Head Start (Cedar Tree #7) (9 page)

“You’ll need some stitches,” she says, taking great care as she stacks squares of sterile gauze on the wound before wrapping it up tight with a bandage.

I still haven’t uttered a word.

Her hand comes up to cup my jaw and she leans down to get in my face. “What’s going on?”

Instead of answering, I wrap my other hand around the back of her neck and pull her down farther so I can kiss her. I can taste the salt from the fries on her lips, licking them slowly before sliding my tongue in her mouth and filling myself with just the taste of her. With her hands landing on my shoulders to balance herself, her body instinctively moves in between my legs.

“I like kissing you,” is what I end up mumbling against her mouth. I can feel her lips forming a smile against mine.

“You’re relentless,” she whispers back. “But we really should get you stitched up. Give me your keys, I’ll drive.”

After our little spat on the sidewalk this afternoon, I managed to convince her to come grab a bite at Arlene’s. I figured being with her in the familiar surroundings might help her start seeing me in a different way. This was obviously not part of my plan. “I’ll drive. It’s a manual.”

“So?” she snaps, rising to her full height, which, given that I’m still sitting on the can, allows her to look down on me. “Any rules I should be aware of that state women can’t drive standard?”

I chuckle at her vehemence. “No. But I noticed you’re driving an automatic yourself, so I wasn’t sure.”

“I’ll have you know that my previous car was a Mustang and it certainly was not an automatic.”

“A Mustang, huh? What happened?” I’m intrigued. Not that I can’t see Kendra driving one, because I sure as fuck can. Nothing wrong with my imagination. It’s just that there is a world of difference between that and the little utilitarian SUV she drives now.

“It would appear that a sporty convertible is not exactly a handy car to have when living in Durango,” she admits rather sheepishly. Cute. “It was a post-graduation phase of mine that passed as quickly as the coming of first snow. By the time I moved to Cortez, I was making better choices.” She looks a little melancholy, and I make a note to myself that given the opportunity, I’d get her behind the wheel of a Mustang again. “Come on.” She pulls me up. “Let’s see if Naomi is around to do some stitching, unless you want to drive to Cortez?”

“Nope,” I tell her, handing over my truck keys. A little smile twitching the corner of her mouth is my reward.

With a quick word with Seb to let Arlene know we’re off, we slip out the backdoor.

“I’d forgotten you live here now,” Kendra says as she adjusts the seat and the mirrors in my truck. “I still think of this apartment as Mal’s.”

“A year now, Kendra,” I snap, suddenly irritated. From the corner of my eye, I can see Kendra’s hands still on the steering wheel and I feel her eyes on me. Now I’m pissed at myself.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she says softly as she starts up the truck. “It’s just that I haven’t been up there since you moved in.”

The reminder that she so easily befriended Malachi, while keeping me at bay the entire time stings, but I know I overreacted. Reaching over with my left hand, I cover hers on the steering wheel. “Sorry I snapped,” I apologize a bit weakly.

“No worries.” She briefly turns her hand to give mine a squeeze before releasing it and grabbing the stick shift. Easily slipping the truck into first, she pulls smoothly out of the parking lot. “
Dagnabit
,” I hear her mumble under her breath.

“What?”

“I forgot Naomi and Joe are in Durango this weekend, packing up Fox’s room.”

Naomi’s son, Fox, started attending Fort Lewis in Durango a few years ago. Majoring in anthropology. Although he’d always shown a keen interest in the archeological digs around the area, spending a few months each summer volunteering on a variety of digs, his aim is medical anthropology. When I first met the kid, he was just sixteen years old but seemed far older and wiser than his years. He’d encountered some problems when first moving to the area with his mom, and ended up losing his father, so we’d ended up spending quite a bit of time together. I like the kid, although at almost twenty, and almost as tall as his stepfather, Joe, he could hardly be considered a kid anymore.

“I forgot about that. This will be the end of his second year, right?”

