“Drop the gun,” a voice returned. But it wasn’t a man’s voice. It was a woman’s.
Completely baffled, he swung open the door a little wider. Yep, that was a woman. She was crouching behind the open door of her car, pointing a handgun at him.
He didn’t lower the rifle one inch. “Who the hell are you? And what’re you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Sheridan Kohl.”
Sheridan slammed down the phone before she’d even finished dialing. “Skye?”
“Stay back,” Cain warned. “She’s got a gun.”
“It’s okay.” She hurried toward him. “I know her.” Shoving the muzzle of his rifle toward the ground, she flipped on the porch light. “It’s me, Skye. I’m coming out!” she yelled and then she flung open the door.
“Sheridan?” the woman cried.
Cain wasn’t about to let her go out there alone. He joined her, carrying his gun as she walked out with her hair mussed, wearing her nightie, which was on wrong side out, and her panties.
The woman slowly stood and lowered her weapon, but the expression on her face suggested she wasn’t happy with what she saw. Her eyes moved between the two of them, obviously focusing on their lack of appropriate attire. “Let me guess. This is Cain Granger.”
Sheridan nodded.
The woman Sheridan had called Skye muttered something under her breath as she put her gun in what looked like a police-issue shoulder harness. “I was afraid of that.”
“So that’s it? You’re leaving?” Cain asked, leaning against the doorjamb while she packed her clothes.
Sheridan kept her eyes averted. She didn’t want to see him standing there in nothing but a pair of jeans, didn’t want to admire the way his hair fell across his forehead. She’d only want to touch him again if she did. “It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
Skye was sitting in the car, waiting for her outside. She had to hurry. “Owen told me I’m your ‘bird with an injured wing.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m capable of flying again. And I need to get out on my own.”
“But you don’t have to go tonight. It’s late. Why not have your friend come in? Then we can all get some sleep.”
He’d washed some of her clothes—and folded them and put them in a dresser drawer. She scooped everything out and dropped it in her suitcase. He’d taken good care of her. He’d cooked and cleaned and nursed her and bathed her. And there’d been moments when he’d made her feel more alive than she’d ever felt before. But that was part of the problem. She was so vulnerable when it came to him. “Where would Skye stay?” she asked. “In the guest room?”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
She straightened and faced him. “And where would I sleep, Cain?”
“You could sleep with me if you wanted. It’s not as if she’s your mother. Or as if she doesn’t already know we’ve been together.”
Sheridan couldn’t sleep with Cain while Skye was in the other room. She’d be too embarrassed. Sheridan knew she was grasping for something she couldn’t catch, that she was asking for trouble. She’d been avoiding reality by not calling her friends. But now that Skye had arrived, the fantasy was over. She had to stop taking crazy, unnecessary risks. “I have to keep my mind on why I came here in the first place,” she said. “I have to find out who’s been trying to kill me, and then I have to go home.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Then sleep on the couch.”
She shut her suitcase, left it on the bed and slipped past him to get her things from the bathroom. “We can’t go on like this.”
He followed her, watching as she gathered her toothbrush and makeup. She hadn’t realized it until that moment, but her toiletries, her soap and deodorant and shampoo, were so mixed up with his it was almost as if they belonged there, as if she’d been settling in for good. “Like what?” he said.
“Condoms are only 85–98 percent effective.” She knew that because she’d looked it up on the Internet yesterday. “If we continue sleeping together, which we would if I stayed here, we could wind up creating a baby, even if we continue to take precautions. And I already know how you’d feel about that.”
“How do you know how I’d feel?” he asked with a scowl. “We’ve never even talked about it.”
“What’s to talk about? I’m twenty-eight. I’d keep the baby. That should be enough to scare you right there.” Finished in the bathroom, she waited for him to move so she could return to his room for her suitcase.
“Scare me? If that happened, I’d support the baby,” he said. “I made that decision before I ever touched you.”
“Well, I don’t want to become another woman to whom you feel obligated.” It was better to leave him wanting more, better than ending the relationship on a note of bitterness. Or anger. And it had to end. She’d be returning to Sacramento. There was nowhere an affair with Cain could go, anyway.
She started to drag her suitcase from the bed, but he reached around her and picked it up. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” he said.
“Not necessarily. It’ll just…be better if Skye and I take off tonight. You and I both know this…thing between us wasn’t serious. It was more of a—” she laughed uncomfortably “—a relapse, I guess. Now I’m well enough to move on, I need to do it. This had to happen eventually.”
“Where will you go?”
“The motel, if we can rouse anyone to rent us a room.”
The scowl that had descended a few minutes earlier remained.
“I’ll be fine.” She stood on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss. That fleeting brush of their lips was her one concession to the sudden ache of longing. It was goodbye. “Thanks for everything,” she said, offering him as bright a smile as she could manage.
He rubbed a hand over his face, sighed audibly and carried out her suitcase.
Cain sat on the porch, watching the taillights of Skye’s rental car disappear. He couldn’t believe Sheridan was actually leaving. One minute he’d had her naked body pressed up against his own. The next she’d dressed, packed all her belongings and climbed into the passenger seat of her friend’s sedan.