Page 109 of Blood Game

She looked up at him then, and the wound was there, open, raw, in the expression on her face.

She was shaking even though it was warm in the room. He went into the adjoining bathroom and ran hot water. She still hadn't moved when he returned.

He pushed the jacket off her shoulders and knelt on the floor in front of her. He wiped the dust and grime from her hands and arms, gentle where the skin was raw and bruised from the fall she'd taken when that half wall collapsed.

“Tell me if this hurts,” he said as his hands moved up her arms, gently probing the smoothness of bones, then her shoulders, collarbone, the back of her neck.

He took his time, taking care if he should find swelling, a cut, dried blood, smoothing back the hair on her forehead, gently wiping away more grime from her cheek, the tears, the bruise from the London attack just starting to turn a pale shade of green. Battle wounds.

She made a sound. Not physical pain, but that other sound that came from deep inside, that different pain.

His touch, the simplest contact, pulled her back from that dark place. She looked up at him as fresh tears slipped down her cheek.

“If I hadn't contacted him...”

Guilt.

He brushed strands of hair back from her cheek where they had fallen forward. He knew more about that sort of thing than he could ever explain.

According to her phone log, Aronson was apparently the last person Cate met with before the accident. It made sense to meet with him, as much sense as any of it. He just wished he'd been there to talk her out of going there. But he knew how that would have gone over.

His fault. The argument after he'd gone with Anthony the night before without telling her. That bloody damned stubbornness. If he could change it, he would, to keep her from that pain. But he couldn't.

“That's not a place you want to go,” he said gently. “Cate contacted him. After what happened, he knew the risk. It was his choice to meet.”

“When I close my eyes...” The words caught in her throat. “Does it ever go away?”

He wanted to tell her that it would be all right, that in time she would forget what had happened that day, what she'd seen. But it was a lie. Those were the things you carried with you. They hadn't invented a pill yet to make you forget certain things. Until they did, you had to live with it. She had to live with it.

“You need to get some sleep.”

She nodded, but made no move to undress. He helped with her sweater, then jeans, and tucked the comforter in around those long legs. If she was lucky, very lucky, she was too exhausted to dream about what had happened. God knows that would come later.

Hours later, the inn was quiet.

The gas heater churned out heat that fogged the edges of the glass as he watched the street below. There was an occasional car that passed by, then disappeared onto the roadway. Tourists.

A sound reached through the shadows in the room, faint at first as she moved, restless on the bed. The edge of the drape eased back into place as he crossed the room.

She'd lost the comforter and curled into herself with the cold and the nightmare dream. It finally let go. He pulled the comforter back up over her shoulders.

He should have stepped away, left her alone. But he knew all about alone, the cold, dark places, that hollow ache deep inside, and the fear that you might never feel anything else again. Hefelt it in the slender hand that reached out through the shadows in the room and wrapped around his.

“Don't go,” she whispered.

She pulled him down next to her, her head on his shoulder as he slipped an arm around her.

“Marcus...?”

He knew the question. She already knew the answer.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, smoothing back the hair on her cheek.

It would be morning in a few hours, and there was a conversation they needed to have about continuing on with this. She had to accept now that it was too dangerous, too many people had been killed.

But not now.

He felt the movement on his shoulder, eyes that looked back at him through the shadows.