It Was Only a Kiss

She had to fix this...she had to.

Jess yelled as her foot brushed over a rock in the road and she went sprawling. Putting her hands in front of her, she cried out as her palms skidded along the stones and time slowed down. She hit the deck and her knees connected with the hard ground. Then her right shin caught the sharp edge of a rock and she felt her skin split open and the warmth of blood on her leg.

It was probably no less than she deserved, Jess thought as she rolled onto her back, grabbed her burning leg and sobbed liked a child.

* * *

Where was she? Luke looked at his watch again. It was past six, fully dark, raining, and Jess still wasn’t home. He’d come back from the lands as she was leaving for a run and he’d watched her swift pace down the road. Still annoyed, he’d headed for his study and immediately immersed himself in work. When he’d surfaced, two hours later, he’d realised that the manor house was solidly dark—which meant that Jess still wasn’t home.

Luke’s stomach clenched as he yanked on his jacket. Which way had she gone? Where did he start looking? Grabbing a torch from a drawer and his car keys, Luke headed towards the kitchen door and jerked it open. As he stepped out he saw the shapes of his dogs running towards him, followed by a slow-moving Jess.

Pummelled by relief, he stood under the awning over the door and leaned into the doorframe. The rain was cold and hard and Jess looked like a bedraggled rat.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ he shouted over the whistling wind.

‘Got lost. Fell down,’ Jess replied, her words almost taken by the wind.

She was soaked through, Luke thought. Her sweatshirt and running shorts were dripping and her hair was pushed back from her face. As she came into the light he noticed that she had a smudge on her chin and that her shin was dark... Was that blood?

Luke, unconcerned that the rain was now belting down, walked over to her and crouched down in front of her. He winced as he noticed the rip in her shin, from which blood was rolling down her leg and soaking her socks and trainers. He cursed and knelt in front of her, lifted her leg. ‘Sweetheart, what the hell have you done to yourself?’

He could feel the fine tremors rippling through her leg and heard the quiet chatter of her teeth. He didn’t need to look at her to know that her face was white and her lips purple.

‘I tripped and fell over a rock.’

Luke cursed again as he scooped her up and headed for his house. He carried her easily and headed straight for the stairs. Thank God his floors were wood, he thought, glancing at the wound on her shin which was still pumping blood and dripping off the end of her now red trainer. Until he cleaned it up he wouldn’t know if it needed stitches or not. He hoped not. The storm sounded as if it was building up for another, even bigger session, and he’d hate to have to haul Jess to the doctor in this weather. With luck, he had a couple of butterfly bandages that might do the trick.

Walking through his bedroom, he avoided the cream rug and walked her into the bathroom, placed her on the seat of the toilet.

She lifted her hands and gestured to her body. ‘I’m so cold,’ she whispered.

Luke smoothed her hair back from her face and dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘I’ll get you something warm. Sit tight.’

Aware of the powerful storm raging outside, Luke flipped on the bathroom heater as he left the room. He pulled a thin cashmere jersey from a shelf in the cupboard and, tossing it onto the built-in dresser, reached for the first-aid box he kept at the top of the cupboard. The one in his car was better, but he wasn’t risking the storm to get it.

Returning to the bathroom, he stripped off her wet clothes and dried her off. The pale green jersey did amazing things to her eyes, he thought as he tugged the garment over her soaked head, lifting her hair from under the jersey’s rounded neck. Grabbing a gym towel from the basket, he wrapped her head in it and tossed the ends over the top of her head. Jess immediately pushed the jersey between her legs and tucked it under her thighs, shaping it over her legs until it hit mid-thigh and restored her dignity.

‘Luke, I need to say something...’

Luke saw the misery in her eyes and knew that she was beating herself up for their earlier argument. God knew, he was. He’d totally lost it and he owed her an apology—but now wasn’t the right time. He started to touch her chin and realised that the smudge of dirt on her chin was another graze. His heart lurched again.

‘Let’s park that conversation for later, sweetheart. Right now I need to patch you up.’

Jess pushed her wet hair off her forehead. ‘I can do it. You don’t need to...’