Page 4 of Recipe for a Curse

“My boss.”

“Mr. Frank? He’ll come looking as soon as the storm passes.”

He probably would. “Yes,” I agreed.

Rio headed down the hall, opened a door that appeared to be to a bathroom, and then returned with a first aid kit. “Let me look at that ankle of yours.” He eased my shoe off and pushed the bottom of my jeans up, the material soaking wet and cold. Even my sock was sopping. When had that happened?

He stripped off the sock. “It’s best to keep your feet dry in this sort of cold. Anything else is asking for frostbite.”

“You’re not even wearing socks,” I pointed out. “How are you not frozen?”

“I run warm,” he said, his hands gently running over my foot and ankle. “No broken bones, but you might have torn a ligament. Those are a bitch to heal. I can wrap it, immobilize it. You’ll probably have to stay off it for a while.” He began pulling things out of the first aid kit.

“You know a lot about medicine?”

“Was a combat medic for a couple tours. Worked as an EMT before that.”

That surprised me. Why wasn’t he doing that anymore?

“I don’t handle blood well,” he said without me having to ask, “or stress, anymore.”

“Oh,” I said. That would make doing medical stuff hard.

“You should get these wet clothes off,” he said after wrapping my ankle up. The bandages were tight enough they hurt, but also felt like they were keeping everything in place. “Let me find you some things to keep you warm.” He looked at me, and down at my pants which were soaked. Pink stained his cheeks. “You should probably take those off too. Better safe than sorry.”

He scrambled up and away, back down the hall to another closed door and inside. Was I reading him right? Was he into me? Straight men didn’t normally blush at other men being half nude around them. My heart gave a little flip-flop. Silly, to be injured and sitting in a trailer that didn’t appear to have working electricity, and thinking that the guy was hot for me. Maybe I was desperate, but I did like Rio. The handful of conversations we had didn’t make me think he hated people, just that he was sort of quiet, and that was okay.

I began pulling off the gloves and jacket. The bottom of my sweater was wet, my pants all the way up my thighs, and despite the heat, the icy chill against my skin was growing. I wriggled out of my shirt, even unbuttoned my pants, hoping to push them off and wrap myself in a blanket before he returned. But the fact that they were skinny jeans and wet, meant they were not coming off without a fight, and my ankle hurt from too much movement.

Fuck. I got the pants to my thighs, wishing I’d picked undies that weren’t covered in rainbow hearts that day, but not sure what else to do. I wrapped a blanket around me as Rio returned with a ball of clothes in his hands. It was a hoodie.

“This should be big enough for you to swim in,” he said holding it out to me. “It will help warm you up.”

I carefully took it, trying to keep the blanket around me and not flash him my undies, even while weirdly immobilized by my wet jeans. “Can’t get my jeans off, they are stuck from the wet and my ankle hurting.”

He raised a brow but knelt down and tugged carefully, pulling the fabric off my good leg first, then carefully over my wrapped ankle, which had apparently swollen to three times its size. There was no avoiding that pain, but I bit my lip hard not to cry out. But finally, free of the wet fabric, the warmth of the fire began to ease into my bones.

“Thank you,” I told him and tried to pull on the hoodie while keeping the blanket around me. He turned away to give me a bit of privacy, dragging everything to the kitchen area and unpacking.

“Do you have a dog?” I asked, finding some hair on the blanket that didn’t seem to be his. I’d never had a pet myself, but enough of my culinary school friends had. It wasn’t people hair that clumped up like that.

“Not really,” he answered, which I thought was odd. “Are you allergic?”

“No. At least I don’t think so. Never had a dog.” Had always thought of myself as more of a cat person. Dogs, while always happy to see their owner, sort of read as high maintenance to me, and I was high enough maintenance just for me.

“This is a lot of food,” he said.

“I picked things that I thought would last well. Easy to work with. I can think of a dozen recipes to make with this stuff.” I struggled into the hoodie. He’d been right about swimming in it. It was a two extra large and since I wore a medium on the best of days, it was long, fluffy and when I tugged it over my butt, I could have worn it as a dress. I tucked my good leg into it and left my bad one stretched out and covered it with the blanket. “I was really worried you were sick too, so I brought stuff for soup.”

“I never get sick. And I’m not much of a cook,” Rio said. He organized cans into a couple small cupboards, most of which were pretty bare, then opened the cooler. His eyes widened. “There is steak and bacon in here. Did you mean to bring that?”

“Yes. Got them at the butcher for a deal. There’s plenty at the manor. Thought maybe you could use them.”

Heat turned Rio’s face pink again and he looked away. “I’ll have to store them in the cooler outside. Fridge doesn’t work.”

“Does the stove work? I could make us some food.”

Rio turned away. “Everything’s electric. Powers been off for a while. Can’t afford the bill.”