of her chin, he tilted her head up and leaned in closer. “No, it looks pretty shallow.”
“That’s good. I’d hate to end up in urgent care on my first night in town. Wait—” Her gaze darted to his face. “There is an urgent care in town, right?”
It was hard to see him clearly when he was this close to her—and he was really close, his face only inches from hers—but she was almost certain he rolled his eyes. “We’ve actually got two urgent care centers in addition to a hospital with an emergency room.”
She blew out a breath between her teeth. “That’s a relief.”
“Where’d you move here from?” he asked as he continued to clean the blood off her forehead. “I’m guessing not a small town.”
Mia smiled wryly. “How could you tell?”
He shrugged as he exchanged the alcohol wipe for a tube of antibiotic ointment. “You give off a pretty strong city girl vibe.”
“I’ve been in Los Angeles for the last eight years, but I grew up in Brooklyn.”
“Crowder must be a big change for you.” His teeth bit into his lower lip as he applied medicine to her cut. For someone with rough farmer’s hands, he had an incredibly gentle touch.
“You could say that,” she murmured as the earthy scent of his warm skin enveloped her. The nearness of him was overwhelming as he leaned over her, cradling her face in one of his large hands.
“Why’d you take a job at Bowman?”
“Because they offered it to me. Beggars can’t be choosers.” She winced. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound bitter. I’m sure it’s a very nice school and a very nice town.”
Josh let go of her and turned back to the first aid kit. “No need to apologize. Times are tough. I get it.”
“It’s definitely a challenging time to be entering the academic job market as a new PhD.”
“So you wound up here.” He ripped open a bandage as he faced her again.
“For the next year, anyway.” She stared at his collarbone as he moved toward her. A hint of dark chest hair peeked out of his T-shirt beneath the strong, stubbly column of his throat.
“Lucky us.”
Mia swallowed, trying to hold still as he applied the bandage to her forehead, but she was oddly lightheaded and her heart was thudding so hard it made her feel wobbly. She wondered if she could have given herself a concussion and that was why she felt so weird.
Or maybe it was simply her proximity to an attractive cheesemaker causing abrupt changes to the blood flow in certain parts of her body.
Josh gave the bandage a final tap and drew back to survey his work. Now that he wasn’t so close, it was easier for her to see his eyes, which were the color of warm milk chocolate. His lips parted, drawing her attention to the way they formed a perfect Cupid’s bow that practically demanded to be licked. Honestly, lips like that should be illegal on a man.
Mia realized that she was staring at his lips and he was watching her do it. Her gaze sprang back to his eyes, which were no less mesmerizing than that gorgeous mouth of his, especially when those eyes were looking right into hers.
For a moment neither of them moved. It might only have been a second, but it felt like an eternity. Like nothing else existed in the world but Josh’s eyes gazing into hers.
The back door banged open, causing them both to startle, and Birdie came in with her mason jar held aloft in triumph. “I got her!”
Josh turned toward his aunt, and Mia could swear he looked rattled before he fixed a pleasant expression in place. But maybe it was just her imagination working overtime.
Birdie marched up to them and held the mason jar in front of Mia’s face. “Ta da! Isn’t she a beauty?”
Beauty was not the word Mia would have chosen to describe the creature inside the jar. Words like odious, vile, and loathsome leaped to mind as she came eyeball to eyeball with her uninvited arachnid roommate once more.
It was every bit as large as Mia remembered, at least three inches in diameter to the spiny tips of its yellow-and-black striped legs, its hideous spotted body nearly the size of a quarter. Truly, it was a horrifying specimen.
Josh took the mason jar from his aunt, graciously moving it out of Mia’s face as he held it up to the light for a better look. “That’s a banana spider all right.