… how had that happened?
One moment she had been walking and then she was prone on the ground. It wasn’t until a beat later that her knee began to throb, and she put two and two together.
Drat. And she’d been doing so good.
Groaning, Nova pushed herself up. Her butt and back were soaked, but that hardly registered over the intense pain radiating from her leg. A few curses bubbled up before she finally managed to get herself into a sitting position, looking down at her now-muddy knee.
“You did that on purpose,” she accused, narrowing her gaze.
The knee did not answer back, although she supposed it would have been much more alarming if it had. Gripping it on either side, she jerked it quickly back into place the same as usual.
… or at least she tried to, but with the wet and the mud, her hands slipped, leaving her yelping out in surprise and pain with a still-busted knee.
Ow.
“Come on. Work with me.”
She gripped it again, but it was angry with her for messing it up once. Securing the placement of her hands, she tried the same twist and shove.
OW!
Nope, that hadn’t worked. That hadn’t worked at all.
The comparative cool that Nova was usually able to keep whenever her body did something annoying quickly began to evaporate. She could try getting up, but she knew from experience that it was both excruciating and very difficult to do with a bum knee. Especially since she was in a grassy area between barns. There wasn’t really anything for her to grip or grab to help her up.
She was stuck. Just great. She was going to need help. She hoped Elizabeth wouldn’t hold it against her. After all, Nova had promised that she could handle herself.
Reaching into her pocket for her janky phone, she pulled it out to see not only was it cracked, but it was soaked, and mud had seeped through her pants while she was trying to get her knee into place.
…well, that was certainly not a good development.
There was that panic again, burning bright and making her nauseous. Nova swallowed it down, telling herself that she could do all of that later. At the moment, she needed to concentrate on problem-solving.
But she didn’t even have that much time to order her thoughts because a shadow loomed over her, which was particularly impressive considering just how gray it was. Tilting her head back, she saw, of course, it was none other than Sal.
What was with her luck?
“Here,” he said, offering one of his truly massive hands. “Let me help you up.”
“I’m fine,” she answered tersely. She was not about to play the damsel in distress. Gripping her knee again, she hastily jerked it, only for her hand to slip and her nail to score a smarting line down the side of her other palm.
“Blimey!” she snapped, her temper flaring. She had truly jinxed herself by being too happy for too many consecutive minutes. Exasperated, she heaved her weight to the side to see if she could sort of roll onto her front then push herself up onto one leg. What she would do once she was on one leg, she didn’t know, but it would at least be progress.
Except she never quite got to one leg, because the next thing she knew, she was being picked up and thrown over one truly muscled shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Nova asked, hissing as her knee bounced against his torso. A human’s front shouldn’t be as hard as a rock!
At hearing her sound of pain, the giant of a man changed his grip, supporting her thigh and calf so that her leg didn’t jiggle. “I would have thought that much was obvious.”
“You’re hilarious. Put me down!”
“I will. Just not in the middle of a muddy path where you’ll be stranded. Now stop wiggling; I don’t want you messing up your leg even more.”
Her cheeks burned, her stomach twisted, and she was all too acutely aware of the musculature pressed up against her body. Her protests faded, though, and eventually they passed through a doorway.
Out of the rain, she took a moment to shake her head, water flicking everywhere from her choppy pixie cut. Of course, that movement had her looking down, and she couldn’t help but notice that Sal’s backside was just as impressive as his front side.
Huh, God really was unfair sometimes.
He let out a small grunt, interrupting her accidental ogling, and then she was being set down on something relatively high up. Enough for her feet to dangle off the floor, which was something considering that she was at least sixty percent legs. Looking around, she realized they were in the mechanic’s garage, a place she’d only gone to once before when Teddy needed to borrow her for a quick errand.
Licking her lips, her gaze finally returned to her unexpected hero. Her position on the tool table had them seeing eye to eye, something she wasn’t quite used to. He was giving her quite the intense stare, one that made her equally want to stick out her tongue at him or run away and hide.
“Uh, thanks?” she said, feeling uncertain. She was covered in mud and soaked and surely looked a right mess while he could have subbed in for some sort of movie star in a romantic scene where he’d just been caught in the perfect drizzle.
“What do you need to fix yourself?”
“What? Oh… a towel would be a good start. And an ice pack. I think bringing down the swelling will help me get it back in place.” Also, it would take an edge of the pain off. Because with each passing minute, Nova was more and more aware of just how much her leg was throbbing.
“Okay.” He gave her a solid nod then turned to walk off, no doubt to get her the things that she had asked for. Sure, she was irritated at being manhandled and thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but she was pleased that he was listening to her directions without second-guessing her. He didn’t try to tell her what to do or lecture her on being careless. He asked what she needed, and it seemed like he was going to get it.
But still, what a strange dude.
10
Salvatore
Crack!
Sal watched as the woman popped her knee back into place, wincing at the rather dramatic noise. She, however, didn’t seem to think anything of it, pressing one of the ice packs he’d gotten her against her knee while grumbling something about the joint being extra angry.
“Is that why you have a limp?” he heard himself ask before thinking better of it. On second thought, probably not the best way to start the conversation. But he found himself at a loss. He’d gone to the horses hoping to find her, to see if he could decipher what had turned her mood so sour at their last meeting, only for her to basically accuse him of being a real jerk and dismissing him. If he hadn’t been so irritated with her actions, he wouldn’t have left his nice, filtered water bottle behind. And if he hadn’t left that behind, then he wouldn’t have gone back to the barn to get it and stumbled across the injured woman literally stuck in the mud.
Needless to say, it’d been a very interesting day.
And that wasn’t even taking into account everything that had happened after that. She’d brushed him off at first—somewhat predictably—and tried to do that horrible knee-twisting thing she did before. It didn’t work, something he guessed had to do with the mud and rain, but she kept on trying, but each time she let out truly awful sounds of pain and misery.