Breaking Her No-Dating Rule. Amalie Berlin

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      Chelsea suffered the whole situation with more dignity than Ellory could’ve mustered, and directed the conversation back to what she really wanted to talk about. “If I got frostbite in the mine and I wasn’t in the snow, Jude’s going to have it for sure, isn’t he?”

      “Nothing is ever certain.” Ellory said it too quickly. It sounded like a platitude. She shook her head and tried again with better words. “You can’t compare your situation to his for a couple of reasons: women don’t hold heat as well as men do, and your boots are different. Even if they are the same brand, the fit will be different. If his have more room inside than yours they’ll hold heat better. If he’s taken shelter in a smaller space than you did, like Anson … Dr. Anson … was saying, he could just be warmer …”

      Anson pulled out the footrests on the wheelchair and carefully positioned Chelsea’s feet on the metal tray. “Find a pillow for her.”

      Ellory knew he was speaking to her, even though he didn’t look at her. She hurried to the main desk and the office behind, where she knew she’d find some. When she presented him with two slender pillows from the office, he put one under Chelsea’s feet and rose. “Would you like the other pillow to sit on?”

      “Yes.” She made as if to rise and Anson put his hands out to stop her. “No walking. No standing. When you need to go to the bathroom, someone’s going to have to go with you. Right now, I’ve got you. Luckily, you weigh about as much as a can of beans …” He caught her under the arms and lifted. Ellory slid the pillow beneath and then stood back as he returned Chelsea to her seat, lifting a brow pointedly at him when she saw his shoulder catch again and a wave she could actually name cross his handsome features: pain. His shoulder definitely hurt.

      She really had to stop thinking about how hot he was. It wasn’t helping at all. It wasn’t breaking her resolution to think that the untouchable doctor rescue guy was hot, but it might lead her to other thoughts. It also wasn’t her fault that his eyes looked like moss growing on the north side of a tree … deep, earthy green blending to brown. Was that hazel or still green if she looked …?

      He was staring at her. It took a couple of nervous heartbeats for her to realize that it wasn’t because he was a mind-reader.

      Oh, yeah, she’d made the Ahh, your shoulder does hurt face at him. Because it did. He’d made the pain face, she’d made the ahh face, and now he was making the scowl face.

      He didn’t know she was sexually harassing him in her mind.

      While she was trying to decide what she was supposed to be thinking, the man pivoted and walked straight through the archway leading to the rest of the resort.

      Where was he going?

      Crap.

      She should have gone after the medicine by now.

      He was going to disturb Mira, maybe make her leave the love nest and come down here.

      “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Chelsea,” she babbled, and rushed after him in a flurry of flowing skirts and jingling bracelets, but she was too late to see which direction he’d headed. The elevators all sat on the bottom floor, where she was.

      The man was a ninja. A cranky, frosty ninja.

      Ducking into the stairwell, Ellory tilted her head to listen, hoping he wasn’t outside earshot. The plush carpeting that blanketed the hallways and stairs made it hard to tell which way he’d gone. “Anson?” Tentative call unanswered, she stepped back into the hallway.

      Okay, so he didn’t go upstairs by any means, he wasn’t heading for Mira and Jack’s suite.

      Mira’s office? He did want antibiotics for Chelsea. She turned to the right, the shorter hallway, gathered her skirts to her knees so they’d stop the damned swirling, and ran. No yelling. Yelling disturbed people. And every single person in the lodge, except for maybe the two upstairs sheltered from all this information overload in their love nest, were disturbed enough with the current situation.

      One turn and then another, she reached the final hallway just in time to see Anson reach the end and turn toward the wall outside the clinic.

      Before she could call out to him, he reared back and slammed his fist through the drywall.

      The loud slam and cracking sound stunned her into staring for a couple of seconds. Long enough for the pain to reach his brain and make him pull his hand out of the hole while the other gripped his poor shoulder. If it hadn’t hurt before he’d done that …

      “You broke the wall,” she muttered as she trotted forward, no longer running. She was not at all sure how to respond to this masculine and aggressive display. She didn’t know anyone who hit walls when they were upset. Generally, she kept company with people who avoided violence. “I have the keys to Mira’s office, we can get whatever you need for Chelsea. I’ve been keeping an inventory of supplies.”

      He finally turned to look at her and she saw it again—he wasn’t just upset. She saw desolate, blind torture in his hollow eyes. It robbed her of any ability to speak.

      Whatever she’d thought earlier about his motivation behind taking this kind of work, she was now certain: It had nothing to do with being an adrenaline junkie or any kind of fixation on the dream of being the big hero. This mattered to him. This hurt him.

      She did the only thing she could, reached out and touched him. Tried to ground him here with her.

      Contact of her palm with his stubble-roughened cheek sharpened his gaze, bringing him back from wherever he’d gone.

      “Don’t worry about the wall. We’ll fix it. Everything will be okay.” She whispered words meant to soothe him.

      It took him a few seconds, but his brows relaxed and he nodded, looking down at the bloody knuckles on his hand and then at the wall. “That was pretty stupid. She’s going to give me hell, isn’t she?” He mustered a smile while simultaneously pulling his head back from her hand.

      He didn’t want her touching him … Okay. It’s not like they really knew one another, and some people just didn’t like to be touched.

      It wasn’t about her. It wasn’t judgment on her.

      Ellory pulled her thoughts away from the vulnerable nerve he’d accidentally struck and played along, faking a grin with her tease. “You have no idea. She’s going to make you cry like a baby.”

      His smile was equally slight, but it was a start. And it reminded her of where she should make him focus. Sobering, she reached for his hand but didn’t touch him, a request, open palms. “Can I see it?”

      Okay, that might’ve been a test.

      She’d been rejected more times in her life than any person ought to be—it wasn’t anything new to her—but the second she’d found out that he was a doctor he’d become her partner in dealing with this and keeping Mira out of it. She needed him to actually connect with her and be her partner in it. And a good person didn’t abandon her partner when he was hurting.

      When he placed his large, bloody-knuckled hand in hers, her relief was so keen she had to fight the urge to squeeze and wind her fingers in his. He didn’t shun her. Recoiling was about something else. He didn’t find her lacking.

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