Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“You’re right,” I agreed as I carefully released him and sat back in my seat. Between my body’s protests as I tried to tamp down my lust and my mind’s confusion over what exactly it was that had just happened between myself and the young man sitting next to me, I couldn’t come up with anything else to say. Once the car was moving, I focused on driving and our ultimate destination.
The hospital.
The last place I wanted to be.
Jules had sensed that somehow. Maybe not the hospital part, but he’d known as we’d been leaving the ranch that despite him being injured, I’d been the one suffering.
“I don’t like hospitals,” I said. I didn’t say the words because I was distracted. I didn’t say them to fill the awkward silence of the vehicle. I said them because they were true.
And it was something no one else knew about me.
Now someone did. Now there was another soul on the planet who’d been given a sneak peek into just one of the ways my mind worked.
I wasn’t expecting a response, so when Jules once again maneuvered his fingers so they were linked with the ones on my right hand, it scared me, but only because I’d been so afraid he wouldn’t do it.
“I ran away from home,” Jules murmured. There was no humor behind the words, just hurt.
By the time I pulled the SUV into a parking spot just outside the emergency room doors, two things remained true.
One, we hadn’t spoken a single word to one another the rest of the way down the mountain.
And two, our fingers remained linked together until the moment I was forced to put the car in park.
Chapter Eight
JULES
“Sir, are you sure you’re okay?”
As the guy with the second-degree burn on his arm, the nurse’s question probably should have been directed at me, but it wasn’t. The question was for Flynn, who was holding the passenger door of the SUV open while the nurse pulled my wheelchair to a stop.
I had the same question because Flynn sure as hell didn’t look okay. He was white as a ghost and looked ready to puke at any moment.
“Fine,” Flynn said curtly before leaving the door open and striding around the SUV to the driver’s side.
Milly, the nurse who’d wheeled me out of the ER despite the fact that I would have been able to walk the distance on my own two feet, seemed hurt by Flynn’s rudeness, so I did my best to thank her for all her help and got into the car as gracefully as I could.
The second I pulled the door closed, Flynn had the SUV moving.
Fast.
“I don’t like hospitals.”
He was on the run. He’d been running from the moment we’d left the ranch. I hadn’t really understood that until his palm had grown increasingly slick with sweat the closer we’d gotten to the hospital. Once we’d arrived, he’d escorted me inside, but when the nurse had asked if he wanted to join me in the treatment room, he’d barked something about needing to park the car and then he’d been gone. He’d never even asked if I wanted or needed him in the room for moral support.
I hadn’t needed him there with me, but I’d wanted him to be.
Now I was glad that he hadn’t tried to force himself to do something he wasn’t capable of doing. He must have spoken with Milly at some point since she’d asked him if he was sure he was okay. That implied that she’d asked him the same question at least once already, so he might have returned to the waiting room after parking the car, but I had no way of knowing for sure.
What I did know was that whatever adrenaline high that was telling him to go the flight instead of fight route was proof that whatever had happened must have been unspeakable. I thought about the picture I’d seen of him with the woman and two children… the one he kept on his nightstand. According to Brooks, it wasn’t completely unheard of for a ranch hand to work and live on a ranch while sending his pay to wherever his family lived because there wasn’t always enough room for families to live together. So it could’ve been the same for Flynn. His wife and kids could be in some other city or state.
But his comment about hospitals and his clear agitation that continued now even though the hospital was in our rearview mirror meant it could be possible that whatever thing had made him hate hospitals so much had included his wife and kids. What if he’d lost one or all of them to some kind of accident? I’d only overheard a few brief snippets between Brooks and Xavier about the newest ranch hand. They’d talked about how he never stayed in one place for long… he was similar to a seasonal worker in that respect.