He hadn’t told her his name. She’d noticed the lapse but could hardly ask for information she wasn’t willing to give in return. She didn’t trust him. At all.
But she had to take life one step at a time...and staying with him for the moment seemed like the most expedient step. If he was part of whatever Kyle had gotten involved in, then she had a chance to find out more. If, by some miracle he really was just a Good Samaritan set in her path, then she’d be a fool not to accept the gift.
And if he was some not-so-good guy who just didn’t happen to be involved with Kyle’s particular group of bad guys—she could be putting herself in an entirely different kind of danger.
None worse than death.
He’d opened the back door and reached for her as though he was going to carry her inside. With a shake of her head, she slid down to the ground herself, telling her damned feet they had no choice but to go to work for her. Surprisingly, they’d complied without complaint.
At least her circulation system was working.
The shack was actually a log cabin. Old, but solid and in great shape. Two rooms off a main L-shaped living and kitchen area. With what was clearly a newly added on full bath off the back. He showed her there first, turning on the light, laying out a towel.
“I’ve got basketball shorts or sweats, and a T-shirt to offer,” he told her, and waited as though expecting more from her.
If it was an invitation to join her, or even gratitude at that point, he’d be disappointed. “The sweats please,” she said, as though certain that was the only choice he’d been offering. Didn’t matter that it was midsummer and Bullhead City more often than not had temperatures above a hundred. He’d driven north. The air was a bit cooler. And basketball shorts were too thin and revealing.
With a nod, he headed across the main room, disappeared through a door just past the couch, and returned with clothes in his hands.
Taking them, she saw the calluses on his hand—a working man’s hand—and felt a twinge of...well...feeling. Something she couldn’t allow. But said, “My name is Kacey. What’s yours?”
She gave, but she had to get, too.
“Devon.” The word was followed by his immediate retreat from the room. He pulled the door closed behind him.
And Kacey braced herself for whatever she was going to find when she peeled the clothes off her aching body.
She’d given up trying to get a count of the bruises, but as she opened the bathroom door fifteen minutes later, Kacey was confident that she could rely on her body to do whatever she’d need it to do over the course of the coming hours. A few minutes sleep would help her figure out just what those to-do items would be. But a girl didn’t always get what she wanted.
By a long shot.
She’d make do.
Stick to the plan. Get the job done.
Which included figuring out what in the hell she was going to do next.
“I’ve got a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup waiting for you in the oven,” Devon said, appearing almost immediately in front of her when she vacated the bathroom. “As soon as we get you checked over you can eat, and then catch some sleep.”
Whoa. Hold on. No checking her over and no one else coming up with her plan, either. “I’m fine.” Though the food smelled good. And if she didn’t have some, she wasn’t going to be any good to herself or anyone else.
If she was not going to die, she had to eat. She headed toward the aforementioned oven.
“Hold it.” The man beat her there. Stood facing her, with his backside pressed up to the appliance. “I don’t mean to be rude, but since I brought you here and you’re in my care, your well-being is partially on me.”
Reaching down to a chair, he pulled out an emergency medical kit. “I’ve got EMT training.” He shrugged. “Not good for business if a client has an issue on the river and I have no means to help.” With a look straight at her, he said, “You let me check your vitals, do a brief check for alarming tenderness and broken bones, and you get all the food you want.”
For a second there Kacey’s normal, easygoing self appeared, ready to agree, but it shut off in a blink. She couldn’t take orders. Couldn’t give up autonomy.
“I have training, too. I already checked for tenderness and broken bones.” She faced him, eye to eye.
“I do the vitals.”
Knowing they were fine would build her confidence. She nodded. Held out her arm for his blood pressure cuff. Submitted to his fingers at her wrist, and his pinpricks of light in her eyes, too. But when he reached for her foot, she fought back. Kicked at him.
Seated in a kitchen chair facing her, he managed to keep a hold of her heel, and she kicked again. A swimmer’s kick. Rhythmic and strong.
Dropping her foot, Devon put both hands on his thighs and leaned back. “I’m not going to hurt you, Kacey. We need to tend to those rope cuts or you’re going to be infected by morning.”
He was right, of course. She’d already figured she’d have to sneak his first aid kit at some point, but...
She wouldn’t be able to see the backs of her ankles as well as he could. Couldn’t tell if she’d picked out all the debris. And wouldn’t be able to dress them as well.
She needed her feet workable.
She was not going to die.
With a nod, and pushing back against any sense of relief, she lifted her foot to him.
She wasn’t appearing woozy. Wasn’t throwing up. Showed none of the signs of dangerous blood loss he’d been taught to recognize.
But as he finished dressing wounds on Kacey’s ankles that could have used a few stitches in a place or two, he said, “You’re exhibiting signs of shock.”
The blood pressure. Discoloration of her fingernails. Among other things. He wasn’t a doctor. Didn’t think she was in any imminent health danger. But...
