Page 5 of Luck of the Devil

“Okay,” I said. “No big deal.”

He started to work on the second suture, then caught me by surprise when he said, “I was sorry to hear about your mother.”

“Yeah,” I said, surprised when it came out sounding choked. I hadn’t shed a tear since hearing the news, but his offer of sympathy seemed to have ripped a tear through the thorny thicket encircling my heart.

“From what little you said, you seemed to have a complicated relationship.”

“That’s an understatement,” I grunted, wishing I had a drink.

“You got someone to talk to?”

I jerked my gaze up to him in shock, only to gasp again as he pulled out the other stitch. When I recovered, I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who likes to hear women unburden their souls.”

The left corner of his mouth ticked up. “I’ve had my ear bent a time or two.”

That shouldn’t have been surprising. Malcolm was forty-four. One would hope he’d had at least one significant relationship, and to my surprise, I hoped he’d been a considerate partner—the kind of man who’d listen. I nearly laughed. What had prompted that thought? Not that I had a great frame of reference. I was thirty-six years old and had never had a relationship rich enough to share deep feelings. The closest I’d come to it was my relationship with Keith, my Little Rock police detective partner, and the last thing he’d been interested in were my deep feelings. Still, I was struggling to make the empathetic Malcolm and the emotionally detached Malcolm fit together. Or why he seemed to be making the offer to me.

He snorted. “The look on your face suggests you find that hard to believe.”

“Maybe it’s because I’ve never been good at listening to men unburden their souls.”

He chuckled. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“You think I’m incapable of having a relationship?”

“Oh, you’re capable,” he said. “You just have too much to hide to be in a committed one.”

“Now you’re a relationship expert?” I asked in a snotty tone.

He chose that moment to pull out the third stitch, which seemed to hurt a bit more than the other two.

“Besides,” I added. “Pot meet kettle.”

“We aren’t talkin’ about me. We’re talkin’ about you,” he said, dropping the suture onto his cloth. This one seemed to have more crusty skin around it, so maybe he hadn’t purposely hurt me.

“How convenient for you,” I said, still pissed, especially since my forehead seemed to be sweating now and I had to grip my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking.

He moved to the next suture and was quiet for several seconds before he asked in a hushed tone, “How long has it been since your last drink?”

I jerked my gaze up again and found myself staring into his softened deep brown eyes. “What?”

“How long?”

I considered telling him it was none of his business, but he was the only one who had noticed my drinking had grown out of control. Why lie? “I had a sip from my flask before the graveside service.”

“And before that?”

“A shot in my coffee before the funeral.” Before Louise had shown up to check on me.

“Nothin’ else?” I felt a tug and realized he’d just taken out the fourth suture.

“No.”

He was silent again as he dropped the stitch onto the cloth, then moved to the next one. “Why stop now?” he finally asked.

“I have my reasons,” I said in a huff. I wasn’t about to confess my guilt over missing the signs that my mother had been missing. Sure, I’d caught on, but not until the day before they’d found her. I should have noticed the signs the first day. Then again, I had noticed. I’d just blown them off.

He gave a slight nod before he pulled out the next suture. As he got to work on another, he nonchalantly said, “What would you say if I told you that I’m not so sure your mother’s accident was an accident?”