“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Leah cried. She looked panicked. He spotted a trickle of blood between her fingers where she had her right hand clamped around her left forearm, just below her elbow. “It was an accident, Sir! I was trying to get the pitcher down so I could make your sangria!”

“It’s okay, hon.” He forced his voice to stay calm and steady. “I know it was an accident. I can see that. Don’t move.” She was in bare feet, and he had already kicked his shoes off. The kitchen floor was a minefield of red glass. The stepstool and open top cabinet door were more proof of her intentions. “Stay right there. Do not move.” Seth raced to the front door, yanked on his sneakers, then carefully stepped into the kitchen.

Glass crunched under his feet. Now she trembled, and he worried about her going into shock. “How bad is your arm?”

“I’m scared to look. It hurts really bad. I didn’t mean to do it, I swear! I lost my balance when I was stepping down. I guess I hit the pitcher on the counter.” The slate counters looked totally stunning but were fucking murder on anything breakable. He’d already broken two glasses and a plate himself. A few pieces of glass on the counter also supported her story.

The sight of her blood turned his stomach. He tried for a masterly tone. “Calm down, love. You’re okay. It was just an accident.”

She nodded, her eyes tearing up.

He grabbed a dish towel off the counter. She lifted her fingers enough he could slip it around her arm. From the amount of blood, he suspected she’d need stitches.

Fuck. Great. Kaden goes off for two fucking days, and I have to take her to the ER. Fuck!

“Hold that there. Don’t let go.”

She nodded.

He carefully scooped her into his arms and stopped at the doorway so he could kick his shoes off. He didn’t want to track glass through the house. Seth carried her down to the master bathroom and set her on the counter. First things first, he checked her feet for glass so she could walk. She had two scratches along the tops of her feet, probably from bouncing glass, and one small shard still embedded in the side of her foot. She told him where the tweezers were, and he removed the glass from her foot.

Next, her arm. Yes, it was deep, fortunately not into a vein, from the looks of it. He put the dish towel back and clamped her hand over it.

“Okay. Listen to me. You have to get stitches.” Her eyes welled with tears, and he shook his head. “This was an accident, love. Stop worrying. Master will not be mad at you. If anything, he’ll be pissed at me because I’d asked you to make the damn sangria in the first place.”

At that she smiled a little.

“We’ve got to get you dressed. And that”—he pointed at her collar—“has to come off.” While it was the thin leather collar, and her long hair hid the locking buckle in the back so she could wear it in casual situations in public without worry, there was no way in hell he could take her to the ER wearing it.

She blanched, vigorously shaking her head. “No! Master put it on me. I can’t take it off!”

Fuck.

“Leah,” he sternly said, “Master told you I’m in charge and you listen to me, right?”

She finally nodded, her eyes wide and brimming with tears.

He kept his voice firm and stern. “It has to come off. I take you to the hospital wearing that, they’ll call in the cops to ask how the fuck you got hurt and accuse me of doing it. Where’s the key?”

She finally answered him. “On a silver chain, in the top left dresser drawer. My day collar is there, too.” The locking silver necklace looked completely harmless in vanilla situations.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll put your day collar on you. Okay?”

She relaxed a little. He needed to speed this up because blood had started seeping through the dish towel. He had to drive her to the emergency room and get her taken care of. He rushed into the bedroom, found the key and her silver necklace, and made the switch. Then he guided her into the bedroom and helped her get dressed. He had to change the sodden dish towel out and grabbed a bath towel for her to hold around her arm.

“Where’s your purse?”

“Living room.”

He found it and carried her out to the Lexus, ran back inside to grab his cell phone and lock the house. Now the adrenaline crash hit him and he had to focus to keep his hands from shaking as he got into the car and started it.

Leah looked pale. “Talk to me, love,” he said.

“It hurts.”

“I know it does, love.”

“I have to call Master and tell Him. I have to tell Him immediately when something happens.”

“Hey, kiddo, I was right there. Remember, I’m in charge. It’s okay. I’ll call him once we get you taken care of.”

She nodded and rested her head against the seat.

