playing verbal chess with her.
It had been an altogether shitty day thanks to Dub Witherspoon’s favorite cow needing help in delivering a dead bull calf. Dub hadn’t taken “I don’t do house calls anymore” for an answer. As a result, all Gray wanted when he got home after the nine-hour ordeal was to get quietly drunk and escape from that latest scenario and the scent of death.
But to his unwelcome and reluctant houseguest, he merely said, “You’re under my roof, you don’t take foolish chances with infection.”
To his surprise, she went without any additional lip.
In the bathroom, he motioned for her to hop up on the vanity, then shut off the water she’d left running and squeezed out the washrag. Afterward, he locked the window. Replacing the screen would have to wait until morning. He hoped she was intimidated by him; he didn’t think he was in good enough shape to do many more rounds with this spitfire.
With her semi-safely perched, he opened the linen closet to rummage through the offerings there. Most of his medical supplies, even those appropriate for humans, were in the clinic, so he settled on hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic ointment, cotton balls and whatever he had in the way of gauze pads and bandages.
He set everything beside her. “You’ll have to lift your shirt again and open the jeans.”
Hardly voiced as a request, he accepted that she first took a good swallow of her drink. The wound had to be giving her more trouble than she wanted to admit—denim tended to be abrasive even without a pair of male hands working it like sandpaper against tender skin—but he knew it wasn’t pain alone feeding her reluctance. It was him. He’d proven to be not much better than Frank. She had to detest him for that.
When she finally relented, Gray grunted at the inflamed slash marring the left side of her small waist. In this brighter light, the shocking contrast against skin otherwise flawless filled him with an even deeper outrage. He understood too well the brutality behind such an assault, and how lucky she was to be sitting there shooting mental arrows into him.
All he said, though, was, “Roll the waistband down a bit more, or I’ll get this crap all over everything.”
“Just do the best you can.”
“Suit yourself.”
He opened the new package of cotton balls and the peroxide and went to work.
“You took a huge risk not bothering to get this tended to properly.”
“I’ve been a little busy.”
“How did it happen?”
She acted as though she’d suddenly gone stone deaf, which was just as well. The condition of the wound demanded his concentration. And although peroxide didn’t usually sting—at least not in comparison to what he should be using—this abrasion was no simple scratch. It was also inflamed, the tissue swollen. That meant his slightest touch had to sting like a needle in the eye, and Gray thought she did pretty well to simply stiffen and suck in a sharp breath with every new dab.
“Hang on. I’ll finish as fast as I can.”
Like a model posing for a sculpture, or an assassin contemplating a target, she simply stared out into the dark hallway, lost in her own focus.
Hoping she wasn’t plotting some new attempt to outwit or outmaneuver him, he said, “You need to know something. I may not like what you just pulled, but it doesn’t change anything. You’re in my home and that means something to me. Elias won’t touch you again.”
“And who’s going to keep you in line, Doc?”
“I did not take you down for a free grope. That tumble left me sore, too.”
“I was on the bottom.”
“You betrayed my trust.” Then Gray swore softly. Not due to her attitude, rather for the discoloration he noticed on the cotton. “You’d better take a bigger swallow of your drink, think up a few new expletives, something, because I’ve got to get a little rougher than I intended.”
He held up the stained cotton for her to see and she gazed at it with eyes darker than New Orleans coffee, almost as dark as her lashes. Raising her glass to her lips, she murmured, “Do what you have to do.”
The drink wasn’t as potent as a shot, and before Gray reached for another cotton ball, her hand was shaking enough to bounce an ice cube out of the glass. It skidded off the counter and directly into the commode.
“Five bucks says you can’t do that twice.”
For such rich-colored eyes, her answering look cut like a laser.
“That’s what I like about you,” he countered. “You’re no chatterbox.”
“And you were right to stay away from plastic surgery. At least you put the dog under before starting on her.”
“That was a low blow, even if you are hurting, Officer.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry.”
“If only I believed you meant it.”
“I—” Gasping, Sasha fell silent as she endured the most painful swab yet. “Believe this then…that money you found belongs to my mother’s lover. I figured it was small retribution for this graze. I also took it knowing it wouldn’t be smart to stop at an ATM machine.”
Gray tossed the last soiled swab into the trash and washed his hands. “Is your mother okay?”
“Do you think that son of a bitch would be alive if he’d hurt her?”
God almighty, he thought. Who was this woman? “Has there been a murder?”
“Not by me.”
Maybe he was a fool, but he believed her. “So who’s Anna Diaz?”
“My—best friend.”
“Isn’t that a bit risky?”
“She died just over a year ago.”
“Then she’s in no way connected to whatever is going on?”
“Not in the least. But we could pass for sisters, and I loved her as though she was. I wouldn’t have taken her identity if it wasn’t necessary.”
Gray reached for the antibiotic ointment. “You shouldn’t have scratched the photo. I would only have glanced at it otherwise. The scratch made me look more closely.”
“Uh-huh. You tackle like a pro, your observation skills are better than the average person’s…Anything else I should watch out for?”
“As I said before, worry about it.” He spread the ointment, frowning at the unexpected pleasure he took from her curiosity and reluctant admiration. As a rule, he shut down any questions about himself or his past. Knowing how unwise this breach in pattern was, he attempted to alleviate that. “So where’s your mother?”
“I don’t know.”
He
