Brynn nodded and let the doctor get to work.
Fifteen minutes later he confirmed she didn’t show any early signs of concussion, but he reminded Brynn that this couldn’t be considered a real examination. It was her choice if she wanted to still go to the ER. He helped her clean and bandage her wound and also suggested ibuprofen, which she fished from her bag and took without protest. She held a handful of ice wrapped in a clean towel against the swelling, and she was as good as new. Okay, she was a mess, but she was a patched-up mess, and that was as good as it was going to get.
“Thank you, Dr. George,” Jamie said when he was done.
“Get some rest, Brynn,” the doctor said to her. “And you…” He turned to Jamie. “You keep an eye on her. If anything worsens by morning, seek further medical attention.”
Jamie nodded, his brow knitted in concern.
“I’m fine. Really,” Brynn told them.
Jamie shook the man’s hand and saw him to the door. He tried to offer him money, but Dr. George waved him off and then headed back to his teepee. Or wigwam. Whatever.
The ice made her cold, and she was too exhausted to hold it, so she dropped it into the glass of water on the table next to her bed and let the towel fall to the floor.
After locking the door, Jamie leaned forward and rested his head against it. She opened her mouth to say something but held her tongue as she watched the tension leave his body on an exhale, only now realizing just how worried he was. So she let him have his moment of release. Soon he turned to face her, and when he did, he walked straight to her bed and climbed in, positioning himself so he spooned her from behind.
She swallowed back the threat of a sob even though she could really use her own release. Instead she relaxed into his chest, felt the heat of his skin against the cotton of her T-shirt warming her body’s chill.
“I’m keeping an eye on you, okay?” he asked, though it was more insistence than it was a question.
“Okay,” she said without protest.
His hand rested tentatively on her hip, and she placed her palm over it, pulling it to drape across her stomach. She squeezed his hand, and Jamie responded by holding her just a little tighter. Neither of them said another word, but Brynn couldn’t let go of the fear that despite his need to protect her, she and Jamie seemed to be moving further and further from the way they were. They were lucky to find their way back to friendship after college. But they were too far across the line now. Friendship was no longer an option.
She held it together as long as she could—Amarillo, the silent car ride, the unanticipated towel rack attack, and the whole decade preceding all of it. When Jamie’s breathing finally evened out and she thought he must be sleeping, that’s when she finally let the tears flow.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was a shitty thing to do, but Jamie didn’t have any other option. If he hadn’t slid out of bed before she woke, he would have caved completely and called off the rest of the trip. They could hole up in their teepee instead, pretending nothing else existed outside of him pressed up against her in that bed. But there was a world outside of Holbrook, Arizona. There was Spencer Matthews in L.A. And he was going to follow through on his offer and bring the woman he loved to another guy.
Besides, his shoulder ached and his hand was asleep, but really none of that mattered when the cause of it was Brynn in his arms.
If he waited for her to stir, risked her facing him with what he knew would be swollen eyes from the quiet sobs he pretended not to hear last night, he would have kissed her like he’d wanted to since he crawled into her bed, and where would they be then? Nothing had happened to rebuild their trust in each other, and he knew it couldn’t be done with just a kiss.
He went over last night’s events in his head as he quietly dressed and packed his things, Brynn’s steady breathing assurance that she was okay after her injury. Jamie, however, was far from it.
He closed his eyes, and the scene played out again before him—Brynn frozen in place as blood trickled from the gash in her forehead. His stomach had dropped, as if he sat in an airplane that had just lost a few thousand feet of altitude. But the adrenaline had kicked in enough for him to guide her to the bed, help her keep pressure on the wound, and ease her mind while his quietly raced.