Her Forgotten Betrayal (12 page)

He left her biting her lip but keeping her injury covered, and turned to the fridge.

“That wasn’t so bad,” she said.

He snagged a nearby kitchen towel and opened the freezer, hating that he was about to blindside her relief to hell. He scooped up a handful of ice and plunked it into the center of the worn cotton that would protect her already damaged skin. Balancing it all on a raised thigh, he tied the opposing corners into knots and turned back to Shaw. Wariness had crept into her eyes.

He crouched, his gaze recapturing hers.

“Inhale and hold it for me,” he instructed.

When she bravely nodded, he wanted to kiss away her anxiety and take it into himself. The bitterness he’d held inside for so long was gone, he realized, leaving in its wake a renewed need to understand how things between them could have gone so terribly wrong. How had they lost the magic they’d once had together? A magic he found himself recklessly wondering if he now had a chance to win back.

“Ready?” he asked, his voice coming out shredded. At her nod, he slipped the bundle of ice into the bowl. “Inhale as deep as you can, and hold it.”

She did as he instructed. Her body tensed against the growing chill of the water, her gaze narrowing. He gripped her wrist when she would have pulled her hand away.

“Exhale, Shaw. Let the cold do the work. The pain won’t last, I promise.”

He knew how much it could hurt. He knew firsthand how burns far worse could flay your nerves to the bone while they were being debrided and treated with antibiotics and more. He’d been relieved to see that her injury likely wouldn’t blister, but it would hurt like the devil for a while.

A lone tear trickled a path down her cheek. He caught it with his thumb, kissing her cheek where it had fallen. He rested his forehead against hers, the way they had when they were kids too young to crave a more intimate expression of their obsession with each other.

“I’m so sorry,” he said while she exhaled, then inhaled again.

“It’s not so bad anymore.” Her words caught in her throat.

“Little warrior.” He pulled another chair over and sat. “Will you ever stop trying to pretend that what hurts you most isn’t so bad?”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s what you said before.”

He hadn’t. He was certain of it. Not today, anyway.

“What are you remembering, Shaw?”

She sighed, then brushed the emotion from her face and sat back. Her features composed themselves into those of a corporate CEO taking his measure.

Cole waited. This was her show, including whether or not she still wanted him in her house. Dawson could send in someone else, if need be, to formally monitor her. Cole would simply resign his position at the Bureau, then as a civilian, case the estate like a stalker himself. Whatever she decided, he wasn’t leaving High Lake until he was certain she was safe.

She sighed again, seeming to realize he wasn’t going to take the first step. “I have some things I should have talked through with you before.”

“Shoot,” he replied, bracing himself.

“Why did you say we were friends?”

“I told you. We were at first.”

“But I still don’t understand why you made it sound like we were
just
friends.”

“It wasn’t the best time to bring up the rest, until you remembered more.”

“Like remembering when we were teenagers, making out in the office, when you found me waiting for my father, and I was terrified of what he’d say?”

“Your father?” That was a misfire Cole hadn’t expected. “No. You were waiting for your brother that day. And I wasn’t going to let the little freak be alone with you.”

“Sebastian?” She jerked her hand from its ice bath. She let him push it back down. Her fingers curled around his, trapping them. “The brother who died in the barn fire?”

“Yeah. The one your dad accused me of murdering.”

“Because Bastian didn’t want us together, and he’d caught us in the barn.” The nickname only Shaw had ever used for the slime who’d tormented her had tumbled from her memory with no recognition on her part. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t I tell my former lover, who can’t remember me but needs my help, that I’d once been accused and then cleared of killing her older brother?”

Cole laughed at his rhetorical question, some of the bitterness returning. He distracted himself by tracing her frigid skin with his thumb. She deserved to know the rest, even if he’d sworn never to think of that time again.

“Even though I was released from jail almost immediately,” he said, “and cleared of the charges just as quickly, it didn’t matter to a goddamn soul. My affair with you was exposed. The town drunk’s son had slept with the princess of the manor. My father sure as hell didn’t want me back. Yours threatened to fire his drunken ass if he let me back on the mountain. When I came home, he’d already packed my bags. He tossed them to me in the front yard. And you? Your dad said he’d kill me if I came near you again.”

