Play It Safe(15)

But it was his house I liked.

It was old. It wasn’t a ranch house, it was a farmhouse. Not big. Compact. Two stories. From what I could tell white outside but the woodwork was painted something else. A rectangular porch out front with a porch swing, the family room jutting out so the porch only had two open sides.

Stained glass in the door.

I didn’t have to peruse the rest of the house, the entryway said it all.

People lived here, the same people for generations. When I say that I mean the same family. The furniture was old and pretty. The pictures on the wall faded and pretty. The décor the same. This house had been lived in, maybe stuff had been added but nothing had been taken away. Still, instead of full and suffocating, it seemed warm and welcoming.

I sucked in breath and moved down the hall to the shadowed kitchen. Feeling around the opened, doorless doorway, I found the switch and the kitchen was bathed in light.

I closed my eyes but I still saw it.

No renovation, not for years. This house might have been built before modern appliances but it was modernized shortly after and left to be.

I opened my eyes.

Cupboards painted bright red. Little white ceramic knobs to open them looking like polka dots in that sea of bright. Soffits papered in wallpaper that had a white background, green vines and leaves, white and yellow flowers and big fat strawberries. Cream fridge, the old kind with the bulging front, huge handles and curved edges. Big, old gas burner stove. Someone had cut out some cupboards to insert a cream fronted dishwasher next to the sink. Butcher block countertops that had seen so much use they didn’t have grooves, they had waves and their edges were rounded. A big, beat up farm table in the middle of the room with six chairs around it, only three matching, all of their seats sporting big, red poofy cushions tied to their backs. A huge bowl filled with apples, oranges and bananas in the middle. The countertops covered with appliances and crocks holding utensils. A backdoor that led now to darkness but its window was covered in wispy white curtains held back with red sashes. A huge window over the double-bowled, cream ceramic sink with the same wispy white, red-sashed curtains hanging. Another window at the side under which there was a low, wood-framed cabinet, its doors inlaid with punched tin, its top holding a vase of slightly wilting flowers, some greeting cards turned on their sides and a bowl full of keys, change and other life detritus.

My eyes swept the space.

Many Thanksgiving dinners had been cooked there. Christmases. Birthdays. And just because you had to eat.

I loved it.

Every inch.

Every stinking inch.

“First aid kit.” I heard, jumped and turned to see Gray sauntering down the hall toward me carrying a big box, the bottom blue, the top white, the size the size of the tackle box of a very serious fisherman. If that was his first aid kit, I had a feeling he had a history with more than just Cocky Guy Buddy.

“That’s a big first aid kit,” I blurted and again he rewarded me with a grin.

“Man now, Ivey but used to be a boy,” he muttered intriguingly, deposited the box on the table then flicked the latches and flipped it open.

It was stuffed full.

He grew up here.

This wasn’t his house, it was his grandmother’s.

I wondered if that was a fib or something else.

I wondered a lot of things.

None of which I would ask.

“Alcohol wipes, plasters, scissors,” he murmured, digging and pulling the stuff out as I dumped my purse on the table, unwrapped my scarf and shrugged off my coat, tossing them over the back of a chair. Then his neck twisted and his eyes hit me. “We’re good.”

I nodded, my head dropping, my experienced eyes scanning the stuff then I looked up at him and ordered, “Sit.”

One side of his mouth hitched up a bit then he shrugged off his leather jacket, hooked it on the back of a chair, unwrapped his scarf, tossed that on top and he sat, tipping his face up to me.

I put out of my mind how handsome he was, how, if I just bent at the waist, I could kiss his mouth and when I managed that, I got busy.

I tore open the wipe, tossed the packet on the table and cautiously dabbed at the cut.

He drew in air on a hiss and his head jerked.

“Sorry,” I whispered, for some reason affected by his reaction deeply. Too deeply. Hating that I hurt him. Actually hating it.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t done this before. Before (and after) we’d instigated the pool hustle, made it an art, Casey saw a lot of action that wasn’t so good, ended up in cuts and bruises which meant I was in this same spot, clean up and resident untrained nurse.

I didn’t like it when I hurt Casey while tending to him but I really didn’t like to make Gray feel more pain for me.

So I did something crazy. I did something stupid. I totally lost who I was, where I was, who I was with and I did exactly what I did when I worked on Casey.

I leaned close, dabbed light and after each dab, I leaned closer and I blew air gently between my lips against the cut.

I did this three times before Gray said in a voice I would never forget in my whole life. Never. Not if I lived like he said earlier, to be three hundred. It was soft, it was quiet and it was gentle to the point of tender.

“Dollface, you blowin’ on me defeats the purpose of the antiseptic.”

My body shot straight and my eyes shot to his.

He grinned and kept speaking