Page 16 of The Seascape Between Us (The Men of Saltwater Cove #4)

Chapter Eleven

Daniel

S harp pain bloomed at the back of my head, and a high-pitched whine filled my ears. Distantly, I thought I heard Grey call my name, but I couldn’t be sure. His voice sounded muffled and far away.

What the hell had happened? One second, I was standing talking to Grey, the pity in his tone and soft expression making me will the floor to open and swallow me whole, and the next, I was falling.

For a split second, I thought my wish had been granted until my ass landed hard on the floor, sending a bolt of pain shooting up my back, and my head bounced off the wall.

I reached back to feel for the damage and felt something wet trickling down my arm.

“Daniel!” I heard Grey clearer now. The ringing in my ears must have faded, or he’d raised his voice.

I blinked up at him while he shrugged out of his suit jacket. His olive skin had visibly paled, and his dark eyes looked wild and panicked. He squatted next to me and gently took hold of my wrist, turning my arm so I could see the long gash running nearly the full length of the side of my forearm.

“Shit,” I whispered.

“Shit is right.” Grey positioned my arm over his jacket spread out on his lap, as if he meant to wrap it around the bleeding injury.

I snatched my arm back, small crimson drops spattering my jeans. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t wrap my arm with that!”

Grey shot me a pointed look. “We’re in a construction site. Options are limited.”

“There’s a first aid kit in my office—”

“First aid kit?” His eyes widened, brows disappearing behind the messy wave of air falling over his forehead. “A first aid kit isn’t going to cut it. You’re going to need stitches, a hospital.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, wincing a little. The more we talked about my arm, the more it stung. “I can just bandage it up.”

“Look. At. It,” he snapped. “You’re bleeding all over yourself.

You need stitches.” He glanced around the partially gutted bathroom.

“And probably a tetanus shot. Now, give me your arm. I’m going to wrap it up with my jacket, then I’m taking you to the hospital if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you myself. ”

I shot him a wry look, hoping it clearly conveyed I'd like to see you try. “Why don’t we use my shirt?”

“What is the issue with my jacket?”

“It’ll take a month’s pay to replace it, for starters.”

“For god’s sake, I don’t give a shit about the jacket, and I’m sure as hell not going to make you replace it. Now, give me your arm.”

“Fine,” I said and held out my arm. The wound gaped, and a steady stream of blood smeared with dirt over my skin. It really did look bad.

Grey carefully wrapped his jacket tightly around my arm, his touch gentle despite the deep scowl etched across his face.

His mouth pressed into a thin, tight line.

It was strange having someone do this for me, take care of me.

I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had fussed over me this much.

But I was fairly certain it was before Ramona went into the convalescence home, maybe before my mother died.

Stranger still was that it was Grey, of all people.

The urge to jerk back from his touch was nearly as overwhelming as the urge to sink into it, to lean closer, close my eyes, and let my forehead rest on his shoulder.

Grey finished up wrapping his jacket around my forearm a few times until I looked as if I could train attack dogs, and then he leaned back while I tucked my arm into my chest.

“Can you stand?” He held out his hand to me.

“I think so,” I told him, but still took his hand with my good one and let him haul me up to my feet. I braced myself for the wave of dizziness that never came. That was a relief. Maybe that crack to the skull wasn’t as bad as I feared.

Grey took hold of my elbow and steered me out of the cramped bathroom. “Okay, hospital now.”

He guided me out of the hotel room. The cool breeze off the water was a welcome relief after the stuffy heat in the room.

“It’s not that bad. I can just—”

“Nope! No arguing. Hospital, or I will make you pay for my jacket.”

“I think we should go back to my place in Portland.”

At Grey’s suggestion, my insides instantly tightened.

I looked over at him from where I’d been staring out the passenger window as Grey steered out of the hospital parking lot and shot him an incredulous look.

Not that he noticed. He wasn’t looking at me.

He kept his unreadable expression focused on the road through the windshield.

“What…? Why?” I stuttered.

“So, you can rest. The doctor said you probably have a concussion, and you need to take it easy.”

I rolled my eyes, a little of the tension gripping me releasing. “That’s not at all what the doctor said. He said a concussion was unlikely, but I should rest for the next twenty-four hours.”

Grey snorted. “Nice try. He said you shouldn’t be alone for the next twenty-four hours and that you should rest for the next few days.”

I tried not to smirk. Since he’d driven me to the hospital, Grey had been hovering over me like an overprotective parent. It might have been funny if it wasn’t so disconcerting.

Grey had, of course, insisted on driving us to Saltwater Cove’s hospital in his Audi, making the trip in record time.

Once inside, we didn’t have to wait long in the Emergency waiting room—whether because of the blood still oozing from the wound on my arm or Grey nagging the nurse behind the counter, asking how much longer until we saw a doctor every five minutes. Either was a strong possibility.

Once in the examination room, Grey hovered nearby, pointedly ignoring my irritated scowl.

“Definitely going to need some stitches,” the doctor had said after I unwound Grey’s jacket from my arm.

