Big Sky Rancher by Carolyn Davidson

she turned aside, primed to run from the kitchen. Losing her balance, she reached out and her hand touched the top of the stove. The odor of burning flesh rose from her fingers and she held her palm against her breasts, tears flowing down her cheeks.
    â€œLet me see,” Lucas said, ashamed now that he’d caused her to be hurt. “I never meant for you to burn yourself, Jen. Let me look at it.”
    She shook her head and he took charge, knowing that she was hurting, and her actions were those of a woman frightened by the pain that had almost brought her to her knees.
    Seating her on a kitchen chair, he knelt in front of her and held her hand in his, blowing on the skin that was already blistered and puffy. “I’ll get some cold water. It should help with the burning,” he told her. “And then I’ll get out my mother’shome remedy kit. She had stuff in there for any sort of injury. I’m sure there’s something for a burn.”
    â€œButter,” Jennifer croaked. “Spread butter on it.”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so,” he told her. “I seem to remember Ma saying that you can get infection that way, no matter that it’s an old remedy.” He stood and found the clean saucepan she’d used to dip water and filled it half full from the pump. From deep in the ground, the water poured out in a stream that felt like ice to his hands.
    To her damaged skin it would surely be almost intolerable, but it would take the burning away, stop the damage to her flesh before it went any deeper. He placed the pan on the table and lifted her hand, lowering it into the water. She stifled a sob and he knelt in front of her again.
    â€œLeave it in the water, Jennifer. I know it hurts, but it’ll ease the pain. Now, promise me,” he coaxed, and was rewarded by a quick nod.
    He brought the box holding his mother’s salves and potions to the table and opened it wide, allowing Jennifer to look within. “I think this stuff is what she used,” he muttered, lifting a jar from the neat collection. Writing on the label proclaimed it a “burn salve” and he opened it, revealing a thick, brown, pungent ointment that gave promise of being the proper cure.
    He remembered having the stuff applied to his leg once when he’d tarried too long, burning the trash and playing with a stick that glowed with an intense heat. Heat he’d somehow transferred to his own leg by accident. His cries of pain had brought his mother running, and she’d calmly sat him on the porch and dressed his leg with this same potion, covering it with a thin layer of fabric torn from an old sheet.
    Now he addressed the wound in front of him, smearing the ripe-smelling salve on Jennifer’s hand carefully, mindful of the blisters, not wanting to break them. A neat roll of bandage from his mother’s collection came into play as he tore off a strip and folded it, pressing it against her palm, then completed the task by tying strips of the white fabric carefully across her hand.
    â€œThank you,” Jennifer told him, her voice shaking, her eyes still showing evidence of tears. “I didn’t mean to be so clumsy. My father would have said it was because I don’t think before I sail into action.”
    â€œYou were angry,” Luc told her. “And with good reason. I’m sorrier for that than you’ll ever know. It was all my fault, sweetheart.”
    â€œDon’t call me that,” she whispered. “I’m not your sweetheart.”
    â€œAh, but you will be,” he said, correcting her assumption. “You’ll be my sweetheart and my wife one day. Just not right now.”
    â€œYou won’t—” She waved her hand in the general direction of the hallway, where the wide staircase rose to the second floor.
    â€œNo, I won’t,” he told her, the words sour in his mouth. He’d just promised her that she was safe,