“I’m not—” Adam started.
Hawk cut in. “You are.”
Dawn pushed the door open with her shoulder. “Kitchen now, Adam. Leila, please get me some towels.”
Bianca followed them inside the comfy kitchen with its lovely yellow walls and stainless steel appliances.
Inside, Dawn pointed at a chair. “Sit. Arm on the table. Don’t argue.”
Adam sat.
“I can stitch it,” Dawn said, already reaching into a cupboard by a sliding glass door that led to a wide wooden deck.
Adam blinked. “You can what?”
“I’ve done worse,” she said. “Hold still.”
He looked at Hawk.
Hawk nodded. “She stitched my hand once. I lived.”
Adam exhaled through his nose. “All right.”
Who were these people? Okay, that was kind of badass and tough. Adam took off his shirt and Bianca swallowed. Hopefully not too loudly.
His chest was…intriguing. Hard and muscled with a couple of interesting scars. Knife wounds? Looked like it. She knew movie stars, like big ones, who’d kill for his abs. The man was all hard ridges and muscled angles. He looked much more cowboy than bartender right now. Well, much more mountain tough-guy than anything else.
Her nipples sharpened.
Damn it. What was up with her body? She’d seen hot guys before.
But hot, bloody, and tough? Who knew that was enthralling?
She stayed out of the way but watched as Dawn sat and started to work. Adam didn’t even flinch. He looked more like a cowboy today in torn jeans, the flannel, and a cowboy hat he’d already tossed on the counter. Now was probably the wrong time to ask about filming there. But damn, even this kitchen was perfect.
Way too perfect.
Adam satat the kitchen table and braced his boots against the chair rungs, locking his jaw while Dawn threaded the needle like she’d done it a thousand times—which, knowing her, she probably had. She moved with the quiet competence of someonewho’d grown up stitching her brothers whenever necessary. Heck. She probably had more than one scar on her from home-made stitches. She’d been ranching her entire life.
The pain registered inside him with a sharp ache, hot burn, and a tug that made his arm twitch before he forced it still. Muscle memory kicked in, reminding him to breathe and refrain from flinching. Pain was just information, after all. He’d learned that early.
This was nothing. Annoying, sure, but nothing compared to dust and heat and the kind of wounds that came with screaming and smoke and men yelling for medics. Compared to that, this was almost civilized. This felt clean and controlled. This was a kitchen that smelled like coffee and antiseptic instead of blood and fear, with sunlight slanting in through a window and a woman calmly stitching him up like it was no big deal.
What threw him was Bianca.
She stood near the counter with her hands clenched together and her face pale enough that it caught his attention even through the sting in his arm. He’d noticed things like that in the field—small shifts, subtle tells. The body never lied. A few minutes ago, she’d been barefoot in the dirt, her knees muddy, that wild mass of hair pulled back away from her pretty face.
She’d looked comfortable and happy, even. Laughing easily as if gardening in the middle of Montana wasn’t a novelty or a distraction but a hobby she genuinely enjoyed. He hadn’t expected that. Hell, he hadn’t been prepared for how natural she’d looked doing it, or how quickly that image had burned itself into his head and refused to leave.
That wasn’t who she was. He knew that. She was a city girl. From Hollywood, no less. Schedules and contracts and deadlines lived in her world. This trip to the mountains was temporary for her. A stopover. A pretty backdrop.
He forced his gaze away and back to the wall as Dawn tied off another stitch, the tug sharp enough to make his shoulder tense before he relaxed it again.
Bianca swayed.
Adam paused. “Hey.” He lowered his voice to a soft command. “Sit down.”
“I’m fine,” she said, which was a lie if he’d ever heard one.