The Wildest Heart

“Don’t do that!” I protested faintly, but he ignored me, as he began to mop at the blood that kept dripping steadily onto the floor.

“Jesus!” He swore again, making me wince as much from pain as from the sheer anger in his voice. “How did even you manage to do a fool thing like that? You’ve cut almost as deep as the bone across two fingers. Lucky you didn’t manage to slice ’em both off!” I found that it was easier to stay on my feet if I closed both eyes.

“You better sit down. Here… now just hold still…” I heard the scrape of wood across the floor and felt myself pushed unceremoniously into a sitting position.

“Put your head down between your knees,” and he gave the back of my neck a shove. “Hold your hands—both hands—in front of you. Try holding your left wrist with your other hand if you can, an’ for God’s sake try not to fall out of the chair! I’ll be right back. Where in hell is that darned Luz? And Ramon?”

“They—went out to take lunch to the rest of you—and you had no right to come back to the house so early! You never do!”

“Ah, Christ! Tryin’ to argue with me already, an’ you half-dead from losin’ all that blood! I swear I never saw a more clumsy, stupid, stubborn female than you!”

“Oh!”

I tried to raise my head, but he pushed it down again… I gritted my teeth against the pain, and could not repress a shameful whimper when I felt him dab roughly at my wounded fingers again with a dripping wet cloth.

“You’re bleedin’ like a—” he bit the words off, swearing again, and then, in a harsh voice, “Only one thing to do, to stop that bleeding, and it’s goin’ to hurt like hell for a little while, so if you know how to faint, better do it now!”

“I never faint!”

But my voice sounded curiously weak and unsteady, even in my own ears.

“Well, grit your teeth then.”

Before I was aware of what was happening he had picked me up—and dumped me on the floor.

“What…” I tried to sit up, my eyes opening to stare at him, and he was standing over me, with the knife in his hand, its tip glowing red-hot.

“Shut up and be still, or it’ll be worse when I gotta do it over again.”

And then, before I had quite realized what he intended, he had grabbed my wrist, and I cried out as he drew the knife blade across my shrinking, agonized flesh.

He did it too quickly for me to have time to draw back, and the next moment he was wrapping the wet cloth around my fingers, working swiftly and efficiently.

I don’t remember if I did faint then or not.

He had picked me up again and was carrying me somewhere… and I do remember that I tried to struggle and whispered angrily that I refused, I refused to let him be the one…

“What in hell are you muttering about, anyhow? And stop wiggling or I’ll drop you, an’ a broken neck won’t be as easy to fix up as two cut fingers!”

“I don’t see why you should be the one to be angry! And you didn’t save my life. People don’t die of a bleeding cut…”

“If that isn’t just like a damned female! Listen, if I’d have thought stoppin’ the bleedin’ was saving your life, I’d have let you go on bleeding! Think I’d want to be saddled with a wife like you?”

“Of course not! It’s Elena you want as your wife, isn’t it?”

Before the words were out I regretted having said them. I felt the tightening of his arms and the sudden rigidity of his muscles against my cheek—and what was I doing, leaning my head against his shoulder so trustfully?

“Damned if I shouldn

’t throw you all the way down them stairs I just carried you up for that, you vicious-tongued little bitch!”

I opened my eyes and his were bleak and dangerous. His nostrils flared ever so slightly when he was angry, and at that moment I thought he might carry out his threat or strangle me. I don’t know what else he might have said, or I might have said, but we were already upstairs, passing Elena’s room, and at that moment, when he had stopped still and was glaring down at me, the door opened.

“Lucas? I thought I heard your voice.”

And suddenly I felt that I could not bear to see her face, nor his either, with that naked, curiously revealing look that always came to it when he looked at her. So I closed my eyes and bit my lip and pretended to go limp, although I’m sure I did not deceive him.

“She cut her fingers pretty badly. There was no one there, and I had to cauterize the cuts.”