Kendra smiles when she turns to me. “Sure is, and he’s doing really well. I had him on the phone last week and he mentioned hooking up with you for some
ass-kicking
, as he called it.”

It makes me laugh. Fox had a hard-on about beating me at a game I helped develop. We’d hung out gaming quite a bit, and I have to admit, the kid is good. Almost had me a time or two. “He wishes,” I tell her with a smile, glad some of the tension is gone from the truck cab.

“Okay, so I’ll just head for Southwest in Cortez. I’ll make sure you’re in and out of there quickly.”

The mention of the hospital turns my focus on my hand, which is still throbbing steadily in my lap. Damn.

“Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

My eyes take in Kendra’s profile as she keeps her gaze steady on the road. So damn pretty. Her hair is back from her face in its signature ponytail, a few strands having slipped from the elastic band holding it back, drifting around her face. Her clear and observant eyes are framed with thick, dark lashes and ringed with fine laugh lines. Evidence of the weather is smattered across the skin of her nose and forehead, with a sprinkling of freckles that seem to get darker and more spread out as spring progresses. She really does look like the prime example of a
girl-next-door.
Pretty, fresh, and outdoorsy looking. A face I’ve become intimately familiar with over the past few years. But that mouth...holy fuck...those lips. That’s the stuff dreams are made of. And that’s what I focus on when I take a deep breath in and try to answer as honestly as I can.

K
endra

I can feel his eyes tracing my features and I can’t help but wonder what it is he sees exactly. I know I’m pushing, but something happened back there at the diner and it worries me. Before I have a chance to prompt him again, I hear his sharp intake of breath as if he’s preparing himself, so I wait him out. It doesn’t take long until I’m rewarded with his words.

“It’s funny actually. The food got me thinking about my mother—my family—and the reasons I enlisted in the army.” The derisive chuckle emitting from him is quite obviously self-directed, and I try not to react. “I was so full of myself then. Thinking I would be able to make an impact. What a joke. I was just a cog in a very large war machine.” His gaze finds mine before he quickly turns back to look outside once more. But not before I catch a hint of torment behind his eyes.
Yowza
. Carefully keeping my expression level, I direct my focus back to the road. “Sometimes when I let my thoughts go, when I think about some of the shit... Whatever...” he shakes his head before he continues. “I sometimes lose track of where I am.”

He doesn’t look at me, but I can sense him waiting for a reaction. Rather than give him a verbal one, I slip my hand off the gearshift and find his resting on his thigh. Quietly, I slide my hand under his palm and lace my fingers with his. I never take my eyes off the road. The only response is the slight tightening of his hand on mine.

The entire rest of the trip to Cortez is traveled in silence, each of us with our thoughts. Whenever I pull my hand from his to change gears, he just as quickly places it back on his thigh, interlacing our fingers every time. Maybe that’s why, once we park the truck in the hospital parking lot and start walking toward the emergency entrance, it seems natural for our hands to find each other’s.

Walking into the lobby, holding hands with Neil should have me worried, but I’m not thinking about what it means. I just know it feels right in this moment, so I hang on.

It doesn’t take long for Neil to be led into one of the treatment rooms, where a second bed is already occupied by a little boy, his mom sitting beside him, doing her best to silence his crying.

“I’m so sorry,” she says immediately when she sees us come in.

Without hesitation, Neil walks over to where the five or six year old boy is, with his hand wrapped up in a kitchen towel, fighting his mother’s hold, protesting loudly. “May I?” Neil asks the mother, indicating the edge of the boy’s bed. She nods her head with a tremulous smile. The little guy is suddenly still, watching Neil sit down with suspicious eyes. With a broad smile Neil points at the boy’s makeshift bandage. “What did you do? I cut my hand on a glass,” he says, showing off his own bound hand. “It was silly, I wasn’t being very careful.”

The boy’s eyes look from Neil’s bandaged hand to his own, and with tears still tracking down his cheeks, he softly giggles. “Helping Mommy cook.” His words are almost whispered as he looks from under his eyelashes at Neil.

