Page 52 of Wood

“No need for that,” the woman says.

“Ye best place high again, show the bloody cowards they can’t keep ye down,” one guy says with a gruff snarl.

“We’ll be letting ye take o’ yer man, now. C’mon Douglas, Hamish,” the woman says, tugging on the third guy’s arm. She pats me on the cheek. “Yer still pretty.”

I grimace, pressing the ice back to my face. Ben walks with them to the door. “Please join us for dinner tomorrow? The Adamson, seven o’clock? The least I can do.”

Damn, I love this man.

“We’ll do that,” the woman replies for the group, herding them out the door.

Alone, Ben pulls me into him, his head on my shoulder, and his breath catches. “Fuck, baby.”

I just wrap my arms around him and hold, safe in his arms. He squeezes harder, and I grunt. Ow.

“Ribs?” He asks easing up.

“I think they kicked a few after they got me down,” I grimace. “I don’t think anything is broken, though.” He leads me into the back room, pressing me onto the couch, pulling my jacket off and then lifting my shirt. Then he hisses.

“I’ll fetch more ice packs.”

I don’t walk the holes in the wee hours. Ben declared we had practiced enough, and it was overkill, and we spent the morning sitting on our tiny back porch, listening to the birds and crowds shuffling past the old rock walls. He fetched takeout for lunch, some hearty soup for me that I don’t have to chew. By two, I am jittery and I insist we take just a few clubs out to refine the tee shots on several holes.

“We can carry just a few, Ben. You take a few, I’ll take a few, stuff balls in our pockets, leave the bag and we’ll take it slow.”

“You will tell me if you need a break.”

“Yes, Daddy, I will tell you.”

I love that growl.

33

BEN

The private room at The Adamson is small enough that they all end up talking over each other within ten minutes. Low ceiling, exposed brick, a single long table that makes it impossible to hide at either end.

Geoff’s still moving carefully, a purple bruise along his jaw that no amount of jacket collar quite covers, but he’s moving. He wants to hit a drugstore to buy some makeup he learned about from the drag queens at Babylon before the cameras are on us tomorrow. Our slow walk around the course this afternoon probably was the best cure.

“You didn’t have to do any of this,” Douglas says, for the third time, looking at the menu like it might be a trick.

“I know,” I say. “I wanted to.”

Fiona’s the only one who seems entirely unbothered by the room, the plates, any of it. She’s got Geoff leaning toward her, asking him something about the bruise with the level practicality of someone who works in a hospital, which it turns out she does.

“You should’ve had that eyebrow looked at properly,” she says. “Not just butterfly strips from a bar towel.”

“I looked at it myself. In a mirror. That’s basically a professional opinion.”

“It is not.”

Duncan, across from them, is quieter, working steadily through the bread, and it’s Hamish who breaks the silence first, leaning toward me with the particular boldness of the second glass of wine.

“Can I ask ye something.”

“You can ask.”

“Were ye scared? Last night, when ye saw ‘im like that?”