Unbearable Desire: Lone Pine Pride, Book 4 Read Online Free PDF Page B

edges of the cut.
    He fought a wince. “Yeah. I had a little cooking accident.”
    “Since when do you cook?”
    She didn’t seem to expect an answer, which was good because he didn’t have one. He’d never really cooked. Tonight’s attempt had been a mad impulse. And he’d been distracted. Thinking about—hell, thinking about Moira and the cold shoulder she’d given him the other day when he’d brought Jeremiah in. So distracted he’d cut himself.
    “You don’t need stitches,” she commented, head still bent over his hand. “Doesn’t look like you’ve hit anything major. A little surprising there was that much blood if you missed all the good parts.”
    He didn’t tell her that he’d let it bleed for a while, dithering about whether to come see her.
    “I’ll just clean it and give you a bandage,” she went on in the half-preoccupied voice he’d heard her use with other patients over the years. “When it has completely stopped bleeding, you’ll need to shift. It’s an extra measure to prevent infection, but wait a few hours to give the cut time to seal or you’ll just open the damn thing again and wind up with a bloody paw.”
    She left him long enough to collect a few items from a nearby cart, then returned to her work, never once looking him in the face.
    “You’re good at this,” he murmured, watching her work. “Good for the pride.”
    She hummed as if she wasn’t paying attention to him, but he noted the sudden stiffness in her shoulders as she bent over his hand.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry that I gave you the wrong impression. Back in Canada.”
    Her head snapped up then, brown eyes piercing. “Now? You want to discuss this now ?”
    He shrugged. “You just seem really irritated with me lately. I thought if we cleared the air—”
    “The air is plenty clear. Crystal. Blue skies.” Her gaze landed back on his hand and he half expected the next swipe of antiseptic to be rough, but she was as gentle as ever.
    “I’ve always felt bad that you stayed for me and I couldn’t—”
    Her head snapped up again, hard enough to give her whiplash. “Excuse me? Stayed for you? Don’t be such an egotistical ass, Hugo. I love this pride. I stayed in spite of you.”
    He blinked, taken aback by her vehemence. “I’m still sorry,” he said. “For leading you on before you got here. For giving you a false impression of what we had—”
    “Was it false?”
    “Ah…” He’d never seen her like this. Her words sharp and aggressive. Moira was gentle and nurturing. She healed people, but now her words were sharp enough to cut.
    “Was it really false, Hugo? Was everything that happened in Canada really in my head or did you just get home and chicken out?”
    “I don’t know what you—”
    “Unrequited love is easy. There are never any flaws in unrequited love. You never have to work through an argument or make a hard call about putting another person above all others when you’re only worshipping from afar.”
    “I hardly think—”
    She didn’t even let him begin. “This grand passion of yours is childish.” She slapped a bandage over his cut, securing it with surgical tape, deft and gentle even as she railed at him. “Love, real love, isn’t always a fairy tale. It isn’t just adoration. It’s making the choice to put one person above all others—not just believing that they were put on earth for you to worship from afar.”
    “I have put her above—”
    “Have you? Do you really help Lucienne by never moving on? By always looming in the background so she can never truly let herself completely involve herself in her relationship with Greg?”
    Irritation kindled brighter. “It isn’t like that,” he growled.
    Moira gathered up the articles she’d used to patch up his hand. “The truth’s a bitch, isn’t she?” She started to walk away and he came to his feet.
    “Why haven’t you moved on?” he challenged her back. “If it’s so easy to change who you