While Shaw, the girl who’d sworn to love him forever, hadn’t done a single thing to challenge Matthew Cassidy. She hadn’t come to the hospital to visit Cole. She hadn’t communicated with him in any way since the fire. Not once. He’d never seen her in person again, not until that night at Atlanta Memorial Hospital.

Would she remember why she’d rejected him so thoroughly? Reasons that, to this day, Cole didn’t know. And when she did remember, would she blame him all over again, call Dawson, and toss Cole’s ass out of her life for good?

“Why?” Her expression had softened. “Why didn’t you tell me you were making it your job to save my life, even back then?”

“Would it have made a difference?”

Cole slid away from her touch. He told himself to steer clear of the hero worship shining in her eyes. This was going to end badly enough as it was, when the rest of his secrets were revealed. She’d hate him for manipulating her feelings and emotions to do his job, even if the two of them could somehow find a way to leave behind the troubled past between them.

Evidently, she hadn’t recalled anything more than a single argument with her father. Cole needed to understand how she could have loved him one minute and believed he’d intentionally killed her brother the next. But he had no business pushing her to remember for his own benefit. Just as he had no business allowing himself to put his hands on her again, in any other manner than to care for her latest injury.

“Of course it would have made a difference.”

He shook his head. “Your life didn’t need saving back then.”

To distract himself he walked to the stove and grabbed the kettle, filled it with water, and set it to boil. Employees interviewed for her FBI file said she made a lot of tea, that it soothed her. So he’d make her the best damn tea he could. When he resettled in the chair across from her, she reached for him again.

“You got me out of the barn when it was burning,” she said. “I needed you then. And I don’t care what my father said, you were there for me, not to hurt my brother.”

“Okay, other than that.” The warm, dry palm of her free hand smoothed up his chest. Caressing. Tempting. Seducing. The shocking feel of her needing him was as stunning now as it had been in the office. So was her easy confidence that he’d never intended Sebastian to die.

“I saw it mixed up in the dream I was having after you found me in the woods,” she said. “The flashes of memory since then have been trying to tell me the truth, even when I’m awake. Flames and screams and me running from… Cole, I thought you were chasing me. It’s why I ran from you in the office tonight. Not the fight with my father, or me believing what he was saying. Not really. It was all too much, and for some reason the chaos in my mind keeps circling back to you and the fire. I calmed down upstairs, you have to know that. I wasn’t afraid of you. You saved me. I believe you got me out of that fire. You’d never hurt me or anyone else. Including my brother.”

Cole’s body was coming to life beneath her touch, even as the scarred flesh on his back stung with his own memories of what had happened in the barn. “I promised you back then I’d never let anything happen to you.”

And he’d never meant that long-ago vow more than he did now.

“You promised me last night, too, and I believe you,” she said, while the turmoil of all she still didn’t know filled her gaze.

Cole craved having her in his arms again. But keeping her safe was more important. That had to remain his only priority.

“Let’s take a look.” He leaned in to her caress, lifting her other hand from the bowl.

“It doesn’t look so bad.”

He grunted, relieved to see that the bright red that had marred her skin had temporarily faded. “I’ll remind you you said that. It’s going to hurt like hell for a while.” He returned her hand to the water. “Keep it in there as long as the ice holds up.”

Her uninjured hand squeezed his fingers, and that’s when he realized he’d grasped it where she’d continued touching his chest. He squeezed back and let go.

“The hot water heater’s back there, right?” he asked.

She nodded. He could feel her agitation mounting as he headed to the storage room. She wasn’t the only one. The last two times he’d let her out of his sight, her screams of pain had sliced into him, making it clear just how strong his compulsion still was to ensure her well-being. He left the door to the kitchen open and crossed to the dated unit he’d seen earlier. The control valve for the monstrous thing was near the floor, almost completely around the back.

