as he again, gently, put a big Band-Aid over my wound, his fingers slicking the edges down so that they adhered well. “I do.” The corners of his mouth whitened as he took my other hand. His were a lot bigger than mine, his fingers long and blunt as they stretched the material of the gloves. I could tell they were nice, strong hands. Very capable-looking.
It wasn’t any of my business, but I couldn’t help myself. This was the most he’d talked to me in… ever. “So why did you retire then?”
His full mouth pinched. “Did Amos tell you his mom is a doctor?”
He hadn’t told me much of anything. “No.” I’d just settled for imagining a beautiful woman that Rhodes had once loved.
“She’s wanted to do this Doctors Without Borders-type program for years and got accepted. Billy wouldn’t want her to go by herself, but Am didn’t want to go, so he asked if he could stay with me.” He glanced at me. “I’d missed so much of his life because of my career. How could I tell him no?”
“You couldn’t.” So not only was his ex more than likely stunning, but she was smart too. No surprise there.
“Right,” he agreed easily. “I didn’t want to be gone if he needed me. I was up for reenlistment and decided to retire instead,” he explained. “I know I’m gone a lot, but it’s less than it could have been.”
“You can’t stay at home with him all day with any job.” I tried to make him feel better. “And you’d probably drive him nuts if you were hovering around constantly.”
He made a soft sound.
“I’m sorry you miss it though.”
“It was my entire life for more than twenty years. It’ll get better with time,” he tried to say. “If I was going to be somewhere, I’m glad he’s here. It’s the best place to grow up in.”
“You wouldn’t go back after he starts college? If he goes?”
“No, I want him to know I’m here for him. Not out in the middle of the ocean or thousands of miles away.”
Something tugged at me then. How much he was trying. How deeply he had to love his child to give up on something he loved and missed so much.
I touched his forearm with the back of my other hand, just a quick brush against the soft, dark hairs. “He’s lucky you love him so much.”
Rhodes didn’t say anything though, but I felt his body loosen a bit as he worked on my palm quietly, taping me up.
“He’s really lucky to have his mom and other dad too.”
“He is,” he agreed, almost thoughtfully.
When he finished with me and was putting all of his things back into his bag, his hip right against my knee, I went for it. I leaned forward, put my arms around him loosely, and hugged him. “Thanks, Rhodes. I really appreciate it.” Just as quickly, I let go of him.
His cheeks were flushed, and all he got out in a quiet voice was “You’re welcome.” He took a step back then and met my eyes. The lines on his forehead were in full effect. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he was scowling. “Come on. I’ll follow you home.”
* * *
I didn’t sulk all the way home, but I maybe pouted a quarter of the distance there.
My hands still stung. My knees—the insides as well as the outsides—felt battered too, and I’d accidentally hit my elbow against the center console and cursed half the members of the Jones family to hell… because there was no one else really that I had any beef with.
I didn’t even bother putting my shoes fully back on either. I’d just slipped them on enough to hobble to my car and get in. Rhodes had closed the door after me, knocking once on the top while I’d kicked them off and set them in the passenger seat.
I stopped once to pee at a gas station, with Rhodes pulling in too and waiting in his truck until I got back.
Frustration pulsed deep inside of my chest, but I tried not to focus on it too much. I’d tried to do the hike. And failed. But at least I’d tried.
Okay, that was a lie. I hated failing more than anything. All right, just about more than anything.
So when I spotted the turnoff for the driveway to the property, I sighed in relief. There was a semi-familiar hatchback parked in front of the main house that I vaguely remembered belonged to Johnny. I hadn’t seen him again since our failed date. Rhodes went for his usual spot, and so did I. Leaving everything in my car that I absolutely didn’t need, which was all of my stuff minus my cell phone and boots that I casually slipped on, I got out to see my landlord already shutting his truck door, attention on the ground as I closed mine.
“Rhodes,” I called out.
“Want to come in for
some pizza?”
He was inviting me over? Really? Again?
My heart skipped a beat. “Sure. If you don’t mind.”
“I got an icepack you can put on your shoulder,” he called out.
He watched me as I staggered over, muttering, “Fuck,” to myself because every step hurt.
“Are you sure you’re not going to get in trouble for leaving work early?” I asked as we went up the deck stairs.
He opened the door and gestured me to follow. “No, but if anybody asks, I did help an injured hiker out.”
“Tell them I was very injured. Because I am. I had to drive back with my wrists. If I could give you a review, it would be ten stars easy.”
He stopped in the middle of closing the door and looked at me. “Why didn’t you say something when we were at the gas station? You could’ve left your car there.”
“Because I didn’t think about it.” I shrugged. “And because I didn’t want to be more of a baby. You already saw me cry enough.”
The lines across his forehead crinkled.
“Thank you for making me feel better.” I paused. “And for helping me. And following me back.”
That got him to start moving again, but I kept on yapping.
“You know, you keep on being nice to me, and I’m going to think you like me.”
That big body stopped right where he was and one gray eye was on me over his shoulder as he asked in that rough, serious voice, “Who says I don’t like you?”
Excuse me?
Did he just say…?
But just as quickly as he stopped, he started moving again, leaving me there. Processing. I snapped out of it.
I hadn’t realized until then that the television was on, and I heard Rhodes say, “Is the pizza ready?” It wasn’t until I was in the living room too that I spotted Amos’s head over the back of the couch.
All Rhodes Lead Here Page 25