Taking the warming tray of food from the oven, he placed it in front of her. “I’m guessing your mind is firing at you on all cylinders, but your emotions, not so much.”
If she felt any reaction to his words, she didn’t show it. Because she was a consummate actress? A woman into things that got her kidnapped?
Because she was in shock?
It bugged him that he couldn’t read her.
He could always read people.
Even when he read them wrong, at least he’d gotten the read.
Grabbing his own sandwich and bowl of soup, he sat down across the table from her. “What evidence did you turn in?”
She didn’t even glance up. “Why do you live all alone in the middle of nowhere?”
He got the message. He had to give to get.
And he might give and not get.
“I’d like to help you.”
She ate with manners. Bite, chew with her mouth closed, swallow. Spooned her soup from the side of the bowl. Leaned over to take the bites so she didn’t spill. And never looked away from the food.
If she was curious about her surroundings, she’d managed to take them in without his notice. Other than the brief look as they’d walked through to the bathroom, she’d shown no interest.
“How do you figure someone who takes vacationers on tubing adventures for a living is going to help a woman in my situation?” Without seeing the look in her eyes, or her full facial expression, he couldn’t be sure she was being purposefully rude. Sounded as though she’d just made a logical observation.
Either way. “I managed to save you from near death, and then get you out of the vicinity without being followed, have given you a hiding place, provided the means for a shower, tended to your wounds and have provided a warm meal.” He just stated the facts. “I’d say that’s not bad work for someone who’d been expecting to check some rapids and then navigate a boat of vacationers down the river for the rest of the day.” He kept eating.
He was hungry. Had missed out on the omelet, bagel and oatmeal he’d had waiting for him at the dock’s eatery, ready to consume before his rafting party arrived.
“I can offer you a room that locks from the inside.”
Her mouth paused on the way to her spoon.
“You’re an attractive woman, Kacey. Most particularly now that you’re not dragging river sludge around in your hair. But I don’t have sex with women who keep secrets from me. Nor do I have sex with traumatized women, so you’re safe on both counts.”
She’d just been kidnapped and was in the middle of nowhere, alone with a man she didn’t know. She had to be leery. It just made good sense.
“Not to brag, but I’ve never had problems finding companions when I wanted them.”
He’d just grown bored of wanting them. Same basic modus operandi. Generic conversation, some movies and meals, a bit of drinking, maybe a concert, body parts with varying shapes and sizes that all did basically the same things, the building up for a minute or two of release, and then...
Thoughts of catching a drug operation in full force excited him a hell of a lot more.
And if Kacey was somehow attached to it...
Just seemed odd—the woman showing up during the twenty-four hour period he’d been told to look for movement.
If she’d let him feel her stomach, he might have been able to tell if she was carrying a balloon.
For all he knew, she could have passed it while she’d been in taking a shower.
“It was a bloody knife. The kind worn in a sheath on a belt. Had silver and gold scrollwork all the way down the side. And a chip in the wood at the bottom. Shaped like a C.”
Her words stopped him mid-chew. She still wasn’t looking at him. But he’d heard the words clearly. She’d turned in a bloody knife to the police the day before. And could describe it in such detail?
“Who used it?” Was he harboring a murderer? Except that, who’d bound her then, and left her for dead in a storm?
“I don’t know.”
Watching her, Devon was pretty shocked when she glanced up and met his gaze on that last word.
She wasn’t lying to him. She didn’t know who’d used the knife. That was big. He went back to eating like it wasn’t.
“How’d you come to have it?”
“I found it.”
“Where?”
She stood. Carried her empty bowl and plate to the sink. “I won’t bother you for long, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to avail you of your locked door offer just long enough to get a little sleep before I head out.”
With a flick of his thumb, pointing to the door behind him, he took a bite of sandwich and chewed. “And Kacey,” he said, food in his cheek. “If you’re planning anything or know of someone who’s going to be showing up, be prepared. I shoot to kill.”
The apoplectic look on her face as she stared, mouth hanging open, for the split second it took her to collect herself, might have given him a brief bout of guilt. If he hadn’t been so busy enjoying the very odd moment.
He’d surprised her. Forced a natural reaction out of her.
It felt good.
As did the fact that she clearly hadn’t thought, for a second, that he could be onto her.
If there was anything to be onto.
She was in the room he’d assigned her. The cabin’s second bedroom. The sheets had been on the bed when he’d bought the place. He’d never touched them.
“Devon?” Her pretty blond head poked around the edge of the door, sending a current through him that he couldn’t place. He put it down to so many months living alone, living a lie, and to the fact that she was the first human guest he’d had since he’d moved in.
He watched her. Didn’t say anything. If the sheets needed some kind of solution, she’d figure it out.
“I’m pretty sure that anyone who might approach this place, on my behalf or otherwise, would pretty much expect you to shoot to kill.”
With that she closed the door.
Slammed the lock into place with obvious force.
Leaving him sitting in his kitchen looking like a goofball with a big grin on his face.