"Fine," he said.
She peered over her shoulder at him. "Picking me up—carrying me, you could have pulled a stitch."
He touched his side where the bullet had gone in. "It feels fine."
"I better check," she said, flicking on the bedside lamp.
When she rolled onto her knees facing him, she found those heavy-lidded eyes of his studying her. She shouldn't like so much that he was interest in her.
"Pull your shirt up," she ordered, folding back the quilt—focusing on the area of his injury instead of how he looked at her.
"Maybe I should remove the shirt he said. It's pretty damp."
"Whatever you want to do," she said, ignoring his reference to her tears—the only tears she'd shed since Theo died.
He tugged the shirt up. She peeled back the gauze bandage, pleased there was no blood on it.
"Stitches are good on this side," she said, reattaching the bandage. "Roll over so I can check the exit wound."
He was already so close to her that when he rolled over he ended up all but draped across her thighs. In spite of sleeping in her insulated long johns, without the cover of the quilt, her legs had begun to cool. But they weren't cool now, not with his belly blanketing them.
She peeled the gauze from the back wound and announced its stitches likewise still intact. Her fingers took longer than necessary to smooth the tape back against his skin.
"You take good care of me," he said. "You're a good woman, Andi Johanson."
She ran her finger over one final corner of tape, pondering whether to correct him about the good woman part. She wasn't a good woman, not that it mattered at this point—not that she wanted to admit it to him.
She tugged his shirt back into place just as he asked, "Who takes care of you?"
Her hands stilled on the hem of his shirt.
"I take care of myself," she said, trying for a matter-of-fact tone but not quite managing it.
He tipped back on his hip, catching her hand in his. "I mean about the nightmares. Who held you through them before I came along?"
A plethora of emotions rolled through her—making her want to run. But his hand on hers—his thumb stroking her wrist held her in place and what came out of her was a tight, "Nobody."
#
She should have told him she didn't need anybody taking care of her. But, she found herself unable to lie to Cole, this man who'd drawn her back under the covers, spooning her into the cove of his body. How she'd managed to fall asleep in his arms after revealing her utter aloneness to him—after realizing for herself how much more dangerous he was to her because she couldn't lie to him was a mystery to her.
Yet, sleeping in Cole's arms was a childhood dream come true. Hell, it was a grown woman's dream—this grown woman's. To know the safety of a pair of strong arms holding her.
Strangely, that's what drove her out of the cabin before he woke and onto the ice for another morning of fishing. She needed space to think about her need for the arms of a man who was a virtual stranger to whom she couldn't lie—about what she was going to do about that need.
Not that she hadn't sought refuge in the arms of strangers before. But none of them had ever made her feel safe. Yet, with this man who didn't even know himself, this man for whom all evidence pointed toward danger, she found safety.
A breeze, almost spring-like, caressed her cheek. Typical February in the Upper Peninsula. Wintry one day and shirtsleeve weather the next. It reminded her how the sun had shown on Kelly's and Dane's wedding and she smiled, pleased they'd benefited from one such break in the weather. Wherever they'd gone off to honeymoon, she wished them more fair weather and she wished them the safety of each other's arms forever.
Still, as happy as she wanted to be for them, the familiar ache gripped her. Longing. Oh, how she longed to experience what they had. She wanted "safe" to equal "love." Like protecting her baby brother when he was too small to protect himself came out of love.
But adult love was more complicated than that.
Tuff Stuff bounded up to her and dropped a dead mouse at her feet. She looked from dog to mouse and back.
"Geeze, Tuff, sometimes I think you're more cat than dog." Then she slung an arm over the big dog's shoulders and hugged her close, murmuring, "Thank you for the gift."
She sat there on her little folding camp stool, arm slung over Tuff Stuff, her only companion of the past two years. Moisture gathered in her eyes that had nothing to do with the blinding brightness of the sunlight reflecting up off the frozen lake.
She loved Tuff. She and the dog did everything together. The dog gave her unconditional love. Yet, Tuff Stuff wasn't enough. Not when she couldn't stop thinking about a certain pair of strong, comforting arms and the man they belonged to, and wishing their comfort meant more.
She closed her eyes, letting the memory of the past two nights spread through her. Cole had taken her into his arms unconditionally, without taking her action as an invitation to more. He'd given her what she needed without demanding more.
Oh, he was curious about her nightmares. He'd probed, gotten her to reveal more than she'd ever thought she'd reveal to anyone. But he'd been so gentle in his prodding, so comforting in the aftermath of her confessions, it had been easy to expose pieces of herself to him.
And he was concerned about her safety in this mess—had taken responsibility for getting her involved when she'd been the one who'd brought him home and hidden him away. There was goodness in this man, a goodness that tugged at her heart and made her fear for his life as much as for the loss of him.
And there was her answer to what she was going to do about her need—her feeling for Cole. She was afraid of losing the one man who made her feel safe and cared for. And one way or another, she was going to lose him. But, for now, he was hers. She just had to remember his residency with her was temporary and she just might avoid getting hurt too badly.
