I'm Garnet, and the sky over Tallowridge just cracked open like it's been holding a grudge.
Rain comes sideways and I'm halfway up the ladder because that tarp over the grain is my job now.
The tin sheet peels off the roof and comes at my face, and I throw my arm up.
It gets me across the palm. Hot, then wet, then hot again.
Rhett: Garnet! Down! Now!
His voice cuts through the storm and my stomach does the stupid drop it always does.
I get one rung down before my boot slips in the mud.
Then his hand clamps around my arm and he hauls me off the ladder like a sack of feed.
Rhett: You were told to tie that tarp before the front came in.
Rain runs off his jaw and his eyes are gold and furious, and all of it is for me again.
His other hand comes up toward my face fast, and I flinch.
Not a little one. Whole body, head turned, arm up, the flinch of somebody who already knows how it ends.
He goes still as a fence post with his hand hanging in the rain.
Hedda: Oh my god. Look at her. She flinches like a kicked dog.
Hedda: Go on, Rhett, pet the stray. She might piss on your boots.
Cobb studies the mud. Marn finds a problem with his radio. The rain keeps hitting my face while they watch.
Rhett: Say one more word about her and you'll muck pens in this storm till your hands crack open.
Hedda: For fuck's sake. It was a joke.
Rhett: Nobody here is laughing.
The yard goes quiet under the rain, and I hate that his voice does something warm and awful in my chest.
Then he sees my hand. Blood running off my fingers, pink water spinning into the mud.
Rhett: Inside. Move.
He takes my elbow this time, not my arm, careful, and shoves a stool behind my knees with his boot.
Rhett: Sit. Cobb wanted to climb that ladder after you. I sent him to the barn.
Garnet: He was being nice.
Rhett: He was being something. Sit down.
I sit. Not because he told me to. Because my knees are water and the tack room smells like leather and him.
He kneels down in front of me, soaking wet, and turns my hand over in his.
His hands are huge and rough and they go so careful it makes my throat hurt.
Rhett: Fuck. That's deep. You need Dorrit for this.
Garnet: You're doing fine.
Rhett: Don't tell me I'm doing fine. I'm not the one bleeding.
He wraps it slow, one turn at a time, pressing the edge down flat with his thumb.
Then he touches my wrist above the bandage and my whole arm jerks.
Rhett: Easy. I'm not going to hurt you.
I want to believe that so bad my teeth ache.
Garnet: Then stop grabbing me like I'm something you own.
Rhett: I grab you because you keep walking into dumb fucking danger and somebody has to pull you out.
Garnet: That's not a reason. That's an excuse with boots on.
His jaw works like he's chewing on something he can't spit out.
Rhett: You want the truth? You're being watched. That's all this is.
Rhett: I keep you close so I know where you are. Not because I need you.
He says it to the wall, with his fists open and shaking at his sides.
Garnet: Then watch me from further away.
Rhett: No.
One word, flat as a stomped bucket, and it's the most honest thing he's said all night.
Rhett: Door stays latched. If the roof comes off that shed, you come to the barn and you find me first.
Garnet: And if I don't want to find you?
Rhett: Then you'll be cold and stupid somewhere else. I'd rather you were warm and pissed off with me.
He goes out into the rain and I sit there with my bandaged hand on my knee like a fool.
He says he doesn't need me. He says I'm only being watched.
So why were his hands shaking when he wrapped my cut? How long can he call me a burden while he acts like losing me would wreck him?