Bonjour!

I’m sipping coffee on the deck and suddenly remembered it’s Wednesday!

Luckily, I had lined up this excerpt for you before leaving for France!

Hope you enjoy, my fellow romantics.

Sigrid

“Turn your head to the light,” Lucas said.

She had joined Louise in the back seat and sat very close. Louise wanted to move away but couldn’t. They were cramped together next to the case of gear.

“Come on, let me see it,” Lucas tried again.

Outside, Woodward and Hobbs were tying up the car. Louise could hear their voices, tense and impatient. She couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Her ears were still ringing. The left side of her head was throbbing. Blood was trickling down her cheek. Louise kept wiping it away.

Lucas opened a pack of sterile gauze.

“I can do it myself,” Louise croaked. “Just give me the kit.”

“Doubt it,” Lucas replied calmly. “It’s too dark. And you would need a mirror.”

“I can do it in the front seat.”

Lucas handed Louise the sterile cloth. “I wouldn’t go outside if I were you.”

Louise took the gauze. “Why not?”

“Walk around in toxic rain with an open wound? You want this thing to get infected?” Lucas said with an incredulous expression.

Louise frowned, then immediately flinched. “Ouch.” Reflexively, she reached for her eyebrow, but knew better than to touch it again.

“Stop frowning!” Lucas chuckled. “It makes the cut open up again.”

Louise used the cloth to wipe more blood off of her cheek. “What are you going to do?” she asked, reluctantly.

Lucas rolled her eyes. “Disinfect it, of course. Then try to patch you up.”

Louise glanced out of the window, looking for Hobbs. She didn’t want him to see this.

“Come on, I just want to help you,” Lucas said impatiently.

“Fine, but be quick,” Louise muttered. “Please,” she added as she turned her head to give Lucas better access to the wound.

Lucas leaned closer and took a good look at the cut. She bit her lower lip in concentration. For a brief moment, Louise studied the lines of her mouth.

“I have to move your hair out of the way,” Lucas said quietly.

Louise pulled her eyes away from full lips and raised her arm before Lucas could touch her. “I’ll do it.”

One corner of Lucas’s mouth quirked up. “Fine.”

She grabbed the disinfectant spray from the kit. “This might hurt,” she warned.

When the cool jet of disinfectant hit Louise’s eyebrow, she winced, despite her resolve to stay perfectly still no matter what.

“One more time,” Lucas said softly. She straightened up and inspected the wound from a different angle. This gave Louise a clear view of her neck and collarbone.

Louise’s eyes were pulled to the delicate skin right in front of her nose. When Lucas moved up her arm, her green shirt shifted, making the neck line drop until…

“Ouch!” Louise screamed when more disinfectant spray caused a hot flash of pain to rip through her. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth for a few seconds.

“Sorry,” Lucas said, grimacing.

Louise glared back at her.

Lucas held up some more sterile gauze, still in its wrapper. “Hold this against your eyebrow to stop the bleeding.”

Louise took the pad, fumbled with the plastic around it and did as she was told.

Lucas rummaged through the first aid kit. She held up a plastic box and squinted at the letters.

“I need glasses,” she mumbled. Louise wasn’t sure if Lucas was aware she had said it out loud.

But then Lucas met her gaze. “Do you still have glasses?”

Louise tilted her head to the side, keeping the gauze in place against the cut. “What do you mean?”

“Do people still wear glasses in your world? Or do you, I don’t know, have eye replacements or something?”

Louise snorted. “No! Bionic lenses.”

Lucas’s eyebrows shot up in understanding, her lips forming a silent ‘Oh.’ After a moment, she went back to sifting through the contents of the kit.

Louise watched her every move, thinking. She knew she should be avoiding talking to this woman, but something had triggered her curiosity.

“Why do you say ‘your world’?” she asked hesitantly.

Lucas looked up. “What?”

“You asked about glasses ‘in my world’. We live on the same planet, you know,” Louise said. She knew her comment sounded more snarky than she had intended it to. She didn’t do anything to take the sting out of it, though.

Lucas narrowed her eyes. “Funny you should say that.”

Louise met her stare head-on. “Why?”

Lucas pursed her lips as she thought for a second. “Because you’re the one treating us like we’re from a different planet,” she finally said.

Louise looked away, bringing up her free hand to keep the gauze in place. Her right arm was getting tired. She also needed a moment to think.

Lucas put some of the disinfectant spray on her hands, then ripped open a set of butterfly bandages. “These are the best I have,” she said quietly, waiting.

Louise reluctantly lowered her arm.

“Let me…” Lucas pushed herself up again, using her elbow for balance. Her face was now even closer to Louise’s than before. A hint of peppermint made its way up Louise’s nose.

When Lucas placed one side of the bandage near the cut, Louise tensed up.

“Sit still,” Lucas whispered. Her fingers brushed over sensitive skin.

Louise held her breath, overwhelmed by the unexpected intimacy of the moment.

“There. Let me do one more and you’re all set, “ Lucas said, grabbing another bandage.

Louise sat perfectly still, with her eyes closed, and waited for Lucas to apply the second strip.

“We’re human, you know. Not some faceless enemy,” Lucas said. Her breath tickled Louise’s cheek while she spoke.

Louise’s eyes snapped open.

Lucas stared at her with an intensity that gave Louise goosebumps.

See you back here on Saturday 😉