Deception Lake. Пола Грейвс

      He stared at her, his dark eyes wide. “My God, Mara. What’s happened to you?”

      “Take your hand out of your jacket.” To her dismay, her voice trembled. But her hand, at least, remained steady.

      “I have a cashier’s check for the seven thousand plus interest. That’s all I was reaching for.”

      “I don’t need the money. I don’t want it.”

      “I need to give it to you.” His voice sharpened. “I owe it to you, Mara, and if I don’t do this—”

      “Give it to a charity.”

      His eyes narrowed. “Your place just got trashed and you’re telling me you couldn’t use seven thousand dollars to fix the damage and buy you a new sofa?”

      Of course she could use it. She just couldn’t take it. Not from him. Not this way.

      “Just give it to a charity. Wounded Warrior Project or Goodwill or St. Jude’s—anything you want. If you want your sins off your conscience, do it that way. I’m not in the business of absolution.”

      His dark eyes snapped with a flare of anger, but it was gone almost as soon as it arose. “Fine.” He removed his hand from his jacket and reached up to touch the back of his head, wincing as he did so. When he brought his hand in front of him, his fingers were sticky with blood.

      For a second, she flashed back to that night, four years ago, when she’d come home to a house on fire and her sister lying dead on the living room floor. She’d known, in the brief seconds she’d had to make her decision, that there was nothing she could do anymore for her twin. The blood pooling around her sister’s head painted a gruesome picture of what had happened while she was away picking up takeout for their dinner.

      Her sister had been murdered, the fire set to cover up evidence.

      And, for better or worse, she’d let it burn.

      “I don’t suppose you have a first-aid kit handy in all this mess?” he asked quietly, his gaze still focused on his bloody fingers.

      The urge to push him and his bleeding head out of her cabin was nearly overwhelming. But he might be more injured than she thought, and the last thing she needed on her own conscience was another death.

      “Find somewhere to sit down,” she said, blowing out some of her frustration on a gusty sigh. “I’ll see if my kit’s still in one piece.”

      The rest of the cabin had been tossed as ruthlessly as the front room, but whatever the burly man in the camouflage had been looking for, he seemed to have left empty-handed. The first-aid kit was on the bathroom floor, its contents scattered over the gray tile. Most of the kit’s components remained in sealed sterile packaging, however, so she scooped up the pieces and put them back inside the soft canvas kit, then took a minute to wash her hands before returning with the kit to the front room.

      Jack had picked up an overturned ladder-back chair from the tiny dining area and sat at the table, wiping his bloody fingers on a paper towel salvaged from a roll that had been ripped from the wall-mounted holder. He looked up when she reentered the room. “I think there may be bloodstains on your rug in there,” he said, nodding toward the area closer to the front door as he pressed the paper towel to the back of his head.

      “How’s your balance?” she asked, trying to remember the symptoms of a concussion. He’d never lost consciousness, that she could tell, and he didn’t seem dizzy or wobbly on his feet—all good signs.

      “Fine,” he answered. “I don’t have a concussion, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

      “You can’t know that.” She set the first-aid kit on the table next to him and unzipped the canvas bag.

      “I rode bulls for a living for a decade,” he said in a dust-dry tone. “I know the symptoms of a concussion better than I know my own name.”

      Mention of his occupation sent a dart of irritation shooting through her. “Rode?” she asked quietly.

      “I’ve retired.”

      She slanted a quick look at him, taking in the lean angles and chisel-sharp planes of his ruggedly attractive face. “Your decision or the bull’s?”

      His lips quirked slightly, cutting deep dimples into both cheeks. “Definitely the bull’s. He landed on me and broke my pelvis in several places. Doctors managed to knit me back together, but there are injuries even an insane cowboy like me can’t gut his way back from.”

      His tone was neutral enough, but just as before, she sensed a darker emotion roiling under the surface.

      “Bummer,” she murmured, not meaning to sound as flippant as she did.

      His gaze clashed with hers. “Yeah.”

      “I didn’t mean—”

      “Doesn’t matter,” he said quickly, looking away.

      “Let me take a look at your head,” she suggested, feeling both a flutter of guilt and answering anger for letting herself give enough of a damn about this confounding man to feel guilt in the first place.

      Jack turned his head away from her so she could take a look at his injury. She bit back a gasp.

      There was a split in the skin at least two inches long, the ragged edges of the wound raw and bloody. His thick, dark hair had absorbed a lot of the blood, but enough was still flowing to feed her alarm.

      “Jack, you need stitches. And probably a CAT scan.”

      And she needed, more than anything, to get this man out of her house before he figured out the truth.

Chapter Three

      “Do you have anyone I can call?” Mara’s husky voice drew Jack’s attention away from the medical forms he was busy filling out one-handed. His other hand was still pressing her bloody towel to the back of his head, where the jagged tear in his scalp continued spilling fresh blood. The clinic was busy, and a nurse had already come out to examine the wound and check his pupils before she deemed him in no great rush for treatment. A receptionist had then traded his insurance card and copay for a clipboard with three pages of medical forms to fill out.

      He hadn’t made it to the third page of the forms yet, but if the first two were anything to go by, he’d be spilling his sexual history, cataloging every freckle, mole or scar he possessed and outlining at least three generations of genealogy before he was done.

      He looked away from the paperwork to answer Mara’s question, relieved at a chance to stop writing. “My brother-in-law and his wife are with me here in town, but I don’t want to worry them—”

      “It’s just—I have things to do.”

      He slanted his gaze toward her. “You’re planning to leave here alone?”

      Her brow furrowed. “Yes.”

      “Someone tried to kidnap you, Mara. Hell, we should have gone straight to the cops instead of coming here.”

      She frowned. “Keep your voice down.”

      He glanced around the full waiting room. Nobody was paying them any attention. “You’re not planning to ignore this, are you?”

      She looked away, not answering.

      “Have you lost your mind?”

      “No.” Her voice remained soft and controlled. “You don’t know anything about my life or my options. Don’t pretend you do.”

      “What makes you think whoever attacked you this afternoon isn’t waiting for you at your cabin right now?”

      “I’m not your concern.”

      She was right. She wasn’t his concern, or