The Bride and the Bargain. Allison Leigh

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СКАЧАТЬ tightened, as much from noticing that band of skin below the white shirt as from her husky sarcasm. “I tried to warn you,” he reminded.

      She tossed back her head, giving him a severe look that not even the half-light could dim. “If you’d given me more than a microsecond, it might have helped.” She drew her knees up farther beneath her, which only caused that shapely derriere to round even more.

      He grimaced again, well aware that she was right. “Let me help you up.” He closed his hand around her arm and felt her instantaneous recoil. He let go, backing up a step. “Relax. Just trying to help.”

      “Well…don’t. I can do it myself.” She ducked her chin, and her hair slid over her shoulder. Muttering under her breath, she finally pushed herself to her feet and faced him, only to sway unsteadily.

      His hands shot out and caught her shoulders. “Easy there.”

      She hitched her shoulder, clearly wanting him to let go again.

      Which he did.

      She leaned over, plucking at the knees of her sweatpants and he realized they were both torn right through.

      “You’re hurt.”

      She gave him a quick “you think?” look that made him grimace all over again. This time at himself.

      A preoccupied bastard is what he was.

      Just like Harry.

      He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Are you parked in the lot?”

      “No.”

      Which could mean anything, he knew, but most likely that she lived within close proximity. “Can you make it to the bottom of the hill?” His cell phone was in his car. It would be a simple matter to call for assistance whether or not she could make it there under her own steam. He’d get her bandaged up, make sure there were no lasting effects that would come back to bite him or HuntCom in the butt, and on their way they’d go.

      She nodded and started to move past him, only to gasp again, hitching forward to grab her left knee.

      He caught her around the shoulders. “Don’t put any weight on it.” She’d stiffened again, but this time he ignored it. “If you want to sit, I’ll go down and call for help.”

      “No.”

      “Then you can let me help you walk down. Your choice.” He realized her hands were scraped, as well, when she pressed them gingerly against her thighs, leaving behind a smear of blood. “Something tells me you’re not going to let me just carry you down.”

      Her head ducked again. “That won’t be necessary,” she assured stiffly.

      He eyed the top of her head. The brightening sunlight picked out glints of gold among the soft brown strands. She was a bitty thing next to him, even with the shapely curves that pushed against her running clothes. And he was not bitty at all. “I am sorry,” he said quietly.

      She hesitated, then looked up at him. He couldn’t quite tell the color of her eyes. Just that they were dark and rimmed with long, curling lashes.

      She pressed her lips together for a moment. “I am, too,” she finally said. “I, um, I stopped to tie my shoe.” She wiggled her left foot, drawing his attention.

      The lacing of her shoe—definitely not custom-made as his own were—lay untied and bedraggled against the dirt path.

      “Hold on.” He cautiously let go of her shoulders and, once certain that she wasn’t going to tip over, crouched down at her feet.

      She made a soft sound and he glanced up as he tied the shoelace. “Something wrong?”

      She shook her head slightly. “No. It’s just…I…it’s been a long time since I’ve had my shoelaces tied for me.”

      His head was on a level with her thighs. He made himself keep his eyes on her scraped knees and lower. To his chagrin it was harder than he’d have thought.

      He tugged the bow tight, then double looped it. “Next time, use a double knot,” he suggested wryly.

      He rose and caught the twitch at the corner of her lips. But the second she took a step, the barely there smile was replaced by a definite wince of pain.

      “We need to get you to the hospital.”

      Her eyes widened. “No. Really, that’s not necessary.”

      “You might have a sprain. A fracture.”

      She shook her head emphatically. “Just bumps, I promise.”

      “Bumps and gravel and blood,” he pointed out. “At the very least I need to make sure you get cleaned up, and clearly, you can’t walk on that ankle.”

      She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. “I don’t need medical care.”

      And sad to say, he didn’t need a nuisance suit for personal injury, either. Not to say that she’d instigate anything of the kind, but he hadn’t gotten to where he was without learning a thing or two about human nature.

      People were greedy beings. And though Gray knew he wasn’t any particular exception to that trait, he also knew painfully well that the Hunt family and HuntCom made a particularly enticing target even to people who would ordinarily never think such things.

      That was reality.

      But so was the sight of her bleeding knees that made him wince inside. She was hurt and he was responsible. She hadn’t untied her fraying shoelace on purpose, after all.

      “I insist,” he told her.

      Her eyebrows rose, nearly disappearing into the tendrils of hair clinging to her sweaty forehead. “Is that so?” She seemed about to say more, only to press her lips together again.

      “We can work it out when we get you off this path,” he suggested. He’d simply call Loretta. She’d arrange everything with her usual minimum of fuss. Gray could be assured that this girl wouldn’t suffer any ill effects from their collision and he could get back to the matters at hand.

      “You mean you think you’ll get your way,” the girl murmured. “Once we’re off the trail.”

      He almost smiled. Fact was, Gray nearly always got his way, as she put it. “Do you have something against doctors?”

      “Only their bills,” she assured, looking a little too solemn for her wry tone. She lifted her shoulder. “I’m in the insurance void and, well, to be honest, I can’t afford yet another bill.”

      “Void?”

      “I, um, just started a new job here. My health insurance won’t kick in for another few weeks.”

      All new employees of HuntCom had to wait out their probationary period of ninety days before receiving insurance benefits. Simple business practice, he knew, yet this was the first time he’d ever personally encountered someone in the “void” as she called it. “Where СКАЧАТЬ