“I told you,” Grey said to me, then turned to the doctor. “He should probably have a tetanus shot, too. He was working at a construction site, tearing apart a bathroom.”

The doctor’s mouth quirked, and he pushed his wireless glasses up his nose. He was probably my age or a little younger than me, with a narrow face and close-set eyes. His blond hair fell in messy waves, brushing his collar. “I think we can arrange that.”

“And he hit his head against the wall when he fell. I heard it.”

The doctor frowned. “Where?”

“I’m fine,” I stated, glaring at Grey and hoping he’d sit down in one of the molded plastic chairs against the far wall and shut the hell up.

The more things he pointed out, the longer we’d be stuck there, and my head was fine.

It barely hurt, just feeling a little tight and bruised, but no big deal.

“It’s at the back.” Grey’s fingers gently cupped either side of my head, tipping it forward. I squeezed my eyes closed and held myself against the shiver his touch sent rolling through me.

The doctor gingerly brushed his fingers over my skull until they grazed a tender area, and I winced.

“That’s it,” the doctor said. “You’ve got quite a lump. Do you have a headache?”

The doctor stepped back, and Grey let go of my head. I opened my eyes and straightened. “Not really. It feels bruised more than anything else.”

“No feeling of pressure in your head?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Any dizziness or problems with balance?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Do you feel nauseous, or have you thrown up since you hit your head?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Probably,” the doctor agreed. “What about any blurred vision, sensitivity to light, or ringing in your ears?”

Shit . I tensed. “I had some ringing in my ears right after, but just for a few seconds, maybe a minute at most.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Grey said, sounding accusatory.

The doctor went on to explain that I might have a mild concussion and to rest for a few days, and Grey stood close, taking in every word the doctor said. He continued to hover while a nurse stitched my arm, reminding him I should have a tetanus shot.

I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had fussed over me the way Grey had over the last few hours. While I found myself losing patience with him, part of me enjoyed feeling as if someone had my back.

It was an illusion, of course. Grey didn’t have my back, not like I thought he did back when we were first together. Maybe he felt bad for distracting me while I’d been working, or for how tense things had been between us over the last week.

You are the heart of this hotel. I’m just a wallet.

I still wasn’t sure how I felt about what Grey had said, except that he was more than a wallet. It took more than money to achieve the kind of success he had. Admittedly, money helped.

“I should go back to the hotel. There’s always someone around, and I’ll rest easier in my own space.

” All true, but I was leaving out the very real fact that the idea of seeing Grey in his own environment, in the life he’d gone on to build while I’d been at the Seascape, exactly where he’d left me all those years ago made my insides shrivel.

“First, I don’t believe you’ll actually rest if you’re anywhere near that hotel.” Grey glanced away from the road long enough to shoot me a pointed look. He might not have been entirely wrong. “Besides, even if you could be trusted not to work, the roofers will keep you awake.”

“Portland is too far from the hotel. What if something goes wrong? We would both be more than an hour away.”

I was about to suggest he drop me off at Brody’s. Surely, Jett and he wouldn’t mind if I spent the night on their sofa when Grey said, “I have an idea.”

Having reached The Square, Grey steered up the winding road to the residential area rather than toward the hotel.

“You know you can’t just dump me off on Finn, right?” Finn and Alistair lived on the opposite side of the street and a few houses down from Grey’s father’s home. “I realize he does a lot for you, but surely there are limits.”

“I’m not dumping you anywhere.”

Before I could ask him any more questions, he turned into the empty driveway of Oliver Mackenzie’s house. Grey cut the engine, but I didn’t say anything, staring up at the old craftsman-style house with a mix of shock and alarm.

“What are we doing here ?”

“The students moved out a few days ago, and I figured this would be an appropriate compromise. Far enough from the Seascape that you’ll actually rest, but close enough if there’s an emergency.”

“You hate this house,” I said.

“I don’t hate the house. I hated the man who lived in this house.”

Actually, I was fairly certain Grey didn’t hate his father, and that was a big part of his problem with the man. His father’s rejection wouldn’t have bothered him so much if he truly didn’t care. But wisely, I kept the thought to myself.

Grey opened the car door and got out. I did the same before he could come around to my door to help me out like I was some frail ninety-year-old.

“Are you okay? Did you need me to help you?” Grey asked, from where he stood on the flagstone path that cut across the neatly trimmed lawn and led to the porch steps. Purple and white hydrangeas bloomed across the length of the raised porch.

I nodded and followed Grey to the front door, where he opened a lock box and took out a key. From the porch, I looked down at Oceanwind Square stretching out to the dark blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.

“Coming in?”

I turned away from the view to Grey standing with the door open and waiting for me to go inside. Was I really going to do this, let Grey talk me into spending the next few days with him alone in his father’s house? I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was making a huge mistake.

I was probably making something out of nothing.

Nothing had happened between us since that day in his hotel room.

Grey had suggested a fresh start as business partners, and I genuinely wanted that, too.

Surely, we could spend a few days in this house alone and keep our hands off each other while not snarking back and forth at each other while we were at it.

I nodded and went inside.