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“Okay.”
“Wait here, and I’ll grab the first aid kit.” Ryker slips into the bathroom, so I take a seat at the small two-seater table in his kitchen.
After a few moments, he comes out and kneels in front of me. He clicks the end of a pen light and shines it into my eyes to check my pupils, then dabs a white cloth with rubbing alcohol and presses it to the side of my face.
Sharp, stinging pain shoots through the side of my head, and I suck in a ragged breath.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“No, it’s fine.”
“I wanted to make sure there wasn’t any glass in it.” He stretches up to lean in close and studies the wound on the side of my head. Even kneeling, he’s taller than me. And when he pulls back, and our gazes hold, whatever is building between us snaps like a live wire in a thunderstorm. “It’s clean,” he whispers.
“Thanks.”
“Your lip looks okay, too.”
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything in there.”
Ryker nods and pulls back. “What else hurts?”
“My thigh, but I think it’s just a bruise. I can check it when I shower and let you know if it’s worse.”
“Okay.”
“Can I check you?” I ask. “I am a nurse after all.”
Ryker grins, and my stomach flips. What is happening to me? Is it just because he’s handsome? Strong? Or is it something more?
“Here you go.” He offers me the pen light, so I click it on, then place one hand on the side of his bearded face as I check both of his pupils. When they react fine, I turn the light off and take a fresh piece of gauze, dab some rubbing alcohol onto it, and press it to his eyebrow, where his nasty cut is.
He doesn’t even make a sound.
“Are you impervious to pain? Because you’re making me look like a baby.”
He chuckles, and because of our close proximity, the deep baritone rumbles against my legs. “This isn’t the worst I’ve dealt with.”
“I saw your scars,” I admit. “The other day when you were in the ring with Zane. Looks like you’ve been through a lot.”
“Something like that.”
“Yet you have faith.”
Ryker smiles. “I didn’t have faith for a long time.” He pulls away and cleans up the first-aid kit.
“What changed?”
“It was one of my first deployments. We were on patrol and came across this local man who was struggling to load a bunch of boxes of food into a cart. We stopped to help, and he looked at me in this way that just—I still get chills when I think about it. He told me that God loved me and that He was seeking a relationship with me.”
“Oh wow.”
“Yeah, what was really strange is that I’d actually prayed for the first time that morning, and when I heard nothing, I decided that I really was all alone. Anyway, when he told me that, I knew that God was there and listening. So, I bought a Bible, and I started studying.”
“Ryker, that’s—what an amazing testimony.”
He smiles. “It’s all God. I still struggle from time to time. There are still weights holding me down, but I’m trying.”
“I grew up a Christian,” I tell him. “But when my dad left, I watched my mom completely and utterly fall apart. I remember asking Grandpa why God would let that happen. He told me that we can’t see all of the pieces, but sometimes things have to fall apart for other things to come together.”
