Chasing River (Burying Water 3)

A frown furrows her brow. “How do you know that?”

Because my brother—the muppet who set it—told me. Shit. “Because then I would have had nails in my back, wouldn’t I?”

“Right.” She shudders. “I keep thinking about what would have happened if you weren’t there. If I’d just been a few feet closer and that thing went off, I could have been—”

“But I was. And you weren’t.” I push her long hair back off of her face. “You can’t think about that.” I’ve thought about it plenty for her. She would have been dead. Or maimed. Her beautiful face riddled with plastic, one of these strong, smooth legs blown off. I’ve seen what my da’s leg looks like beneath his jeans, the skin discolored and dimpled, his flesh permanently mangled. It’s not pretty.

She nods, and then sets her jaw. “I need a sink to wash my hands. And fresh water.”

“Just out there and to the left.”

While she’s doing that, I dig out a new shirt—that bastard, Rowen—and clear a corner on the desk so I can sit.

“Okay.” She strolls back in with more confidence, pushing the door closed with her hip, her eyes skittering over my bare chest briefly before meeting my face. “I’m kind of drunk, so I can’t promise that I won’t hurt you.”

I tense at the first touch of her cool fingers against my skin, sparking goose bumps. Slowly, she peels back the gauze. “This is taped.” She pauses. “When did you tear these stitches?”

“A couple hours ago.”

“In another fight?”

“You could say that.”

She rifles through the medic kit quietly, and I can feel the disapproval radiating off her. Suddenly I feel like I need to defend myself. “I don’t go looking for fights, Amber. It just comes with . . . this life.” And not just the Dublin bar life. Life with Aengus. Life as a Delaney.

I hiss as she presses something cold against the wound.

“I need to stop the bleeding before I can clean and close it,” she explains quietly.

“Right. Okay.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t get these done at a hospital?”

Clever bird.

“And you really didn’t think you could have just explained what happened?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense to a girl like you.”

“You’d be surprised what makes sense to a girl like me,” she murmurs. “Who stitched it for you?”

When I don’t answer, her fingers slip around my side to give me a slight, almost hesitant, squeeze. A surge of blood starts flowing. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“A family friend. He’s a doctor,” I finally admit.

“I figured as much. They’re well done. You may want to go back to him and get this fixed, if you’re going to keep getting into fights before it fully heals.”

I shudder with the memories of the pain on that table. “The fighting’s done for now.” Sundays and weekdays are tame around here. And Aengus usually spaces his fuck-ups apart by a few days, so we won’t be bickering anytime soon. I glance over my shoulder at her. “I promise.”

Her eyes skate over my face, slowing on my mouth for a moment before dropping to my back again. “If I had a needle and thread, I could stitch it for you.”

“You know how to do that?”

She smiles. “I stay away from serious wounds, but this one’s not too bad. My mom taught me. She’s a surgeon.”

“That’s . . . impressive.” I stare at the wall ahead as Amber’s nimble fingers smooth a wet cloth around the cut, cleaning it. “Ma can darn socks and jeans. Not humans.” What a different childhood I’m sure we’ve both had. Back in the day, when we were little, Ma worked here. She had to, after Da’s injury. Rumor has it she was no stranger to getting into it with a customer if he misbehaved, giving him a good wallop before one of the men working here jumped in to “escort” the ornery patron out.

I’m guessing Amber gets her soft temper from her mother.

“Does she work?” she asks.

“No. Well, she does, if you count raising three of us and keeping my da fed and watered. Once in a while she’ll help out here. She’d beat me with a plank of wood if she heard me say she doesn’t work.”

She giggles. “Three boys? So, you have another brother?”

“Yeah. Aengus.” I can hear the lack of enthusiasm in my own voice.

“Does he work here too?”

“He doesn’t.”

I don’t know if she can sense my hesitation in talking about the guy who almost blew her up, but she switches topics, to my relief. “Do you all still live at home?”

“No. My brothers and I own a house, here in Dublin. I moved there when I was eighteen. I love my parents, but . . .” I shake my head, chuckling. “I needed some peace. You?”

“Still at home. It’s not too bad. We live in the mountains, near a small town. It’s nice, quiet. Just my family and the horses on a lot of land.” She tears apart packaging behind me. “Hold still. This butterfly bandage should keep it together nicely.”

I wince as she pulls the skin together again. “Have you been out of Dublin at all yet?”

“No. I was booked for a day tour to Wicklow Mountains, the day of the bomb. So . . . that obviously didn’t happen.”

I peer over my shoulder at her face again, because I can’t help myself. “You’re here for another week, only? That’s what your friend said?”

Her chest rises with a deep inhale, and her cheeks burn, her eyes flickering back and forth between my back and my face. She’s likely replaying the rest of Ivy’s words too. “Yeah.”

Silence fills the tiny office. I don’t have any interest in going back out to that loud, boisterous bar right now.

Another week.

Enough time for a torrid affair with a foreigner?

“What are you smiling about?” she asks, wariness in her gaze.

I clear my throat. “Nothing.”

“Fine.” She shoots me an exasperated look. “How about I clean these other ones.” She peels the bandages back so gently that I barely feel it. “You should probably give them some air.”

I watch her face, the lip she bites and then, as if realizing, releases. “How do they look?” I haven’t even seen the wounds yet, though I imagine they can’t be pretty. They’ve been itching, which is a good thing. Eamon warned me to keep an eye out for signs of infection. Maybe I should have been doing that.

Water trickles down my back as she cleans the areas. “They look like they must have hurt.” Cool air dances over my skin, her breathing shallow and quick.

“It’s nothing.”

“Shrapnel wounds aren’t nothing, River.” Tentative fingers drag over my forearm, as if testing my response to the affection. “You have those because of me,” she says so softly that I barely hear her, before fingers find their way up my arm to my jaw, to rub against the stubble on my cheek.

Dissolving whatever self-control I promised myself I’d have. I hook my finger around the belt loop of her shorts and tug her closer, until she’s in front of me. Her eyes dip down over my chest, slowing on the tattoo over the left side—a black-and-red phoenix. I got it when I was eighteen, the same day Aengus got his.