“I guess.” Bree folded her good arm across her injured one. “Are you offering to do it?”
“Yes.”
They stopped and stared at each other for a couple of breaths.
“Fine.” Bree started toward the door again. “But you’ll have to come upstairs. I don’t want the kids to see it.”
They went into the kitchen. Ladybug trotted over to greet them, the stump of her docked tail spinning in a crazy circle. Dana was bent over a cutting board, slicing prosciutto. The dog circled back to sit at her feet and drool. Matt sniffed the air like a hungry dog—the kitchen smelled like Dana had been baking. A square pan sat on a cooling rack in the center of the island. Bree’s black cat, Vader, judged her work from the counter across the room.
“You’re early.” Dana’s sharp gaze swept over Bree.
Bree rubbed the cat’s head. “I’m going to take a shower and change.”
“Do you need help with the bandage?” Dana glanced at Matt with worried eyes.
“No.” Bree adjusted her sling. “Matt will do it.”
“I’ve done it before,” he said.
Dana nodded. Vader leaped from the counter to the island. Raising his nose, he sniffed in the direction of the meat. Dana narrowed her eyes at him. “Back off, mister.”
Vader was not impressed. Matt scooped him off the counter and set him on the floor. The cat gave him an annoyed look. He jumped back to his original perch and began washing all the places on his body that Matt had touched.
“Where are the kids?” Bree asked.
Dana pointed her knife toward the window that overlooked the barn and pasture beyond. “Feeding the horses.”
“We’ll be down soon,” Bree said.
Matt followed her to the second floor. He stopped in the doorway to her bedroom, surprised. “This is different from the rest of the house.”
“I’ve kept my sister’s things everywhere else. I didn’t want to change the kids’ environment. They’ve had enough upheaval. This house should still feel like their home. This furniture came from my apartment in Philly. I needed one room that felt like my space.”
The design wasn’t exactly modern, just clean-lined and sleek compared to the farmhouse look in the rest of the house.
“Close the door. I don’t want the kids walking in.” She slipped off the sling and flicked open the top button of her uniform shirt.
Matt knew since the hospital that she wore a tank top under her uniform shirt, but seeing the buttons open one by one was still damned sexy, even under the current circumstances. He couldn’t help it. He was just a man.
“I’ll wash the wound in the shower.” She tossed her shirt into a nearby hamper. “But I’ll need help rebandaging it.”
“Need help removing the bandage?”
“Sure.” She flexed her nicely muscled arm as if it was stiff. Then she ducked into a closet, grabbed fresh clothes, and walked into the bathroom.
Matt followed. A totally different kind of hunger stirred. Focus. He washed his hands, carefully removed the old bandage, and examined the stitched wound. “It doesn’t look red. I don’t see any sign of infection, but I’m sure it hurts like hell.”
Bree craned her neck over her shoulder to see the back of the wound in the mirror. “That’s going to leave a mark.”
“This tattoo is amazing,” Matt touched the dragonfly on the back of her shoulder. Under the artwork, he could feel the raised flesh of the old scar. He turned her to face him. Her gaze was on his face, but he was studying her tattoo and scars. He traced a vine—and scar—that snaked over her shoulder. It passed dangerously close to her neck and continued for several inches. As the son of a doctor, his knowledge of anatomy was above average. His fingertip brushed her collarbone. Just below it, a flower was centered over a round, puckered dot, likely where a canine tooth had sunk into her flesh. So close to the artery that ran through the armpit and into the arm.
So close to killing her.
“You were lucky.” His voice was hoarse. “I know it probably didn’t seem like that at the time.”
“Oh, I know.” She frowned. “The ER doctor said if the bite had been a half inch to the side, I would have bled out in under a minute.”
“I’m sorry, and I’m sorry the doctor told you that. It must have been terrifying.”
Bree smiled. “He didn’t mean to. He was angry at my mother. Her story about the attack was inconsistent. He could tell she was lying. She