Summer At Willow Tree Farm: The Perfect Romantic Escape. Heidi Rice

her other hand and slapped it onto his forehead, to prove the point.

      The feel of her palm, cool and soft, pressed to his skin didn’t help with the tugging sensation deep in his abdomen. He dropped her hand.

      ‘Satisfied?’ He cleared his throat, because the word had come out on a husky rumble.

      Ellie pressed her palm into her jeans, and scrubbed it down her thigh.

      ‘I am. Dee won’t be.’ She wielded the thermometer like a lightsaber. ‘Unless I hand her conclusive proof, she’ll only harass you herself. So stop being a pain in the arse and stick this under your tongue for two minutes.’

      He was debating whether to do it, just to get this over with and her and her subtle sexy scent the hell out of his office, when his stomach growled like a marauding mountain lion that hadn’t been properly fed for two days – probably because it hadn’t.

      Ellie glanced pointedly at his belly. ‘Not hungry, huh?’

      ‘Bloody hell.’ He grabbed the thermometer – with the wrong hand.

      Lightning lanced through his palm and shot up his arm. He swore viciously, jerking his hand back and cradling it against his midriff as the burning pain kicked up several thousand degrees.

      ‘Did that hurt?’

      ‘Of course it hurt, I’ve got about a hundred stitches in it. Now go away.’ He rocked, waiting for the lancing pain to subside, not caring that he was being an arsehole. He hadn’t asked her to come in here and harass him. His head felt like someone was trying to hook out his eyeballs with a coat hanger, his stomach was so empty it was practically inside out and now his hand was about to drop off altogether. The only thing that could make his misery any more complete was having Ellie Preston leaning over him with a worried look on her face.

      Bingo.

      ‘I’ve got work to do,’ he added, the pain finally dulling to just about manageable.

      Work that gave him a headache at the best of times. And which had transported him into a whole new level of purgatory since Sunday.

      ‘Dr Grant gave you some heavy duty painkillers, why aren’t you using them?’

      Because they made him feel woozy and gave him nightmares. He’d woken up the first night sweating and swearing and thrashing about like a madman in the grip of a dream that had felt far too real. He hadn’t taken the painkillers since.

      ‘Bugger off.’

      ‘No.’ She pushed away from the desk and lifted his wrist.

      He flinched. ‘Don’t.’

      ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just going to take the bandage off.’

      ‘What for?’

      ‘Because look at it.’ She cradled his hand, holding it up. ‘It’s filthy.’

      She had a point. He’d done his best but it had been next to impossible to wash and dress himself one-handed, let alone eat and write and attend to all the other chores he had piling up around him. Keeping the bandage dry and clean, as the doctor had recommended, had been the least of his worries.

      ‘You try keeping a bandage clean in a farmyard,’ he said, but the truth was, the fight had drained out of him.

      He flinched as she peeled off the surgical tape around his wrist.