Watch Me (Last Stand #3)(7)
Author: Brenda Novak

He started toward it but Amy was closer. She got there first and nudged it with her toe. “He hit her with this?”

Much to Cain’s relief, Amy seemed to have regained control of her reactions. “He used more than his fists.”

“The fact that he used a convenient weapon suggests he didn’t go after her with the intention of killing her.”

“He had a shovel. I don’t carry a shovel in my trunk. Do you?”

Amy bent to pick up the club, but he stopped her. “Leave it.”

“Why?”

“He probably threw it down to free his hands for digging. Then he heard the dogs.”

“So what does it matter if I touch it? I can’t get prints off a log.” Crouching, she plucked a long, black strand of hair from the bark and held it up.

The sight of Sheridan’s hair and blood on the end of that club called to mind the sight of her lying on the ground—and the feel of her against his bare chest, so limp in his arms. “It would carry his scent.”

“As well as hers,” Amy argued. “How can the dogs distinguish between the two?”

“The same way they distinguish between all other scents.” Kneeling beside her, Cain called his hounds over and gave them each a good sniff. Then he told them to “find” and sent them into the woods.

Koda started tracking right away. He led the others uphill, which surprised Cain. He’d expected them to go east, toward the road.

He hurried after the dogs, with Amy jogging behind him. She caught up only when he stopped to examine several footprints on the muddy bank of Old Cache Creek. “He crossed here,” he said, and ordered the dogs to do the same.

Maximillian didn’t like the water. He hung back until the last moment but plunged in when he saw that even Cain was going to wade through it.

“What was he doing way up here?” Amy called after them.

Cain didn’t respond. He was scanning the area as he cleared the creek, trying to think like the man who’d used that club.

“Maybe he’s some vagabond who’s been camping out in these mountains,” she suggested, answering her own question.

No, it was someone from Whiterock. Cain’s gut told him that. The shooting, the rifle, the beating—there was some connection. “He isn’t a camper. He ran this way because he thought I might come after him.”

“Did you?”

“No, I went for help. When he figured out I wasn’t coming, he probably wound back to the road and drove off.”

“Maybe he fell and got hurt and is still out here,” she said.

Cain cringed to think that Amy was the best the Whiterock police had to offer. “He wouldn’t have come back for his shovel if that was the case.”

The color in her cheeks camouflaged some of her freckles as she wiped the sweat from her temple and moved farther up the bank of the creek they’d just crossed. “Then this is a waste of time. I say we head over to the road and check for tire imprints before too many other vehicles go through and destroy our chances.”

When she started off in that direction, he called to the dogs, but only Maximillian and Quixote joined him. Cain whistled, giving Koda a second command, but the black-and-tan didn’t return for another minute or two. Head and tail lowered apologetically, he finally came to a stop about five feet from Cain—but Cain realized there’d been a reason for the delay.

“Whatcha got, boy?”

Creeping forward, head still down, Koda dropped a shiny object at Cain’s feet.

Cain glanced over his shoulder at Amy’s retreating figure. For once, she wasn’t watching him. She was leading Maximillian and Quixote toward the dirt road that led past his place to Levi Matherley’s.

Keeping his back to her, Cain bent to retrieve the shiny object. He hoped it was a piece of jewelry belonging to the man who’d attacked Sheridan, and that it could eventually be traced to its owner.

But the reality made his jaw sag. It was his watch. The one he’d left on his nightstand before bed last night.

“You coming?” Amy called.

Cain shoved the watch into his pocket. The man who’d nearly killed Sheridan had been in his house while he was driving to the hospital.

4

Sheridan couldn’t open her eyes. The light was too blinding, too white. But she was fairly certain she wasn’t having a near-death experience. There was no tunnel, no loving Christlike figure waiting to embrace her. The air was cold, she could hear distant movement and voices, and she could smell antiseptic and just a hint of…cologne?

Raising her eyelids slightly, she looked through her lashes to see walls covered with blue-and-yellow wallpaper. Judging by the IV tube going into her arm, the TV suspended from the ceiling, the rails on the bed and the rolling metal tray down by her feet, she was in a hospital. Which hospital, she had no idea. But that seemed less important at the moment than the fact that she wasn’t alone. A man stood at the window, gazing out. She was pretty sure he was the source of the cologne.

There was something unsettling about that scent, about this man’s presence….

Did she know him? He seemed vaguely familiar. But she couldn’t recall a time or a place or a name. He had unruly dark hair and a lean, muscular build with broad shoulders and golden tanned skin. Well-toned arms showed beneath the short sleeves of a white T-shirt, and—she tilted her head for a clearer view—he looked better in a pair of jeans than any man she’d ever seen.

She doubted that detail would’ve occurred to her if she were lying at death’s door.

He shifted, seemed to catch sight of her from the corner of his eye and turned.

She knew him, all right. She would never forget that face. It was Cain Granger.

“Thank God,” he breathed and came immediately to her bedside.

The relief and concern in his manner made her wonder if she’d missed the chapter where they’d become friends.

“What…happened?” The words had to be forced from a tight, scratchy throat, but she didn’t hurt anymore. The pain had been replaced with a sort of weightless euphoria that suggested she was under the influence of some very strong medication.

He took her hand and toyed with the tips of her fingers as if they knew each other much better than they did. “You don’t remember?”

Sheridan couldn’t put the whole story together, but fragments of various scenes flitted through her mind—a pair of muddy boots, a shovel, the rain. Those were the bad memories. Then there were some that, except for the pain, wouldn’t have been bad at all: a rock-solid chest and sinewy arms cradling her, a soft bed and the same scent she’d identified when she woke up a moment ago. “You… I was…in your bed.”