Free The Circle Eight: Tobias by Emma Lang Page A

foolishness.” There was the Tobias she knew. Obnoxious and bossy.  
    She wet his hair and then soaped her hands. Rebecca tried to be as gentle as she could, apologizing every few seconds when he flinched.  
    “Hell, woman, just scrub my damn head. I ain’t gonna break. Jesus, you’re too nice.”  
    Rebecca frowned at his closed eyes, then stuck out her tongue. “You’re rude.”  
    “Why are you still talking? Just get on with it.”  
    That did it. She scrubbed at his scalp with her nails, digging in to loosen what was probably months of dirt. This time he didn’t complain. He shut his mouth and allowed her to work. Something about Tobias’s behavior always set her off. None of her brothers and sisters bothered her the way he did. No matter how much she told herself to resist the elemental reaction he pulled from her, she couldn’t.  
    She rinsed his hair, but managed to remain gentle although she wanted to smack him. He closed his eye while she cleaned his face, but she knew the soap burned in his wounds. His right eye was swollen shut so she took special care with it. Anybody would have done the same. At least that’s what she told herself.  
    It couldn’t possibly be because she still loved the bossy oaf. He could never be the man she married. Not anymore. Too much time, and too much heartache, had passed. Rebecca told herself that more than once, but she repeated it again to her heart, in case the errant organ actually listen to her.  
    After she patted his face and hair dry, she reapplied a clean bandage, pleased she had avoided his lower half. Perhaps it wouldn’t be as disconcerting as she expected.  
    “Let’s move you back down now.” She kept her voice as neutral as possible. He took hold of the cot and pulled himself down although his shoulder was a mass of bruises. He groaned again. “Stop doing everything you can to cause yourself pain. I can move you.”  
    He made a dismissive sound. “You’re a little thing, Becca. You could hardly lift my leg much less move my carcass.”  
    She counted to ten and glanced down at the blanket and saw a very clear ridge of arousal beneath the wool.  
    Sweet heavens.  
    He had an erection. Because she had washed him and scrubbed his scalp. How was she to react to his blatant reaction? She pulled the hip bath toward the bottom of the cot. The sooner started, the sooner finished.  
    Rebecca wrung out the rag and took a deep breath. She had bathed patients before. None of them had a history with her like Tobias did. Perhaps he didn’t need to wash below his waist. She hesitated, her hand poised above the blanket.  
    “It won’t bite.”  
    Rebecca jumped, dropping the rag back into the water and splashing her legs. She let loose an impatient grunt and reached for the rag. “That’s not reassuring.”  
    He barked a sad sounding laugh. “It has a mind of its own. I ain’t got a shred of control.”  
    She believed him. He drank liquor, that much was obvious, and perhaps he had no control over that urge either. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d seen a man imbibe to excess. Sometimes their habit ended in tragedy, and other times in a lonely, quiet grave. She didn’t want either for Tobias.  
    “Sometimes you have to ask for help.” She paused, meeting his one-eyed gaze.  
    “Sometimes you can’t.” His voice was low enough she barely heard him.  
    Although he made her angry enough to bite a penny nail in half, and he had an abrupt way of speaking to everyone around him, he was a good man at his core. He spent months working at the Circle Eight to rebuild it after he burned it to the ground. She’d seen firsthand how much he loved his family. No matter what he said, his actions spoke to who he was. That was the man she had fallen in love with.  
    “Then others have to know when to give you help, like it or not.” She pulled the blanket back and ignored the very hard cock staring her, quite literally, in the face.  
    He