Watch Me (9 page)

This time the phone rang only once before Owen’s wife picked up. “Hello?”

“Lucy?”

“Cain!”

He heard the smile in her voice. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” she said, “but I hear you have your hands full.”

“Not really. I’m usually trying to heal something. A woman isn’t so different.” Well, maybe this woman was…

“From what Owen says, we’re not talking about a sprained ankle. I can’t believe anyone in Whiterock would hurt her like that.”

“I wish I knew who it was.”

“I do, too.”

“Is Owen around?”

“He’s in the bedroom. Just a minute.”

A moment later, Cain heard her voice again. “Here he is.”

“Take care,” he said and the phone was transferred to his stepbrother.

“What the hell did you say to Sheridan?” Cain asked before Owen could say a word.

There was a long silence.

“Owen?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You told her you were in the camper.”

“I didn’t tell her I was
in
the camper. I told her I saw her go in with you.”

“She thinks you were inside, watching.”

“I wasn’t.”

Cain hoped to God he could believe him. “So why bring it up?”

“Will you answer one question for me?” Owen asked.

“I’m pretty pissed off. That depends on what it is.”

“How’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Get her to give it up to you? She hadn’t even
kissed
a guy before you came along.”

Cain had been her first everything. But Owen didn’t sound as if he was speaking from conjecture or what he knew of her reputation. He seemed too sure for that. “What makes you think she’d never been kissed?”

Several seconds ticked by before Owen answered. Obviously, he’d heard the fresh suspicion in Cain’s voice.

“I intercepted a note to one of her friends,” he said at last.

“Which friend?”

“I don’t remember. Maybe it was Lauren Shellinger. She and Lauren hung out a lot.”

He was making it up. Cain could tell. “No, Owen. She told me that night. She told me that she’d never been kissed the way I kissed her, and you know that because you were there. Isn’t that right?”

No response was as good as a confession.

Cain dropped his head in his free hand. “You were inside.”

“I didn’t dare say anything at the time, Cain. I would’ve blown it for you.”

“How come we didn’t see you?”

“I was in the bathroom.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Cain had enough regrets about that incident without this. “You think I cared more about scoring than her privacy? Or the fact that you were far too young to be exposed to that kind of intimacy?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I was glad you’d finally deigned to notice me, that you’d invited me to go with you. The last thing I wanted was to ruin your fun.”

“So why mention it now? You haven’t said a word for twelve years, Owen. Why did you have to let us know at all?”

When his stepbrother paused again, Cain suddenly thought of one very viable reason. “Wait a second… Dad thinks I killed Jason over Sheridan. He’s telling you this, and you’re remembering what you saw in that camper, and you’re beginning to believe it.”

“I
don’t
believe it,” he protested.

If that was true, he wouldn’t have brought it up. Without Jason, what’d happened between Cain and Sheridan would have no more bearing on their lives today than Cain’s experience with any other girl.

“Why’d you talk to Sheridan about it?” he pressed. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I wanted to know how she felt about you, that’s all. How involved you two were, if you had something going back then that no one knew about. Besides what I saw, I mean,” he added awkwardly.

“That was a one-time encounter,” Cain said.
The most humiliating moment of my life.
“I wasn’t the least bit jealous that she was with Jason.”

“You’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Early this morning, Maureen Johansen told Ned that you were at Rocky Point the night Jason was shot.”

Cain stood so abruptly, his dogs scattered. “A lot of us spent our weekends at Rocky Point. That’s part of what made Jason’s murder so damn shocking.”

“She thinks you saw Sheridan with Jason and it upset you. She said you were acting strange when you realized they were together. She said you even wanted to leave early.”

It was true. For all his supposed indifference toward her, it’d bothered Cain to know she was with his stepbrother. But a goody-two-shoes cheerleader wasn’t his type. Once he’d been with her, he knew she was as innocent as she appeared to be, and he wasn’t interested anymore. Maybe
he
was self-destructing, but there was no need to take her with him. There were too many other girls to mess around with, willing, available girls who didn’t have a reputation to protect.

Cain had hoped Sheridan would go on with her life as if the camper incident had never happened. He’d assumed that as long as she kept her mouth shut no one would know, because he certainly wasn’t telling. But only weeks later, she and his stepbrother were shot and the mistake he’d made with Sheridan went beyond taking her virginity. Jason wouldn’t have been there without her. Rocky Point was for rebels. It wasn’t Jason’s scene, or Sheridan’s either, which was how Cain knew she’d been making a statement directed at him.

