“We’ll see what the doctor suggests,” Gavin conceded.
“Let me take a look at your arm.” Silas motioned to Gavin after using hand sanitizer to clean his hands.
Supporting Ginny with his arm around her waist, he lifted his elbow so Silas could treat his injury.
“Will Moses call once the loose dogs are all found?” Ginny asked. The thought of someone caught unaware coming into contact with the dogs terrified her.
“I’m sure he will. But I’ll call and get an update while you’re talking to the doctor,” Silas assured her.
“Your bite is worse than Ginny’s. You might be the one going to the hospital.” Silas finished cleaning the wound, then wrapped his like he had hers. “You two stay here while I go to the house to get the truck. I’ll be right back.” Silas closed the first-aid kit, preparing to leave.
A flash of lightning crossed the sky.
“The storm looks like it’ll hit any minute. We should walk back with you.”
Silas shook his head. “It’s still a ways off. We have time. Ginny’s hurting too badly to walk.”
Ginny sent her brother a dirty look. Just when Gavin was calm, he’d lit another fire in him.
“You can wait in the outbuilding if the lightning gets worse.”
Gavin’s gaze followed Silas until he was out of earshot, then Ginny found herself under his hawk-like scrutiny.
“What’s hurting you?”
“My back.”
“Then you’re definitely going to the hospital when Silas comes back.”
“I’m only sore from where I hit the tree,” Ginny protested. “I didn’t hit it with enough force to break anything. I’m not having any trouble breathing.”
“Turn around and let me see,” he ordered.
“I’ll show the doctor.” Ginny grimaced at how prudish she sounded.
“We’re going to the hospital to get X-rays.”
“Fine, you can look.” Ginny turned and used her good hand to lift the back of her jacket up. Gavin reached out to help her when it started slipping back down.
When Gavin remained silent, she turned her head to look over her shoulder. “How does it look?”
Gavin’s face was shuttered closed; she had no clue what he was thinking.
“Gavin?” Ginny began to get worried. Was she hurt worse than she thought?
“It doesn’t look too bad. Your jacket took the worst. A couple of places are skinned. You need them clean and some antibiotic cream rubbed in.”
Ginny nodded in relief. “Silas can help me after I shower.”
Feeling the shirt and jacket slide back down, she turned back to face Gavin. “Good thing I wore my jack—” Ginny broke off at seeing Gavin’s expression. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m going to be sick.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Knotting her bathrobe around her waist, Ginny left the second-story bathroom, planning on getting dressed in her bedroom, then getting Silas to rub the antibiotic ointment over her scratches. Making sure her dressing was still dry, it took a few seconds to realize her room wasn’t empty.
With her uninjured hand, she firmly knotted her belt. “Did you need something?”
Sitting on the end of her bed, facing the door, Gavin raised the antibiotic ointment in his hand.
Understanding his intent, Ginny went to her chest of drawers to take out her pajamas. “Silas will help me when he comes inside from the porch.”
Her brother had gone outside to watch the storm while she had taken her shower.
“I can.”
Ginny turned from the drawers. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I can.”
Ginny saw the concerted effort he was making, and her heart went out to him. “I don’t think you can, and it’s okay.” Ginny sat down on Leah’s bed. “My feelings aren’t hurt.”
“Yes, they are.”
Ginny looked down at the nightclothes in her lap. “Maybe a little,” she admitted.
“I can rub some fucking ointment on you,” he stubbornly persisted.
“Silas will do it for me.”
Gavin stood up.
Thinking he was leaving, she started to get changed, when he closed the door and came back to sit down. Surprised, she watched him fiddle with the flip-top cap of the ointment.
“There are things that happened to me when I was kidnapped that I’ve never discussed with anyone.”
“I can imagine it would be very hard.” Ginny measured her words carefully, terrified of saying the wrong thing.
He gave a bitter laugh. “Your worst nightmare can’t begin to describe what I went through.”
Ginny forced herself to keep her face expressionless, afraid any hint of pity would shut him down. “You haven’t been able to talk to Viper?”
“No. He’s the last person I would talk to.”
“Why?”
“Why put those nightmares in his head?”
“Because he loves you,” she said simply. “Viper is strong enough to share your pain.”
“He’s not strong enough to stomach what I went through.”
“I see.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“You can’t touch women anymore, can you?”
Gavin straightened his shoulders to stare her directly in her eyes. “Not only women—anyone.”
“If Taylor and you reunited, would you have been able to touch her?” Her heart stopped beating when she asked her question.
“I told myself I could.”
“You’re not sure now?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because, when I touched your back, I wanted you.”
Her heart started beating again, then puttered to a stall when he continued.
“That’s when I thought I was going to throw up.”
She deserved an Academy Award for not showing how much his words affected her.
“Do you think you’d feel sick to your stomach if you touched her?”
“Yes … Maybe … I don’t know.”
There was nothing more painful than Gavin saying he could bear touching Taylor while she made him sick to his stomach.
“There’s no one you feel capable of expressing your feelings to? A friend? Someone in the club who you’re comfortable with. Dr. Price seems really nice.”
“Would talking to someone about that burn mark on your hand make you feel better?”
The excruciating pain from when she had grabbed that meat thermometer still lay in the recesses of her mind. She didn’t own one, never would again, and was willing to bet she wouldn’t find one in Silas’s kitchen.
“I would if they had been burned too.”
“It’s not so easy to talk about the shit that happened to me.”
“Have you ever been a confiding person? Even before your kidnapping?”
“What do you mean?” Gavin stopped flicking the cap.
“I mean, even when you were growing up, before you went in the military, when something bothered you. Were you able to talk to Viper, your parents, or a friend if something was going on in your life that was bothering you?”