“We should clean it out now. I can handle this, Bella.”

Of that, she had no doubt.

“I don’t even remember the last time I shaved my legs.” She jerked away as he reached for her, then sucked in a painful gasp.

“I promise I won’t even notice your legs.” His mouth quirked. “I’m going to touch you now, okay?”

“Okay,” she murmured, because he sounded so sure of himself. This caregiver side of Sam was one she hadn’t seen before, although it made sense, given his line of work. He dealt with people in crisis every day.

And she refused to think about his comment that he wouldn’t notice her legs. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Sam had never noticed her as anything but his neighbor and platonic friend. Oh, he enjoyed her stories about the students at Magnolia Elementary. He appreciated it when she made extra dinner and left disposable containers on his porch.

But he dated women who were much different than Bella.

Beautiful women. Fun women. Women her mother would describe as having loose morals for the most part. Sam had made the dating rounds of Magnolia and beyond. Although his social life had slowed considerably in the past few months. Bella didn’t know why.

His hands were sure as he gently blotted at the scrapes along her thigh. “I don’t see much embedded gravel. Good thing they repaved the road last summer.”

“Yeah,” she managed, trying her best not to squirm as she watched him work.

“Hey, Bella?” He looked up at her through lashes that made her green with envy. Maybe it was the frame of thick lashes that made his eyes so striking.

“Yeah?” she repeated.

“Don’t run out in front of cars, okay?”

“I didn’t think,” she said as if that fact wasn’t obvious. “Well, I thought about Tater, but that’s all.”

“You love that puppy.”

“I do.”

He frowned, his brows drawing together. “I’ll pay for the vet bills, of course. I can’t tell you—”

“Sam, don’t apologize again. He got out. It was an accident.”

“I should have been paying more attention. It was a long shift, and I was just focused on getting home and to bed.”

“I understand. Tater’s okay—that’s what counts,” she added, because she had to distract herself from how much she appreciated the thought of getting Sam to bed.

She watched him work, gently placing antibiotic cream on her scrapes then covering them with a sterile bandage. Oh, he had good hands.

But she wasn’t going to go there.

Because Sam wasn’t for her.

Did she imagine it or did the air grow heavy between them as he took care of her? His focus remained on her leg—the one he’d told her he wouldn’t notice—and a muscle ticked at the edge of his jaw.

She was imagining things. Sam was a firefighter. He must patch people up or handle injuries worse than hers a dozen times a week. He was this close to people all the time, so the strange intimacy of the moment couldn’t possibly affect him the way it did her.