Millionaire on Her Doorstep by Stella Bagwell Page B

me.”
    â€œNo. But the bacteria will deal that arm some misery if you don’t let me clean it out. Where’s a first-aid kit?”
    He could just hear the wranglers and Anna laughing about his needing first aid for a rope burn. “I’ll deal with it later.”
    â€œI know how you’ll deal with it,” she said, leaning back and glancing up at his face. “You’ll turn the tap water on it for a few seconds and say that’s clean enough.”
    He grinned, and Maureen wondered why he had to be so damn charming even when he wasn’t trying.
    â€œIt’s always worked before,” he said.
    â€œWell, not this time. So where’s the antiseptic?”
    â€œOkay, I give up. I’ll go after the first-aid kit. But no bandages,” he forewarned. “I’m not ready to be the laughingstock of the ranch.”
    Maureen was waiting for him at the kitchen table when he returned with a small plastic case of medical supplies. She immediately straightened his arm out on the tabletop and clucked her tongue at the damage.
    â€œThis is really awful,” she murmured as she
poured a generous portion of peroxide over the wound, then went to work with a cotton swab. “How did you do it anyway?”
    â€œTrying to hold eight hundred pounds of nervous horseflesh while my sister used electric clippers on his mane.”
    â€œThen your sister knows you were hurt?”
    â€œOh, yeah,” he said with a shrug. Then deciding it wouldn’t hurt to gamer all the sympathy he could get, he added, “She said she was sorry, then laughed.”
    â€œLaughed! But that’s horrible!”
    Adam had to chuckle. “Not really. Anna knows her brother is tough. Besides, it’s just a bad rope burn. Every cowboy gets them from time to time.”
    Her gaze lifted to his face. “You consider yourself a cowboy?”
    â€œI was a cowboy long before I ever got into the gas business,” he said easily.
    â€œYou like the profession.” she stated rather than questioned.
    â€œAlways have. But I like drilling for petroleum, too. The payoff is almost always better.”
    She continued to swab the wound. “I didn’t realize money was your main objective.”
    â€œIt isn’t. But it’s a nice dividend, don’t you think?”
    Maureen thought she’d trade all the money she had in the world to have a home and family as Adam had, but he obviously wouldn’t understand that. He’d never been entirely alone. He didn’t know what it did to a person’s heart.
    â€œYou know, Maureen,” he said after a few moments
passed, “I’m glad...you’re talking to me again.”
    She glanced up from his arm, then wished she hadn’t. His face was so close. Too close for her rattled senses. “I never quit.”
    His gaze dropped to her berry-red lips. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague,” he accused.
    â€œI could say the same about you.” Shaken by the touch of his eyes, she turned her attention back to his arm. “Besides, Adam, we agreed we weren’t... well. that we need to keep things cool between us.”
    He sighed. “Yes, I know we agreed. But that doesn’t mean we have to treat each other quite so coldly. I don’t like working that way. I don’t like...being that way with you.”
    Her hand stilled on his arm, and for a moment she allowed herself to savor the feel of his warm skin, the fine hair curling around her fingers. All week she’d yearned to touch him. She supposed the injury had been a good excuse.
    â€œI’m not crazy about it, either,” she admitted lowly.
    â€œThen do you think we can be friends again?”
    A voice of warning shouted in her head, but she could hardly hear it over the drumming of her heart.
    â€œI don’t believe...”
    When she didn’t go on, Adam took hold of her chin and lifted her face up to his.