#
Nobody had ever held her through her nightmares. That was the thought rolling around inside Cole's head as he'd toasted bread that morning.
What other little girl fears had she faced alone, he'd wondered as he cut the centers out of the toast and placed the centerless slices in a hot frying pan?
She badly needed to be on the receiving end of the kind of care that clearly had been buried along with a mother who'd died too young, he'd decided as he broke eggs into the cutouts in the toast.
A key snicked into the lock on the back door. He stepped away from the stove far enough to give the silhouette in its curtained window a cursory glance, a cautionary habit. He knew who he expected. From the mudroom/laundry room window, he'd watched Andi out on the ice, reeling in fish and dropping them into the bucket by her leg. When she started stowing her gear, he'd retreated to the kitchen and set to work.
A blast of cold air, announced the opening of the door and he returned to the stove, smiling.
"You're cooking," she said, from the far side of the room.
He turned and found her, bucket of fish in one hand and fishing gear in the other. His grin stretched. "Yeah."
"I smelled it the minute I opened the door," she said.
"By the time you wash up, breakfast will be ready."
She nodded and retreated into the mudroom, leaving her awestruck expression imprinted on him. He turned back to the stove and flipped the egg-nested pieces of toast, grinning.
When she sat in her usual spot at the table, he set a plate in front of her arranged with his egg concoction and a couple sausage patties layered with the leftover toast circles. He plunked down opposite her with his own plate. She was still staring at her plate.
"Something wrong?" he asked, his good mood fading.
"What is this?" she asked.
"You don't like it?"
"I mean, I didn't even know you cooked and then you make something fancy like this."
"Fancy?" His grin returned full force. "It's just eggs in a nest. My mother used to make them for me all the time."
> Her eyes lifted at him, mixed emotions roiling from their dark depths. Damn, he shouldn't have brought up the mother connection. But it hadn't occurred to him that her mother might not have made—
"You remember your mother?" she asked.
Was that all her reaction was about? "Yeah. I remember her cooking eggs like this for me." And me cooking them for someone else.
That last hint of a memory jerked through him, distracting him.
"This is awesome," she said, cutting into the nested egg, pulling him back to the present. "I can't remember the last time anyone cooked for me outside a diner or bar."
"Given all you've done—are doing for me, it's the least I could do."
"It's good," she said around a mouthful of egg and toast, "and way cool."
Way cool? She sounded like a kid. Except she wasn't a kid. She was a woman haunted by nightmares—a woman who'd slept the last two nights in his arms. He'd even forced the issue last night, comforting her when she fought to be left alone with her night terrors. What might he force her into if he couldn't keep resisting the womanly curves pressed against him as he held her?
He jabbed one of the toast cutouts into the yolk of a nested egg. The yolk spread across the nest of toast and dripped onto his plate like teardrops. It reminded him of her tears of last night. He never wanted to be the cause of such heartbroken tears.
Something niggled at his memory. Anguish, like he knew what it was to spill tears like those from the depths of his soul.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He wasn't digging into his food with his usual fervor and he'd gone pale. Andi rose, went to him, and laid the backs of her fingers against his forehead.
"What?" he asked, peering up at her.
"You don't have a fever," she said.
"Why would you think I did?"
"You're pale as a ghost," she said. Or maybe you saw a ghost—a ghost of a memory.
"How you feeling?" she asked as she returned to her seat, hoping against hope he hadn't remembered something that would take him away.
"Fine," he said, taking a bite of a sausage patty sandwiched between two circles of toast.
She wiped the last remnants of yolk from her plate, clinging to the hope he'd just overdone by cooking breakfast. "You look wiped out. Go lie down when you're done eating. I'll clean up here."
His head came up. "I made the mess."
"And a well-purposed mess it was," she said, the oddness—the teasing behind her words making her feel almost giddy.
He wrinkled his brow at her in silent question.
"This was the best breakfast I've had in a long time," she said. "Maybe even in forever. I'll happily clean up after the man who made it for me."
The creases in his brow seemed to deepen, but any question that had been in his eyes shifted toward concern. Had her words suggested too much intimacy? …the man who made it for me.
She rose, taking her empty plate with her. "I mean, I'd happily clean up after anyone who made a breakfast like this for me."
Wordlessly, he finished his breakfast as she filled the sink with soapy water and gathered pans from the stove. The scrape of chair legs drew her attention to him. For a moment, their gazes met and held as he stood, one hand on the back of the chair he'd just vacated. Longing stirred through her. She wanted to be that chair on which his hand rested.
"You sure you don't want my help?" he asked.
She was tempted to tell him to stay—that she'd be happy for his help…and his nearness and any chance of bumping into him.
"You still look off. Go lie down."
She watched him until he disappeared into the bedroom. As much as she'd wanted to keep his company, she almost felt relieved that he was gone. Easier to hang onto the fantasy alone with the remnants—the reminders of the breakfast he'd made for her, to pretend there was more to his actions than there actually were.
