Her Forgotten Betrayal(19)

“Let me see how deep it is.” He unwrapped her makeshift bandage. The tenderness of the gesture made her go soft deep inside, in the same place that had been terrified when he’d burst into the kitchen like an avenging warrior, wielding a gun. His head bent over her hand. His focus was locked onto her the same way it had been in the parlor.

And somehow, she found herself relaxing into his touch again, into an overwhelming rush of sensation and familiarity that spoke to her of a time before she’d forgotten everything important. When, according to him, she’d once known she could trust him. She’d sent him to check the house while she fiddled with the coffee, more to regain some distance between them than anything else. But as soon as he’d thought she’d needed him, Cole had come running back.

They’d been friends once, and she was unexpectedly dizzy with the rightness of his ease at being part of her midnight meltdown. As if some part of her she couldn’t recall was certain that this was absolutely where they both should be, this man settling on the floor beside her as he tried to take her pain away.

“Cole?” She cringed inwardly. She’d made his name sound fragile, as if she were a terrified girl instead of a grown woman.

“I know,” he said, looking up. “I’m scaring you. We can talk more in a minute. Let me see how badly you’re hurt, in case we need to get you to the hospital. Can you at least do that?”

The request sounded agreeable enough, yet the command underlying his tone left little room for argument. The current of connection running between them threatened to swamp Shaw all over again. The mysteries swirling in her mind made even less sense when she was with him. He was like the riddles in her nightmare, confusing her each time she looked too closely. And her latest enigma had come equipped with a firearm that he’d wielded with an ease that made her suspect he was intimately familiar with all manner of delivering deadly force.

But her choices were to trust him or to call Dawson so the inspector could drive up to check things out. She shuddered. Even if she needed professional medical treatment, she wasn’t certain at this point if she’d merit so much as a blip on the inspector’s radar. His likely conclusion would be that she’d been careless and clumsy. She’d panicked again for no reason. The last thing she could handle until she got her emotions under control was another condescending reminder that her neuroses were a pain in everyone else’s butt. And gun or no gun, Cole’s presence at least made her feel calmer.

He was waiting for her to decide if she wanted his help.

She gave him a hesitant nod. He pulled back the towel. They both winced. The diagonal slice across the pad of her thumb sullenly oozed blood. He prodded it with the corner of the towel, holding her wrist when she would have jerked away.

“Sorry.” He pressed the back of her hand to her lap, covering the cut with the towel, then with her other hand to apply pressure. “It doesn’t look too deep. If we wrap it tightly enough, I don’t think it’s going to need stitches.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s only one way to find out. Keep putting pressure on it. I’ll grab supplies.”

He shoved aside the table knives and forks and spoons that had clattered to the hardwood after she’d dragged the drawer from its glider. He opened the cabinet beneath the sink and pulled out the first-aid kit she’d discovered while cleaning.

“How did you know that was there?” she asked, his familiarity with her unfamiliar surroundings both disturbing and oddly reassuring.

As he resettled beside her on the floor, the impressive muscles in his upper torso and thighs bunched and rolled beneath his black T-shirt and faded jeans. Talk about disturbing. Did everything about this guy have to attract her the way Esmeralda panted for catnip?

Her attention shifted to the bulge at his side near his waist, where he’d tucked his gun away. He caught the direction of her gaze and came up on one knee in front of her. From the plastic kit, he produced a packet of gauze and tore it open with his teeth.

“I grabbed my weapon when I heard you scream the first time,” he said, unwrapping the towel while he talked. “It was the middle of the night, and I was running from my home not sure what to expect. I’m sorry if I scared you, but you sounded terrified just now, and I was on the top floor, so—”

“So you thought you’d swoop into my kitchen like a one-man SWAT team? Who does that?”

He pressed a wad of gauze to her thumb and applied pressure.

“I know it hurts,” he said over her sharp inhale. “It’s the only way we’ll stop the bleeding.”