“No!” She didn’t want to need his help, wanted to lick her wounds in private rather than get turned on by his gentle touch. But she was stupid light-headed from getting up too fast and knew she wasn’t in the greatest shape.

And as much as she didn’t want to like it, she did like how he always seemed to be there for her, even if her brain kept telling her heart she didn’t want him to be.

He still wasn’t leaving. “Tell me what really happened.”

“I loaded up some wood and was making my way up the stairs when”—she broke off and grimaced—“something popped out of the wood. I nearly had heart failure and fell down the stairs. The end.”

He never took his eyes off of her. “What popped out at you?”

“A spider,” she said, because hey, that could’ve totally happened. Just because she’d freaked out over the baby bunny didn’t mean that there wasn’t also a spider. Maybe she’d been so busy falling down the stairs she just hadn’t seen the spider.

“A spider made you fall down the stairs?” he asked in disbelief.

“A big one.” She lifted her hands so that they were about a foot apart.

His lips twitched.

Her hands spread apart even wider. “It might have been a mutant spider.”

“Or a baby bunny,” he said.

She stared at him while he grinned wide.

“You knew the whole time,” she accused.

“Yep. Lenny told me.”

“Well isn’t that just like a man,” she said in disgust.

Aidan tipped his head back and laughed out loud.

“Fine. Whatever,” she said. “I’m taking a shower. Alone.”

“Make it lukewarm, not hot,” he said. “I’m going to the truck for my first-aid kit.”

“Aidan, I’m so not in the mood to play doctor.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll play doctor and you play the nice, sweet, passive patient.”

She opened her mouth to retort to this but he was gone. Argh. She limped/hobbled after him and hit the lock. Proud of herself, she limped/hobbled to the bathroom and locked that door as well.

And then she crawled into the shower, where she had herself a nice, private cry. When she was done, she turned off the water and stared at herself in the mirror. She was bruising from head to toe, her damn hands hurt, and her knees hurt and so did her butt. She was still staring at herself when someone clicked open the bathroom door and made her jump nearly right out of her towel.

Aidan.

“Hey, I locked my front door!”

He set a red duffel bag on the counter. It had a white cross on it and read: first aid.

“And the bathroom door,” she added.

He narrowed his eyes. “Were you crying?”

“No.”

Looking pained, he let her have the lie as he gestured to the closed commode. “Sit.”