Of course her notion that his cooking for her went beyond gratitude for what she'd done for him was absurd. Still, she held his plate a little too long, staring at the crust of toast from which he'd taken his last bite, before dumping it into the cup in which she collected scraps for the birds.
She slid his plate into the hot water with hers. Being alone with clean-up duty definitely made it easier to ignore reality. And reality had never let her linger long with hope.
#
Cole lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling and listening to the melting snow drip off the eaves outside the bedroom window. He wasn't tired. He was troubled.
Troubled that he couldn't remember his past. Troubled that what he did remember came to him more as feelings than facts.
And troubled by his growing feelings for a woman who knew how to sew up gunshot wounds, skirted the law, yet found delight in a breakfast trick—a woman for whom he'd been the only one to have ever comforted her through her nightmares. If only he could remember something solid. His last name at least. She could track down who he was with his full name—find out if he was in some sort of trouble.
Trouble. The word nagged at him. He needed to know what kind of trouble he brought to her, what kind of danger he put her in before he let whatever was between them grow into something more. Most of all, he couldn't fail to protect her from the danger he brought to her, not like… A memory of having failed someone else ghosted through the deepest reaches of his mind.
#
Two hours of staring at that damn knotty-pine ceiling trying to remember who he'd failed in the past and all he'd gotten out of it was a headache, which pulsed every time Andi's ax split a piece of wood out back of the cabin.
He turned away from the mudroom window and headed into the bathroom where he took the aspirin bottle from the medicine cabinet and tossed back three of the painkillers, swallowing them without water. Closing the medicine cabinet door, he stared at his reflection in the mirror.
Below the t-shirt sleeve, he noticed the bottom half of his tattoo. He pushed his sleeve up and examined the inked design, a rifle with a pair of boots and helmet against an American flag. The fallen man insignia. A military tattoo. For an instant, he was seeing the world through night vision goggles and motioning three other men in camo like him down a dark hall, a sense of covertness to what they were doing. Is that where he'd failed another?
"Who the hell are you?" he asked the reflection in the mirror.
But the tired eyes staring back at him gave-up nothing, and the mouth in the mirror remained silent.
Back in the mudroom, he pulled on his boots, took a jacket from the pegs by the door, and stepped outside. Tuff Stuff bounded toward him, eyes bright with recognition and tongue lolling in delight.
Andi wheeled from her stump between cabin and garage, ax in hand, recognition less instantaneous.
"What the hell are you doing outside?" she demanded, reminding him how absolute her take-charge side was.
He could tell her this wasn't his first foray outside since being wounded, but now didn't seem a good time to reveal that piece of news.
"I need fresh air."
"So, open a window," she said, sticking the ax into the stump with a short swing and striding toward him. "Those guys trying to kill you could be watching the cabin."
Maybe now was a good time to confess his last outing, after all.
"I doubt it," he said. "You said the local guy was lazy. We haven't had any more visits. And"—he peered out across the lake, mustering his courage before facing Andi again—"this isn't my first outing."
"When?" she demanded.
"When you went to town, I stepped out."
"Of all the stupid things to do!"
"I stuck to the trees."
"You didn't have a key. You had to have left the house unlocked and anyone could have gotten in while you were off on a walk because you had a case of cabin fever."
"I never went far enough to be out of sight of the back door."
"They could have been watching from across the lake."
"No one has shown up and that was two
days ago."
She all but rolled her eyes. "This is how people hiding out get caught. They just can't stay out of sight."
"Am I hiding out?"
Her eyes narrowed at him. "At least from a couple guys who want you dead."
He sighed. "It's not only cabin fever driving me outside. I just spent two fruitless hours trying to remember something, anything." He shook his head. "The direct approach isn't working. When I remembered my name, I wasn't trying to remember anything. That coal in the fireplace just happened to prompt the memory. And the eggs in a nest memory came without any thought. And—" He hesitated, not sure if he should tell her about the feelings.
"And what?" she prompted.
He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and stared up at the blue sky. "When I least expect it, I get glimpses of things."
"What kinds of things?"
"Not exactly things. More like sensation, feelings." He faced her. "The point is, I seem to remember things better when I'm not trying—when I'm doing other things."
"And you think coming outside is going to do the trick?"
"The fresh air can't hurt. And lying around isn't going to build my strength back up."
"Moving around might help your muscles, but it's also going to tire you out, given how much blood you lost."
"I need distraction, Andi, some occupation that'll get me out of my head. Maybe then the memories will come."
She hooked her gloved thumbs in her pockets and rocked back on her heels, her gaze straying across the frozen lake.
"Okay," she finally said, bringing her gaze back to him. "Take yourself a little walk. Keep to the trees. Ten minutes out of my sight and I'm coming after you. Got it?"
"Yeah."
"You got your weapon?"
He opened his jacket, revealing the ever-present sidearm on his hip.
"You going to be warm enough in sweatpants?" she asked.
He grinned. "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood."
She scowled at him.
"If I get cold, I'll cut my ten-minute walk short. Promise."
#
Had he meant to reference "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood?"
Saving Andi: St. John Sibling Series: FRIENDS Page 8