He gently slapped her thigh. “Don’t close your eyes.” They were ten minutes from the closest hospital. He didn’t know if she’d go into shock over something like this, but he wasn’t taking any chances. “Stay awake. Don’t go to sleep.”

She nodded again, but he didn’t like her pale skin tone.

At the hospital he parked, then carried Leah into the ER. The triage nurse took one look at her arm and immediately directed them back to a bed. Within five minutes Leah was being examined and sutured. At least she’d kept enough of her wits about her to drop the formal act.

Seth handled registration and insurance for her while she was being treated. Kaden had set up medical power of attorney paperwork already, but Seth never imagined he’d need it for Leah. When asked his relation to the patient, Seth took a nervous breath.

“Family caretaker,” he answered, handing over folded copies of the paperwork from his wallet. It was a term Kaden had come up with, thinking it would cause them the least amount of grief and raise the fewest eyebrows over the next several months.

Apparently, it was more than good enough for the administrator. She made copies and returned them to him without further questions. By the time he returned to Leah’s side the doctor was almost finished suturing her. She’d gouged a deep, four-inch-long gash along the meaty part of her inner arm. With a shot of pain meds to calm her, Seth asked her for more details.

“It happened so fast. I was stepping down, and I lost my balance. I was holding the pitcher in my right hand, by the handle. When it broke I still had the chunk of handle in my hand, and I think that’s what got me. Glass was bouncing all over the place.”

That made sense. “I’ll call Kaden in a few minutes. You relax. That’s an order.”

She closed her eyes and nodded.

They wanted to keep an eye on her for a little while. While her blood pressure had stabilized, it had been on the low side when he brought her in. He agreed with that and stepped outside to make the call he didn’t want to make. By this time it was after six. He knew Kaden would be out of his meetings.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Seth closed his eyes. “Do not freak out on me.”

“What?”

“I’m serious, dude. Do not freak out on me.”

“You’re freaking me out now, goddamn it! Is Leah okay?”

“She’s fine. There was an accident. It was just an accident.”

“Oh my God! What happened?”

Seth related the incident. Kaden sounded shaky. “I’ll try to get a flight home tonight.”

“No, she’s okay. Seriously. She’s fine. Once they release her I’ll get her home and put her to bed. They’ve given her pain meds. I’ve got a fucking mess to clean up in the kitchen.”

Kaden hesitated. “Are you sure it was an accident?”

“Yeah. I know it sounds coincidental, but if you’d seen the way she was freaking out—”

Kaden breathed a deep sigh of relief Seth heard on his end. “Okay. If she was upset then it probably was an accident. If it’s not an accident, if she does something on purpose, she tries to hide it and blow it off. At least, she used to.”

“No, dude, I’ll swear it was an accident. I’d asked her to mix a pitcher of sangria.”

“Aw, it was the red pitcher she broke?”

He expected a lot of comments but not that. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“She always uses that one to make your sangria. She likes the way the orange slices look inside it. It’s one of her favorites. Damn, I’ll have to see if I can find her another one.”

Seth sat on the curb, his own stress catching up with him. “She panicked when I told her I had to take her collar off.”

“Poor thing. As soon as you can, I want to talk to her. Tell her I’m not mad at her.”

“Let me get back in there and check on her.”

She was dozing but opened her eyes when he took her hand. “Did you talk to Master?” she whispered.

He nodded. “He’s not upset. He told me to tell you he’s not mad.” She closed her eyes again, and a tear rolled down her cheek, scaring Seth. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was an accident, Leah. Accidents happen.”

“But now He’s worried. He shouldn’t be stressed in His condition.”

Danger!

“Love”—Seth made sure to use a low, firm voice—“calm down. He’s not stressed. He was worried until I told him the whole story. He knows it was an accident.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, he’s not happy you got hurt, but he’s not stressed like that. He’s okay. Shit happens.”

She nodded.

She was released a half hour later. Once they were in the car, Seth dialed Kaden and handed Leah his phone.

He watched as she closed her eyes and talked with Kade. Her left arm was bandaged, and she needed to get it checked in a couple of days. He had two prescriptions to fill for her, an antibiotic and pain meds. He pulled into a pharmacy and left Leah in the car, still talking to Kaden on the phone while he was inside waiting for the medicine.