“No way.” He slapped a hand across his chest. “Almost no one tastes it. You’re in a very exclusive club.”
She sat up a little straighter. “I know.”
They traded a serious nod and went back to watching the game, but Wes’s mind was furiously trying to come up with a solution to the new problem that had been dropped into his lap.
Briefly, he thought of asking Bethany for help, but quickly discarded the idea. Their relationship was too new, too fragile to start heaping more onto their plate. If acknowledging that made the earth uneven between his feet, he’d just have to deal.
Wes settled the hard hat on Laura’s head and hunkered down in front of her. He was going against his wiser judgment bringing his niece to the Project Doomsday site, but she’d been begging to come see where he and Bethany worked every day. She’d had a half day at school and the camera crew was filming at Stephen’s flip today, so he’d left at lunchtime to bring her over for a quick visit before he dropped her off with the babysitter.
“Now remember, don’t touch anything. Everything is dangerous.”
Laura bounced around on the balls of her feet. “Is Bethany in there?”
“Yes.”
A smile spread across her face. Yeah, he could relate.
He smiled every time he thought of Bethany, too. Unfortunately, it was now Friday, and most of the time they’d spent together since Monday night was inside this very house—working, not kissing. Even with the addition of a half dozen interns provided by the network, they were going to come in under the two-and-a-half-week deadline by the skin of their teeth. Bethany’s nights had been spent pulling favors with décor companies to get furnishings shipped on time, and his nights had been spent researching guardianship.
Her smiles were all he was privy to lately—and he wasn’t complaining about it.
Matter of fact, when he guided Laura through the front door, Bethany turned from her position at the top of a stepping stool and one of those very smiles bloomed across her face. God, he loved her like this, covered in drywall and paint speckles, hair in what he’d started referring to as her Sunday Bun. He was counting the days until this flip was over so he could steal more than the odd kiss between sanding and drilling.
“Hey, Laura!” Bethany called, climbing down off the stepping stool. “You look so official in your hard hat.”
Laura beamed, showing off her missing bottom tooth. “Why aren’t you wearing one?”
“My head is hard enough. Ask your uncle.”
“I plead the Fifth.”
Bethany stuck her tongue out at him and if his niece wasn’t there, she would have been in trouble. The good kind. She seemed to know it, too. How long had they been staring at each other like there wasn’t an unholy racket going on around them?
Bethany shook herself. “So how are Megan and Danielle? I bet you’ve been planning your next tea party.”
“Yup.” The little girl leapt in place, landing in a cloud of sawdust. “All the girls in my class are coming to the next one!”
“They are?” Wes and Bethany choked out at the same time.
Laura nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh. I told them they can ride in the back of Uncle Wes’s truck and they’re going to ask their moms.” His niece shuffled in a circle and stooped down unexpectedly. “What’s this?”
Wes sidestepped to determine what she was asking about—and it was already too late. She’d closed her grubby kid hand around a small chunk of plywood with a wayward staple sticking out of the end. Laura yanked her hand back and let out a howl that almost struck Wes dead on the spot. “Ow!”
“Why’d you touch that?” He took her wrist and turned it over, his windpipe closing at the sight of blood welling on her pointer finger. “Oh my God. Oh my God, she’s bleeding.”
“What?” Bethany screeched and bumped back into her stepping stool, sending it skittering back on the unfinished floor. “Oh my God. What do we do?”
“I don’t know.” Was that his hysterical voice? “She’s never bled before.” His vision winked brightly at the edges. “It’s dripping now. It’s dripping!”
Laura wailed, tears literally squirting from her eyes. Was that normal? Or was that a sign that she was going into shock. Was he going into shock?
“Okay. Okay.” Bethany slid in front of Laura on her knees and ripped off the hem of her own T-shirt, wrapping it around the cut so many times it looked like Laura had a golf ball perched on her finger. “I . . . maybe . . . I think we just treat her like we’d treat an adult with a cut?”
“I don’t know. They must have separate medicine aisles for children and adults in the drugstore for a reason, right?”
Bethany chewed on her lip. “I don’t know how long that bandage will hold.”
“Jesus.” Wes picked up Laura in his arms and turned in every direction, no idea where to set her down. Were they the same blood type if she needed a transfusion? Could he give a transfusion if he was passed out cold? “What do we do?”
“This is my iPad finger,” Laura sobbed.
“Your truck. There’s a first-aid kit in your truck.”
“Okay, yes. Okay.” Wes carried Laura out the front door with Bethany right behind him. A moment later, he had Laura settled in the driver’s seat of the truck, Bethany having sprinted around to the passenger side to retrieve the kit. She tossed it to him across the console, neither one of them registering the fact that Laura was now making vroom-vroom noises and trying to steer the stationary truck.
Holding his breath, Wes slowly unwound the scrap of fabric from Laura’s finger and waited for the gore to show itself.
There was nothing.
He could barely make out the faint white line where the cut had been inflicted.
Slowly Wes lifted his gaze to Bethany, who was equally dumbstruck over the lack of bone protrusions and carnage. She let out a puff of laughter and slumped against the doorframe.
“You ripped your shirt,” he said dazedly, relief making him dizzy.
“It’s just a shirt.” She looked at Laura for several beats before giving Wes her attention again, and something important seemed to be occurring in those blue eyes. “It’s just a shirt.”
Something happened between them in that moment. Sure, her words weren’t intended to have a deep meaning, but as soon as she uttered them, the final line tying him to the past frayed a little more. What came before would always be a part of Wes, but these people and their well-being was what mattered. Having them close so he could care for them when they were hurt. Why would he ever want to run away from that? From being needed by this woman and this child?
“Uncle Wes.” Laura evaded Wes when he tried to apply Neosporin to her cut. “Can we take this thing out for a spin?”
He gave up on the Neosporin and pulled his niece into a hug instead. When he gestured for Bethany to join them, she seemed at a loss, but eventually climbed into the car and wrapped her arms around the two of them. And it was new and scary and he couldn’t imagine himself being anywhere else in that moment.
Bethany dropped the freshly cut bouquet of roses into her favorite rose-gold Prouna vase and fluffed the stems. They fell into a less-than-perfect order and she was surprised to find herself okay with leaving them that way. Usually, she spent a good six to seven minutes organizing each flower just so in preparation for the Saturday night Just Us League meeting.