Watch Me (Last Stand #3)(26)
Author: Brenda Novak

The honesty of that admission surprised Sheridan. And now that she knew, she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He’d done so much to help her. Did it really matter whether he’d indulged in a second of unnecessary gawking?

They were dealing with such subtle nuances here—did he see her or did he see her? And he was right; it wasn’t as if she could’ve dressed herself. “Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

“Why’d you look?”

“Are you kidding?” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Because I’m not dead from the waist down, that’s why.”

“Okay.” She was ready to drop the subject. She’d asked. He’d told her. It was over.

But then she noticed that he was watching her with a contemplative expression. “Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?” he said.

The way his voice had lowered, grown huskier, made Sheridan more alert than she’d been since the attack. “What do I really want to know?”

A crooked smile lifted one side of his mouth. “If I liked what I saw.”

“You’re wrong. I don’t want to know that,” she said. “I have no illusions that I look good. I’m a mess of scrapes and bruises. That’s partly why I’m so…uncomfortable with the idea. I feel…vulnerable.”

His eyebrows went up. “It wasn’t the scrapes and bruises that caught my attention.”

Damn it, he was doing it to her again. She felt the same giddy excitement she’d experienced at sixteen, when she’d been wading in the shallow end of the public pool and his eyes had flicked over her as he sat on the lifeguard tower.

“You’re saying you did like what you saw?”

His eyes glittered with enough predatory interest to make the tips of her br**sts tingle. “Every inch of it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she said with a laugh. “You’d like a walrus if you thought you might get lucky.” It was a defense mechanism, a way to depersonalize the attraction between them. And it worked even better than she’d hoped. The sexual energy in the room vanished as quickly as his smile.

“I’ll get your breakfast,” he said.

Cain had a chamomile salve he wanted to put on Sheridan’s bruises but after their conversation this morning he preferred she be awake when he did it. He wasn’t particularly proud of having looked at her while she had her clothes off last night, and he knew it would be smarter not to risk further temptation.

Problem was, she slept all afternoon and, after completing the reports that had to be turned in to the Wildlife Resources Agency, and watching a baseball game on TV, he was going stir-crazy. Normally, he didn’t spend much time indoors. If he wasn’t out at his clinic or somewhere else on the property, he was in the forest, patrolling the campsites, collecting fees, leaving vaccine-laced bait to prevent rabies, especially in foxes and raccoons. He also tracked various animals reported as unusually aggressive and made sure there weren’t any picnic leftovers to draw the bears. But whoever had attacked Sheridan was still out there somewhere, so Cain didn’t dare leave her alone. And he couldn’t ask Owen to come back and sit with her. After what Owen had told her last time, he knew Sheridan wouldn’t want to see him again.

Hell, he didn’t want to see Owen after what he’d learned.

He was just trying to decide if Koda and Maximillian would be enough protection for Sheridan so he could go to the clinic for a while when he heard a car outside. Relieved that he’d get a break in the monotony, he went to the window, but when he saw it was Amy he had to admit he preferred the monotony.

Remembering the condoms in his truck, he grimaced as he watched her get out of her cruiser. She looked very official approaching the house with her thumbs hooked in her belt, but Cain found it rather frightening that Whiterock trusted her with a gun. He never knew which Amy he’d meet when she showed up—the one who wanted him back or the one who wanted to kill him because she couldn’t have him back.

He swung the door open before she could knock. “Any news?”

“A little.” Her lips pursed as her eyes swept over him, no doubt taking in his mussed hair, Tennessee Titans jersey, well-worn jeans and the fact that he hadn’t shaved. “Sleeping late?”

“Working from home.”

“How’s Sheridan? She remember anything?”

She remembered the camper. “No. But she’s improving. What have you found?”

“I’d like to tell you both at the same time. Can I see her?” She gave him a cynical smile. “Or do you have her chained to the bed?”

Cain lowered his voice in case Sheridan had heard the signs of a visitor and was starting to rouse. “I don’t appreciate what you left in my truck,” he said. Under other circumstances, he wouldn’t have mentioned it. It was easier to ignore Amy than get involved in her psycho bullshit. But he was just bored enough to be open to an argument.

Her eyes, surrounded by the usual thick layer of eye shadow and mascara, narrowed slyly. “What’d I leave in your truck?”

“At Sheridan’s uncle’s place? While I was getting her things?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was with my brother the day you went there.”

“Quit pretending,” he said. “I know it was you. There was a note, for God’s sake.”

“Did I sign the note?”

“You didn’t have to. I don’t know anyone else who’d present me with thirty-six condoms.”

She laughed as if the jig was up. “Then I guess my next question is whether or not you’ve got any left.”

“Give me a break. I haven’t been with anyone in over three years.”

She hesitated, but didn’t have a chance to react before Sheridan called out from the other room.

“Cain?”

“She’s awake. Let’s hear what you’ve found,” he said to Amy and led her into the bedroom.

Sheridan was more than a little surprised to see Amy Smith—Amy Granger, she corrected herself—walk into the bedroom wearing a self-satisfied smile. In the hospital, Amy had seemed terrified of Sheridan’s spending time with Cain.

Something had changed. Sheridan hoped Amy had uncovered evidence that would eventually reveal who’d attacked her, but she didn’t get the impression that was the case.

“Amy.”

Amy nodded. “Sheridan. How’re you feeling?”