Well, wasn’t that just great. Ben had left, and now Fiona was stuck with his half-sister whom she had literally only just met. She glanced at the other woman. Cin? What kind of a name was that? She was a tall, curvaceous Amazonian beauty with blue and purple hair and tattoos covering most of her visible skin, and, Fiona was sure, a lot of her non-visible skin, too.

“So, this is pretty awkward, huh?” the other woman said, voicing the opinion that she was trying to keep to herself.

“Yeah.” She sighed. It wasn’t like she was ever going to see the woman again once she was able to get out of the city, so why not be honest? “My whole day has been awkward, to be honest with you. I mean, waking up in a stranger’s apartment in just a sports bra and some leggings? Not my proudest moment. Sorry if I stink. I didn’t get a chance to shower last night before my life went to shit.”

“Ben told me a little about what happened. I’m glad you’re okay. If you want, I can help you shower? I promise to be the soul of discretion and keep my eyes averted.” Cin’s smile was warm and open as she offered her help.

Fiona thought for a moment, but the offer was too good to resist, especially since she felt filthy. “That would be amazing. Thank you.”

“Come on, then, let’s get you up,” she said, extending her hand to Fiona. A snake decorated her skin from her wrist all the way down to the knuckle of her thumb. “You can put all your weight on me. I’m stronger than I look.”

“I like your tattoos,” Fiona said, unsure what the other woman meant by the comment about her strength. Was it a dig at her weight? Or was she just trying to help?

“Thanks!” Cin smiled brightly as she helped Fiona put weight on her good foot.

Pain lanced through her ribs as she straightened, but it was brief, and she was still able to move, which was a relief. As the two of them hobbled toward what she assumed was the bathroom, she couldn’t help but feel like she was invading Ben’s personal space. “Is this really okay? Ben won’t mind?”

“Trust me, sweetie, if the thought would have occurred to him, then he would have helped you in any way he could, but sometimes, especially around beautiful women, his brain doesn’t seem to work correctly.”

“I can’t look that attractive right now,” she said, trying not to pout.

“You do, so don’t worry about it.”

The knob for the shower screeched as Cin twisted it, water gushing out of the large tap. Fiona could already feel the warmth heating up the tiny bathroom, and all she wanted was to stand under the spray and let it wash away the events of the last twenty-four hours.

“You need help getting undressed?”

“Yeah. I don’t know if I can get my sports bra off.”

“Well, let’s start with the T-shirt,” she said, and Fiona dutifully raised her arms as much as she could. Cin tugged and manipulated it so it finally came off, but not without Fiona worrying they were going to tear it. “Yeah, about your bra . . . I don’t know how we are going to do this if you can’t raise your arms. Is it pretty tight?”

“Yeah. It has to be. Otherwise, I am likely to give myself a black eye.” She laughed at the thought, but finding a sports bra when you had large breasts was no joke. The one she had on wasn’t even that good. It more or less mashed her boobs to her chest rather than offering much support.

She raised her arms as much as possible, and Cin’s fingers pulled at the thick band at the bottom, trying to tug it out from under her breasts. When Fiona whimpered in pain, the other woman stopped.

“Listen, I know you’re not going to want to hear this, but I think we need to cut it off. I can’t even pull it out far enough to get it over your boobs without causing you pain, let alone getting it up and over your head and arms.”

“That’s fine. I just want it off more than anything.”

“Okay, you lean against that wall while I find some scissors.” Cin left the small room, and Fiona sagged against the wall opposite the shower where the sink was positioned, thankful that the small cabinet didn’t stretch the length of the space.

A few moments later, Cin was back and brandishing a pair of silver scissors. “I’ll cut up the back, and then you just have to let it fall forward, okay?”

Fiona nodded and felt the cool metal sliding against her skin. As soon as Cin made the first cut, she felt some relief from the pressure of the thick material. “Oh my God, that feels so much better.” She practically moaned as the bra came free from her chest.

Cin gently pushed the material of the straps down her shoulders so that all she had to do was lean forward slightly and the whole thing just slid off. “You okay to get your pants off?”

“Yeah . . .” Fiona thought for a moment and realized that she couldn’t wash her hair if she couldn’t raise her arms. “Would you mind helping me wash my hair?”

“Not at all.”

“Thank you. Seriously, I don’t know what I would have done if you and your brother hadn’t helped me.”

“Half-brother,” the woman absentmindedly corrected. “We’re glad to help.”

“Do you guys share the same mom or dad?” Fiona asked as she stepped under the spray from the shower, thankful that he didn’t have one of the ones that had a bathtub at the bottom, so she only had to hop over a tiny lip, not a big ledge.

“Mother,” Cin said with a tone that implied she and her mother didn’t exactly get along.

Fiona handed her the shampoo and stooped down a little, trying not to be embarrassed that this woman, who was a stranger, could see her naked ass. They chatted for a while about TV and books, and a pang of jealousy and resentment unexpectedly ran through her. She hadn’t been able to have a true friend in a couple years now, not without putting herself and the friend at risk from Tommy’s erratic behavior. The idea of just having a casual friendship with someone had been something she couldn’t consider, not without putting them in danger. It was only now, talking with Cin, that she realized how much she missed it.