“I see.” Neil settles in comfortably on the boy’s bed, his back against the headboard and his feet crossed on top of the blanket, looking for all intents and purposes to be completely at ease. “Guess we were both a little silly then, right? Did you cut yourself too?”

The kid nods, his face serious as he moves out of his mother’s hold and settles back against the headboard as well, mimicking Neil’s pose. His mother looks at me and tries to hide her smile, as do I.

“My name is Neil, what’s yours?”

“Brandon. And I’m five.” He helpfully holds up his good hand, fingers spread wide.

“You go to school yet, Brandon?”

“After the summer, Mommy says.”

“Hmmmm,” Neil hums deep in his throat, and despite the odd situation, the sound gives me inappropriate goose bumps. “By that time your cut will probably be healed already. It won’t hurt anymore, but you’ll probably have a scar. Scars are cool.”

I only manage to swallow half the snort that wants to escape me when I see Brandon’s eyes go big. Neil turns his head and gives me a little wink before turning back to his pint-sized admirer.

When the attending comes in a little while later, Brandon is chattering away, his tears and his injury almost completely forgotten. But when he sees the white coat of the doctor, his bottom lip begins to wobble. Once again, Neil takes control. “Have you met my friend yet?” Big teary eyes look up at him. “This is my buddy, Doctor...”

Quickly cluing in on the game, the young physician chimes up. “Ross. Doctor Ross, but call me Jeff. Everyone does.”

“My buddy, Jeff. He’s gonna fix us right up, Brandon. He’ll give us both a cool scar.”

Carefully, Neil tries to make room for the doc to get in, but Brandon starts shaking his head when Jeff reaches for his hand. “Him first,” he says, pointing at Neil’s hand.

“How about I look at you guys at the same time?” Jeff suggests.

While he carefully unwraps Neil’s hand and then Brandon’s, I take a seat next to the empty bed. Listening with half an ear to the conversation taking place, I try to analyze the warm and fuzzy feels I’m getting. Yet another aspect of Neil I would never have credited him with. I’m thinking I may not have been fair to him and I suddenly understand a little better why he might have gotten upset at my remark earlier. I’d been so focused on the fact he is younger, I stuck him into a box he doesn’t belong in. Never bothering—or daring—to look any further. What I’ve seen of him, especially this past year, in no way justifies the
irresponsible
label I somehow affixed him with. And after what he skimmed over on the drive here and the way he handles his new little buddy, I have a newfound respect for the man he is. Respect he deserved a long time ago and I’ve been too stubborn to grant him.
Fiddlesticks
. Now I feel guilty.

I sit there, staring at the floor, full of self-recrimination, when I see the toes of his boots step into my view. “Are you okay?” he asks, tucking some of my flyaway hair behind my ear as I look up. I obviously wasn’t paying much attention, too lost in my thoughts, because the room is empty except for the two of us.

“Where did everyone go?” I ask, feeling confused.

“We’re done. Brandon and his mom went home. He watched me get my stitches and was a trooper when it was time to have his hand stitched up. I thought you were sleeping. You’ve been quietly sitting here for over half an hour.”

“No. I mean, I wasn’t sleeping, I was thinking.” I push out of the chair to stand, but Neil isn’t budging. He just smiles down at me as my body brushes lightly against his. “Guess I lost track of time.”

“Guess you did.” Neil swings his good arm around my shoulders and walks me out. Unthinking, I slip my arm around his waist. It seems like the natural thing to do.

Walking up to his truck, he lets his arm fall away and I’m instantly hit with chills, despite the jean jacket I’m still wearing. I start walking around the front of the truck when a sound like shifting gravel has me look to the edge of the parking lot. Neil’s voice right behind me has me turn my eyes to him.

“Give me the keys and I’ll get her started up.” Neil holds up his hand.

“But you’re hurt. I’ll drive,” I protest.

“I’m good. I promise. I can shift the gears on this thing with two fingers and the local anaesthetic hasn’t worn off yet.”