Page 48 of If It's You

“Me? That was all you, princess.” Christian folded his arms across his chest, making his biceps bulge.

“Let’s just shut up and get this done, and hopefully he’ll come back.” Maizie said, already shoving an earbud into her ear.

“Works for me.” He turned on his own music, and they worked in silence, replacing posts, running barbed wire. After thirty minutes, Jayce still hadn’t returned.

Maizie wiped the sweat from her brow and looked across the length of the field. They still had about twenty more feet worth of fence to replace. The work on the farm never ended. They fixed one problem just in time for something else to break. And on days that really sucked, everything just broke at once. It was like the farm was trying to teach her a lesson about life.

She took a drink from her water bottle and watched Christian tying on barbed wire. He pulled it, and tried to hammer the staple in on the opposite side of the post, but it didn’t work. He threw his hammer through the fence then climbed up.

“That’s not a good idea.” Maizie hollered, but he didn’t hear her.

He threw his right leg over the fence but missed the next barbed wire hold. His body twisted, falling not just off but against the fence.

She gasped and dropped her shovel as he hit the dirt with a groan.

“Christian, you okay?” She asked, running to his side.

He swiped the dirt out of his eyes and sat up, carefully untangling himself from the wire he’d just worked so hard to fix.

“I think so.” He shifted and grunted, then looked at his shirt. It was cut clear through in multiple places.

He ripped it off and Maizie’s jaw fell to the ground. She had seen him with his shirt off the night of her party, but she had forgotten how sculpted he was. Turner had nothing in comparison to Christian’s divine chest.

Does it feel as good as it looks?

“My eyes are up here,” he snickered.

Maizie’s cheeks flamed. “I was checking to see if you were hurt.”

“Well, I am,” he stated matter-of-factly. “But not where you’re looking.”

He twisted so his side was in view and the blood drained from her face. A jagged line ran from the side of his hip halfway up his tanned torso. The scratches on his chest were barely there. But this one was much deeper and gushing with blood.

“Ugh.” He swallowed and pressed his wadded-up shirt against his side. “You’re going to have to be my nurse. I can’t stand blood.”

“Don’t look at me. I’m not touching you.” She wasn’t fond of blood either. “Have you had a tetanus shot recently?”

“I’m not sure if I’m up to date on it.”

Maizie stood and dusted off her pants. “Well, that’s about to change.”

The second anyone in the family cut themselves on metal, Maizie’s mom rushed them to the hospital like a one-woman race against time.

“Where are you going? Aren’t you supposed to bandage me up?” Christian pumped his eyebrows.

Her mouth went dry. The fact that she wanted to was the problem.

She cleared her throat and turned away. “All you need is a little superglue.”

“Superglue?” Christian ran to catch up to her, clutching his shirt to his side.

“Yep.” She gave him a false smile. “Super Glue and duct tape fixes everything.”

“I highly doubt that,” he muttered beside her.

But Maizie just called her mom. And as predicted, Christian had to get a tetanus shot.

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