“What are you doing?” Olivia called from the side door.
Sawyer looked up and wiped his forehead with the back of one hand. “Working.”
“Do you need a hand?” she asked.
“Nope.”
With a head injury like his, it wasn’t wise for him to be exerting himself just yet. There was a lot of unseen healing that needed to happen, but she doubted he wanted to hear that—not when she could feel the irritability coming off of him in waves.
“Your daughters are awake,” Olivia said, glancing back into the kitchen. The toddlers came toward the open door and poked their heads out.
“Daddy!” Bella called.
Sawyer scrubbed a hand across his face and looked over at them, his expression grim.
“Would you mind watching them for a bit?” he asked.
Did she mind spending time with two little cuties? Not at all. But these little girls didn’t need her, they needed their dad. Besides, with her medical experience, she knew he shouldn’t be exerting himself like that right now.
“You should be resting,” she said.
“I need to get busy. I’m going stir-crazy,” he replied.
Bella and Lizzie squeezed past her out the door, but Olivia caught them before their socked feet hit the dew-laden grass. She carried them back inside and dropped them both into their rubber boots. Then she released them so they could clomp back outside again. Their sweaters would be warm enough for now. The toddlers headed in their father’s direction. She saw his expression soften at the sight of them, but the tension was still there.
“They want you, not me,” she said. “Besides, this isn’t good for you.”
“Says who?” he snapped, then he sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, but I need this.”
In the hospital, she was used to ornery patients, but in the emergency room, they were normally in too much pain to put up much of a fight. She was responsible for helping sew them back together, and she wasn’t the one who kept them from overdoing it through the slow days or weeks of healing.
“You’re recovering,” she said curtly.
“My memory is coming back. I remember enough not to hit myself in the head with a hoe.”
“You’re recovering physically, too. Your doctor would have told you to relax for a couple of weeks, right?”
He shot her an annoyed look. “You aren’t my nurse.”
“Nope, but I said I’d help. This is my way of doing that,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on. I’m tired of just sitting around feeling lost and confused. I was hoping you’d watch the girls so I could vent some frustration here.”
“What are you frustrated about?” she asked. “Maybe I can help.”
“Everything!” He sighed. “Nothing. You and Lloyd seem pretty focused on keeping me from working. But getting back to it is what’s going to make me feel better, okay? Can you keep an eye on them, or not?”
“And if I say no?”
Sawyer stopped, eyed her uncertainly. “Are you saying no?”
Olivia didn’t want to turn this into a power struggle. She sighed. “I’ll watch them. But if you end up back in the hospital because you overdid it, you’ll only have yourself to blame.”
“Yeah, but I won’t remember that,” he said irritably, and she could hear the dry humor in his voice.
“Har har,” she muttered.
But she wasn’t joking. Head injuries were nothing to play with, especially ones severe enough to cause amnesia. Olivia turned her back on him and headed toward the house, then sat down on the step so she could watch both the girls playing and their father.
Sawyer looked over his shoulder. “So you’re just going to stare at me?”
“Might as well,” she replied.
She knew she was irritating him, but right now she didn’t care. He was risking his health by pushing it, and while she could sympathize with his frustration, she was frustrated, too.
Sawyer picked up the hoe again, and as he did, he winced, gritted his teeth and looked down at his palm.
“What?” she called.
“Nothing.” He grimaced, looked at the wooden handle of hoe, then back at his hand.
“Liar,” she said with a low laugh.
“It’s a splinter.” He raised his hand, but she couldn’t make anything out from where she sat, so she pushed herself back to her feet and headed across the grass toward him. When she arrived at his side, she took his fingers in her hand to get a better look. A long, dark shard had shoved itself deep under the skin of his palm.
“That would hurt,” she said, grimacing.
Sawyer tried to pinch the end with his fingernails, and Olivia slapped his hand away.
“Cut that out,” she said. “You’ll only break it off and it’ll be that much harder to get the rest of it.”
“I think I can—” Sawyer turned away from her a little bit to try and grab it again, and she swatted his arm.
“You’ll make it worse,” she warned. “That’s more than a splinter. That’s just about a stab wound.”
He shot her an irritated look. “It’s a splinter.”
“Then go ahead.” She crossed her arms over chest. “Let’s see who’s right.”
She raised an eyebrow, and he met her gaze, then looked down at his palm. Blood had appeared at the site of the puncture. Olivia had dealt with similar small injuries at the hospital, and when the patient had mucked around, trying to pull the shard out themselves, it always made the retrieval process that much harder...and more painful.
“You said I was the bossy one,” he muttered.
“I didn’t say you were the only bossy one,” she replied with a slow smile. “I’m a nurse. It comes with the territory. I’m also right most of the time. You hate that, for the record. But it doesn’t change facts.”
Sawyer smiled reluctantly. “I do hate this.”
“Me being right, or just the whole situation?” she asked.
“Mostly you being right,” he said, but his steely gaze had relaxed, and he glanced over to where the toddlers where playing by the fence.
“Come inside. You’ve