“You okay?” Cin asked as she hobbled out of the shower, clutching to her chest the tiny towel that the other woman had found.

“Yeah, just realizing how much I had been missing while I’d been running from Tommy, how much I will miss if he continues to stalk me.”

“He won’t, not for much longer. I can guarantee you that.” There was a surprising amount of anger in the other woman’s voice as she spoke.

When Fiona glanced over at her, she could swear the hazel eyes she’d been looking at not moments before were now black. A shiver ran down her spine, and she looked away. Her anxiety over her ex had to be getting the better of her. There was no other explanation. “What do you mean?” She swallowed, trying to calm the storm that had started within.

“Oh, nothing, just that I’m sure if he’s around when Ben goes back to your place, then he’ll probably get the shit scared out of him.”

“I hope he’s not. I don’t want Ben to get hurt on my behalf. Tommy’s stronger than he looks. Deadlier, too. He’s not safe to be around for any length of time if you’re not on his good side.”

Cin handed her the T-shirt she’d had on earlier and a pair of boxer shorts that she must have scavenged from Ben’s room. The other woman closed her eyes as she stood in front of Fiona and helped her dress as best she could. Once she was decent, she tapped Cin on the shoulder.

As she opened her eyes, there was a buzzing sound from her pocket. She pulled out a slick all-black phone and tapped on the screen. “Oh good, Hal is here,” she said with a smile. “He’s got some talents with healing, so he’ll help your ankle feel better, and your ribs, too, if you want. Think of him like a hedge witch, or an old-school healer. He knows a ton about herbs and ways to heal that don’t involve modern medicines, or at least, not as we know them,” Cin explained as she helped Fiona back over to the couch.

Carefully, she sat back down and grabbed a pillow to cover her bra-less chest while Cin went and opened the door. The man who walked in couldn’t have been farther from what she’d imagined when Cin had said hedge witch. He was a mountain. A walking, talking mountain of a man with long sun-bleached hair and a thick but closely trimmed beard that had the same blond streaks as his hair. He dwarfed Ben, and not just in height, but in breadth, too, or at least, he did from her memory of Ben, not that she’d committed his appearance to memory.

“Fiona? I’m Hal. Ben and Cin told me you needed someone to look at your injuries?” the large man asked as he extended a hand toward her.

She shook it and watched as his hand engulfed her own. “Hi,” she squeaked.

He squatted in front of her while Cin took up residence on the chair Ben had been sleeping on. “Mind if I take a look?”

She shook her head as the memory of Ben standing and stretching from the same chair that his sister now sat in flashed over her mind’s eye, and her blood heated. He really was a devilishly handsome man.

Hal removed a tube from a bag she hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying and squeezed some liquid out onto his hand. “This should help ease the swelling and bruising,” he said as he gently started to rub it all over her foot and ankle.

She closed her eyes and willed herself to relax while he worked. Almost immediately, her ankle started to feel better. The heat and swelling she’d been feeling ever since she woke up seemed to abate ever so slightly. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn there was straight-up magic in his touch. When a sigh escaped her, a flush of embarrassment rose on her cheeks.

Her eyes snapped open, and she looked down at the larger man hovering so completely over her ankle that she couldn’t see what he was doing, but by the time he leaned back, she could see that the swelling had gone down and that the bruise was paler in color.

“Want me to look at your ribs?”

She nodded in shock. Modern medicine couldn’t do things that quickly, so how had the herbs and ointment he’d applied done so much more so quickly?

“I have a soulmate, so you can rest assured that there is nothing sexual about this,” he said, his blue-green eyes radiating with sincerity.

“That’s nice,” she said like an idiot, but what else was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to respond to someone letting her know that they were in no way interested in her?

A smirk briefly crossed Hal’s face, and she was left with complete certainty that his soulmate was a very lucky woman. Carefully, he eased the edge of the T-shirt up just high enough to see the bruised area. He put some more of the ointment onto his hand and began to touch the painful area. As she focused on the sensation, it was like she could feel the pain receding, going down to a tiny point that was barely anything at all.

When he was done, he pulled her shirt back down and said, “You’ll still need to be careful. Keep taking whatever over-the-counter stuff you’ve been taking and try to keep your leg elevated when you are sitting so that the swelling doesn’t come back, and you might want to think about icing your fingers occasionally, but not too much. You don’t want them to get stiff.”

“Is it safe for me to drive?”

“Probably not for a few days.”

“Thank you, really. I appreciate it more than I can express.” It was the truth. She hadn’t had many people be kind to her or generous the way this family had.

Hal nodded at her and took Cin out in the hall to discuss something private. While they were gone, Fiona flexed her ankle up and down and marveled at the lack of pain. It still twinged, so she knew it wasn’t completely healed, but at least she could put some weight on it now.

Fiona leaned back and relaxed against the couch. For the first time in a long time, she felt safe. She knew there was no way for Tommy to track her or tell where she was, and that lifted a surprising amount of weight from her shoulders. A bone-deep tiredness had set in, and now that she was relaxed, she felt the edge of sleep tugging at her.