“And Maureen got all that from
what?
I didn’t even speak to her that night.”

“It’s the ballistics tests on that rifle—and the attack on Sheridan. It has everyone stirred up. And Ned and Amy aren’t helping.”

“If Ned thinks I’m the one who hurt Sheridan, why’d he let me take her home?”

“He said it was her choice.”

So the suspicion lingered. Despite the mysterious man who’d pushed and shoved his way out of the hospital. What, did Ned think Cain had paid someone to run through the hospital wearing a wig? “This is crazy,” he muttered.

“Cain?” Sheridan’s voice broke his concentration. It was reedy, thin, but filled with emergency.
“Cain?”

Something was wrong. “I gotta go.” Hitting the Off button without listening for Owen’s response, he charged into the house, tossing the phone on the entry table as he ran.

“I’m here,” he called and pushed the bedroom door open to find her lying on the floor. “What’s wrong? What are you doing out of bed?”

“I have to…the toilet. I’m…sick.”

Oh, boy. She was having a reaction to the meds.

Scooping her into his arms, he barely reached the bathroom before she started to vomit. “Go out,” she said and weakly waved him away as she heaved.

But he couldn’t leave her. She hardly had the strength to hold herself up. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said and supported her weight until she’d finished vomiting. By then, she lay pale and limp in his arms.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, smoothing her hair off her sweat-damp face. “You’re going to be okay.”

A tear slid down her cheek, but she let her head fall onto his chest.

“Let’s get you back in bed.”

When he lifted her, she made a feeble attempt to resist. “No…not like this. I need…a bath.”

But she wasn’t strong enough to take one, and she wouldn’t appreciate having him perform such a service.

After a moment of indecision, he set her on the bed while he collected the shampoo and soap, toothbrush and toothpaste. Then he carried her out of the house, across the clearing and down behind the clinic to the swimming hole created by a small, clear stream. It wasn’t exactly a bath, but he knew the water would clean her and cool her at the same time.

Wading in, clothes and all, he let the water lap around them both.

T
he water soaked Sheridan’s hospital gown, making it cling to her, but she didn’t care. She needed the change of scenery, the chance to escape her bed.

With Cain’s arms holding her at the knees and shoulders, she leaned back and let the current comb through her hair, loosening the dirt, cooling her hot scalp. Below her was nothing but water, above her an endless black sky shimmering with stars that looked like crushed diamonds. Cain was the only solid object in her world. Without him, she’d sink or drift away.

“Thank you,” she said as he sat on a rock ledge and washed her hair.

He didn’t answer, but when he was finished, he helped her brush her teeth.

The fact that it was Cain who’d stood with her through the worst days of her life made her feelings toward him even more confusing, more complex. Finally, her conscience overcame her desire to pretend she’d never mentioned their time together in the camper.

“Cain?”

He gazed down at her, his expression lost in shadow.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I…I didn’t mean what I said to you earlier.” But that was as far as she could go. She couldn’t admit how much that night had meant to her. She was still embarrassed that, thanks to her naiveté, she’d fallen so hard. He’d laugh if he knew she’d pined for him until she was at least twenty-three.

“Forget it.” His words sounded matter-of-fact, not grudging, but something had changed. He was formal, polite, kind and above all efficient—but the friendship that’d begun in the hospital room the night he’d stayed with her had been destroyed. He’d raised his defenses. He seemed…wary.

“I was upset about Owen,” she tried to explain.

“I know. It doesn’t matter. It was twelve years ago.”

But it did matter. And it seemed like only yesterday.

Heal. That’s all you should worry about for now. Heal so you can find the man who hurt you and put him away.

When Cain took Sheridan into the water, he hadn’t thought about how he was going to get her dry. He hadn’t remembered a towel. And the medication overtook her before he could bring her back to the house. She was limp in his arms, soaking wet, the ends of her hair dragging in the water.

“Sheridan?” Her head rolled onto his arm when he tried to make her look at him. “Can you hear me?”

No response.

Once he reached the back porch and stood there dripping, he admitted he had no choice but to change her. He couldn’t put her to bed in a wet hospital gown.
And he couldn’t leave her on the bathroom floor until she woke up.

Carrying her inside, he placed her on his leather couch. Then he changed into dry clothes, scavenged a clean pair of boxers and a T-shirt from his drawers for her and returned to get rid of that hospital gown.

