“You were going to confess?” Bear asked, the anger seeping back into his voice. He crossed his arms over his thighs and leaned forward so I could have better access to his wound. I set the flashlight on the banister and using the only stitch I remembered that my mama had taught me I pulled Bear’s skin as close together as possible and tried to pretend it wasn’t his flesh and muscle I was putting back together, but a thick quilt or tough leather.
“Yeah, I thought it would be best to lay it all out, take whatever I had coming to me. My friend Buck is the deputy, figured maybe they’d cut me some slack. It’s not like if I go to prison anyone would miss me. The world would still turn. Nobody would even know I was gone.”
“I would.”
“Yeah, you would know I was gone, but you’d be happy to be rid of me,” I said bitterly.
“Ti…” Bear started. I stopped breathing, waiting to hear what he had to say. “Aaaahhhh,” he grunted as I dug the needle in deeper than I’d anticipated.
“Sorry,” I whispered, thinking that maybe I should remember that I was sewing a person after all.
“I got a lawyer for you,” Bear said, surprising me. “Last one I wanted to call, but she’ll do right by you.”
“You did what?”
“I got a lawyer, a bitch of a woman. If the devil wore fancy suits and wore red lipstick it would be Bethany Fletcher. She’s good though. Right now she’s sorting through all this shit. Making calls and digging in a little deeper into your case. Right now you’re only wanted for questioning, you’re not under arrest. You bolted before I had a chance to tell you.”
“You repaired the door, but you left it unlocked. I figured you were telling me to go,” I said honestly.
“I was telling you that you weren’t a fucking prisoner,” he corrected. “I thought you’d fucking listen and do what you’re told. I see now that was a mistake and don’t worry I won’t make it again. I should have listened to King and cuffed you to the fucking bed.” His entire body stiffened and my needle stilled, unable to make progress into his muscle.
I ignored his threat to cuff me, and focused on my task. “I know it’s hard, but try not to tense up, it will just make the pain worse.”
“Oh yeah?” Bear asked, sounding amused. “Where did you learn that?” His muscles relaxed slightly and the needle moved in and out with more ease making quicker work of putting him back together.
I smiled, recalling the memory. “Dr. Hartman told me that when he fixed up my knee. My brother Jesse and my friend Buck and I were practicing casting the new reels we’d gotten for Christmas one year. Well, they weren’t brand new, but they were new to us.”
“You got water this far inland?” Bear asked.
“Oh yeah, we got a pond in the middle of the grove, deep one too. Every once in a while Mr. Miller used to stock it with stuff he caught on one of his trips to the lake. But that day we weren’t practicing at the pond. We were on dry land, just out back in the clearing. We set up hola-hoops on the ground for targets and weighted down our lines. It was good practice too, but looking back I guess we didn’t need the hooks. I walked a little too close behind Buck when he was about to cast and caught a hook to the knee.” I stretched out my leg onto the front step so Bear could see the long scar that ran from the top of my knee to the bottom. “He didn’t realize he hooked me and kept going, tore the skin and the hook right out of my knee. Twelve stitches,” I said, pulling my leg back.
Bear held out his left hand and pointed to a scar between his thumb and index finger. “Same injury. Different friend. We were probably about sixteen and in this little dingy doing some inshore fishing. If we caught a few red fish sometimes we sold them to one of the restaurants on the other side of the causeway for a few bucks. Sometimes they were just good eating. But the only thing we caught that day was a buzz and about an inch of skin off my hand.”
“I’m done on this side,” I said, biting off the thread and tying it off in a series of unbreakable knots. I rethreaded the needle and knelt on the step to the side of Bear. It was an awkward position that had me almost teetering off the edge and he noticed, because he grabbed my forearms and spread his legs, pulling me in between and resting my elbows on his thighs, he released my arms and his hands came around to rest on the small of my back.
“Better,” he said, looking right into my eyes. I was all too aware of his gaze as I started to close off the wound, which was smaller in the front then it was in the back. He watched me as I worked, the edge of his beard brushed against my skin, his breath warm against my neck sending tingles between my thighs.
I needed to concentrate on my stitching before I hurt him again. “There was a picture in the apartment of you when you were younger. You and King with another boy wearing a bow tie. Was that Preppy?”
Bear leaned forward, resting his nose in the crook of my neck and nodded, his lips and beard setting my skin on fire.