“Fine with me. I’ll be right here when you get back, and then we’re going to talk.”
Her brow shot up to her hairline. “Fine.”
“Fine,” he snapped, too, and watched her storm away. All the while his head was about to bust imagining all the different things that could have caused such a burn on her neck and arm.
Every one of those scenarios was too painful to think about.
* * *
They’d seen her arm. The look of horror on Tony’s face had cut to her core. The kid had almost looked as if he could feel her pain.
Drats and more drats. Her scars made people uncomfortable.
She stared at herself in the mirror. It had taken a while for her to be able to do it without cringing, herself, so how did she expect others to not react the same way?
The brutal burn ran ugly and twisted from her neck down her right arm and torso. It wrapped around her rib cage and covered the majority of her stomach. The memory of the house caving in on her swept over her, and the scent of burning flesh made her nauseated. Reaching for the clean shirt, she pulled it on. The traumatic memory faded as she buttoned the buttons with shaky fingers.
Rowdy had seen the scar before and not said anything. Today, he’d looked into her eyes and pulled her shirt closed so no one else would see it. He’d saved her from the curious stares of the kids for the most part. Tony, and maybe Wes and Joseph, had seen her arm. He’d kept them from seeing more.
She had the feeling that this time he was going to ask questions.
Not sure if she was going to answer his questions she walked from her room and rounded the corner into the kitchen/construction site. Rowdy was leaning against the counter with his back to the sink and his scuffed boots crossed in front of him as he stared at the spot where she would be when she rounded the corner. She stopped. Her stomach felt unsteady...or maybe that was her feet. And her arm throbbed like a fifteen-hundred-pound cow had stepped on it.
As soon as he saw her he pushed away from the counter and yanked a chair from the table. “Here, have a seat.”
She sat because she needed to.
He reached for a bottle of pain relievers that he’d obviously dug from her cabinet. Popping the top off he poured two into his hand and held them out to her. “You’re going to need these.”
She took them, because he was right. Then she accepted the water he held out to her.
Once she’d washed them down, he took her glass and set it on the counter, where he resumed his original pose leaning against it. His deep blue eyes rested on her.
The man really made her nervous.
“You were a good sport out there.”
Not what she’d been expecting. “I still think y’all are crazy, but I’m going to do it.”
“You don’t have to. In the boys’ book, getting out there and trying was all they needed.”
“A deal is a deal.”
They stared at each other and the clock ticked on the wall over the stove. “I guess you’re wondering about my scars.”
“I am. But if you want to tell me it’s none of my business, I understand. You just seemed sort of—” He raked his hat from his head and ran his fingers through his straight dark hair. She could tell he was struggling with the right words. He didn’t know that there weren’t any.