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wipe away the blood.
    “No, let me. It’s the least I can do. It’s my stupid broken window.” She sat next to him on the edge of the bed.
    Lucy used the washcloth to clean up the blood that had trickled down his hand.
    “I’m happy to bandage you up. I know how. Or I can take you to the hospital. I’ll pay, of course, for any treatment.” She tried not to think about what that would do to her slim bank account.
    Still Owen said nothing. He was too quiet.
    Was he furious with her? Wouldn’t she feel scared if that was so? And Lucy wasn’t scared. She felt nervous, yes, but none of her regular fears plagued her, sitting next to Owen.
    She put the antibiotic ointment on her finger. “I washed my hands. So they’re clean. Um. You should know that . . .” This wasn’t the way they would ever do it on the ambulance. God, Captain Keller would be laughing at her right now. Why was she so flustered?
    “I’m just going to put this on your hand. I mean, on the wound. Damn. But I don’t think it will hurt.”
    She took a chance and stole a glance at him, looking up for a split second at his face. She needed to know whether she was going to need to run or not.
    Was that a smile? Were the corners of his mouth really twitching?
    Lucy dropped her head again to his hand. “Here I go. There. That wasn’t bad, was it?” She made sure the wound on the side of his hand was carefully covered with antibiotic ointment, and then turned his hand over to see if there were any other wounds that needed care. She ran her fingers over his skin.
    His hand was huge. Strong. Warm. Completely, jarringly masculine.
    And still bleeding.
    “Okay. Good.” Lucy cleared her throat. She flipped open the top of the box. “Oh, crap.”
    She looked up at him and then back into the box. Surely she had a normal Band-Aid. She flipped through the bandages, then she looked again. Oh, how embarrassing. She was an emergency medical technician, for the love of God.
    “Um,” she said. “You have your choice between rainbows, dinosaurs, or cowboys. It looks like I only have novelty Band-Aids. There are some sushi ones, too, but . . . I’m kind of saving those ones.”
    Owen started laughing. It was a deep, rolling laugh, sounding like it came from the middle of his chest. “Cowboys. Of course I want cowboys.”
    It was the last reaction she would have expected from him. He went on laughing as she continued to bandage his hand. At least it was better than him yelling at her, or suing her. Which he could still do later.
    “I’m sorry, it’s going to take more of these than I thought,” Lucy said as she struggled to open yet another bandage. These really were crappy, she thought. They didn’t seem to have any stick at all, and they were brittle. Good for nothing but putting on imaginary boo-boos, which Owen’s boo-boo, sadly, wasn’t.
    “There. I think that’ll do it.” Lucy stood and looked at her handiwork.
    The back and side of Owen’s hand was covered in little cowboys riding horses and wearing chaps. He held it out and nodded in what looked like satisfaction.
    Lucy couldn’t help it. “Why aren’t you mad at me?” she asked.
    “I just cut my hand on the window latch. It’s not like you bit me.”
    “I wouldn’t bite you!” And she blushed.
    She busied herself picking up the bits and pieces of the wrappers that seemed to be everywhere. He stood up but she didn’t look at him. “So, I can suggest a few more places, if you’d like. A friend has a cottage that I think is vacant, and another friend owns that little motel down on Pine Street. Then there’s that bed-and-breakfast that Greta mentioned.”
    “Why?” Owen asked. The smile slipped from his face as if it had never been there. “Because I hurt myself? I’m too much of a liability?”
    The way he said the last word turned something inside Lucy, made her ache for him. There was more to this than a cut on a window.
    “No. I just assumed . . .”
    “I’ve gone through