He’d told himself he’d do this quickly and efficiently, like a doctor or a nurse. Dressing her was a practical matter—as long as he wasn’t ogling her in the process. But the sight of her lying naked in front of him hit him like a right hook to the jaw. He hesitated even though he had the T-shirt ready in his hands—and let his gaze move quickly over her.

The phone rang almost at the same moment, jolting him back to his scruples. With a deep breath, he dressed her in the T-shirt and boxers, careful not to touch her anywhere he didn’t absolutely have to.

By the time she was covered, whoever called had hung up, but Cain was grateful for the interruption. He didn’t use sex as a weapon against himself and others anymore, but three years of abstinence was beginning to wear on him.

With a sigh, he got up and returned the call that’d come in. Beth Schlater wanted him to look at her dog in the morning.

But the change in focus didn’t really help. Long after he’d hung up, he was plagued with the vision of Sheridan’s nude body so close to his.

When Sheridan woke up, it was morning, but she wasn’t sure of the day. She tried to do a mental calcu
lation—had it been ten days since the beating?—but she’d been sleeping too much to be able to keep an accurate count.

She could hear Cain in the front yard, talking. The words “bacterial infection” came up and instructions to keep some dog on his medication.

Then everything that’d happened the previous day intruded, and Sheridan groaned. Learning about Owen in the camper. Getting sick and throwing up in front of Cain. Going to the pond and feeling weightless as she floated with only his hands to hold her up.

She tried to remember what’d happened after their swim and couldn’t—but she was no longer in her hospital gown.

“Feeling better?”

It was Cain. He’d come in just as she was kicking off the covers to see what she was wearing. Outside, a car pulled away.

“These are
your
underwear,” she said, stating the obvious.

He seemed reluctant to meet her eyes, which made her a little apprehensive. “I didn’t feel comfortable going through your luggage so I grabbed something of mine,” he explained as he stood on a chair to adjust the air-conditioning vent on the ceiling.

“It was too intrusive to go through my suitcase but you felt comfortable taking off my clothes?”

“You were unconscious. What else was I supposed to do?”

Sheridan didn’t have a good answer. But she still
wanted some assurance that he hadn’t taken advantage of her. “Maybe you could walk me through it.”

He got down from the chair and opened the blinds. “Or maybe we could just forget about it.”

“I can’t forget about it. When I see these clothes, I want to know exactly how I got into them.”

“I put you in some dry clothes. That’s it.” He sat in the chair near the nightstand and locked his hands behind his head. “Would you rather I’d put you to bed wet?”

“No…I…it just feels weird that I can’t remember.”

“You didn’t miss anything.”

“Except that one part.”

“Which part?”

“The part where you took my clothes off.”

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

“Just tell me this much.” She waited for him to meet her eyes. “Did you
touch
me?” She paused. “You know what I mean.”

He frowned as if she’d offended him. “I’m pretty sure that would be a crime.”

“So you didn’t.”

He blew out a sigh and extended his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “Of course not.”

“But you
saw
me.”

Ignoring the comment, he got up to straighten the bedding. “You hungry?”

“I’m starved, but first I want to hear your answer.”

Propping his hands on his hips, he faced her squarely. “Okay. Yes, I saw you. Of course I saw you. I
had
to see you.”

She wished she could read him better. “But you didn’t
look
at me.”

“I didn’t look at you,” he said. But a moment later, he rubbed a hand over his chin and, obviously chagrinned, reversed his answer. “Actually, I did look at you. But only for a second.”

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 breasts 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?”

“Better.”

“What about your memory of the attack? Anything coming back to you?”

“Nothing that’ll help. But I’m hoping you’re here with some good news.”

“That depends on how you look at it.”

“Cain said you couldn’t get any prints from the house.”

“That’s true.”

Sheridan situated her pillows so she could sit higher. “What about trace evidence?”

“We don’t have any of that, either. But we do have a witness.”

“To what?”
Cain asked.

Amy’s pointed gaze cut in his direction. “Someone claims you had an argument with Jason just before he left to pick up Sheridan the night he was shot.”

Cain’s complexion darkened beneath his tanned skin. “Who?”

Triumph filled her voice. “Robert.”

“My stepbrother was thirteen years old at the time.”

“That’s old enough to know what an argument is.”

Cain stepped forward. “He wasn’t even home that night! He was out with my stepfather.”