He pulled out his penlight and shone it on the setting for the heater, careful once again not to touch anything. What he saw had him mentally counting down to his next check-in with Dawson, debating whether or not he could afford to wait.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. A cold sweat broke out all over his body.

“What?” Shaw asked. She was standing in the doorway, her hand wrapped in a towel. “What is it?”

He ushered her back to the kitchen, his palm firm at the base of her spine, his fingertips brushing across the flash of exposed skin between her sweatshirt and pants. Possessiveness flooded him as he took that moment, that touch, for himself. It was hell, having to resettle her in the chair and make himself step away. Thank God the kettle started whistling. He took it from the burner, carrying out the homey ritual that was driving him nuts, even as he hoped it would soothe her.

Shaw dipped her hand back into the ice. He took tea bags from the cupboard, opened and draped them over mugs, then doused them with hot water. He brought the steaming tea to the table along with the sugar dish, a spoon, and the over-the-counter pain meds he’d found beside the tea bags. She watched him steep and discarded the bags, then add sugar to her drink. She took her first sip. So did he, even though he detested the stuff—another memory she’d yet to reclaim.

He shook two white tablets out of the bottle and handed them to her. For a second he thought she’d balk, but she sighed and flipped both into her mouth, washing them down with more of her drink.

“You’ll be glad you did that,” he said. “You need to rest. It’s almost noon, and you got no sleep last night. Plus your hand will start throbbing without something to dull the ache.”

She took another swallow, closing her eyes with the pleasure it clearly brought her. Not that he believed for a second he was off the hook.

“What is it, Cole?” she demanded. “What don’t you want to tell me now?”

He grunted again, thinking of the truckload of things he wanted to tell her and couldn’t yet. “When was the last time you used the hot water?”

“Last night, when I washed the dinner dishes.”

“And it was fine?”

“It was the same as it always is. Sulky, because the pipes in this place are older than God. But it warms up slowly. That’s why I didn’t think twice about putting the stopper in my bath without first checking the temperature of the water.”

“The heat on the unit has been pushed to its hottest setting.”

Her mug paused halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“It’s an industrial level a house like this should never be set for. If it’s been heating that high for hours—”

“Ever since I heard someone in my house last night?”

Cole nodded, catching the whisper of fear behind her question. “The water in your bath was probably close to boiling when it came out of the tap.”

“But…how?” Her mug clunked to the table. “I don’t suppose there’s any way the setting could have slipped on its own.”

“Not likely.” Actually, it would have been impossible. “You haven’t been fiddling with it at all?”

“No. I honestly didn’t care enough to mess with the water heater. I’ve had other things to obsess about. As long as hot water eventually trickles out of the tap, I’m happy. I figured I’d get around to tweaking the plumbing later.”

She’d started rubbing her temple again. Her eyes were clouded, their lids beginning to droop. The sugar in her tea was counteracting the shock of her latest injury, helped along by the pain medication. He sat forward, wishing he could have done more than make her favorite drink to soften the blow he had to deliver.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Someone shot you over a month ago, possibly trying to kill you. After today, I think we can safely assume that wasn’t a random occurrence. Which means, because of where the shooting happened, it was most likely about your business.”

She slowly nodded. “Okay.”

“But you’re not at Cassidy Global now. You’re not doing anything that would be causing a problem for anyone in your company. You haven’t been for at least a month. So, tell me, why would someone be doing bizarre things like this to you here, way up in the boondocks?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, staring at him mutely.

“Shaw. What the hell kind of trouble are you in?”

…

Shaw shook her head.

She’d been doing that a lot and felt childish. Clueless. And hunted. How did she find the words to express the horror of knowing someone was honest-to-God stalking her?

The first investigators who’d interviewed her in the hospital had wanted to know mostly the same things as Cole. Did she have any idea why she was attacked? Why at Cassidy Global, in the middle of the night, and why was there no evidence at the scene? What had made Shaw the target instead of her other corporate officers? She’d had no answers to give them then, just as there was nothing to tell Cole now. Including why someone might have tracked her all the way up here to take another crack at her.