Mattie stared at Cutter. The draw she felt to him was like a powerful magnet, pulling her with undeniable force.
“It’s the truth.” Cutter stopped a scant foot away from her. So close she could smell the soap from his shower. “You don’t spend two days with someone fighting for your life and not know what they’re made of.”
“Thank you for saying that,” she said after a moment.
“Try to be patient,” he said. “Trust me. Can you do that?”
She studied him for a long time. Such a hardened face. But his eyes did not lie. “Okay.”
“Sit back down and eat.”
Feeling more relaxed, she returned to her chair and sat. But her mind was spinning. Did he truly care about her? Or would he forget about her once she was locked away.
Trust me.
Oh, how she wanted to put her trust in him. But Mattie had been badly burned by Daniel Savage. She knew Cutter was nothing like him. Still, the one thing the two men did share was an agenda. Cutter’s was to take her in.
It was the one thing she could not allow.
They ate without speaking. When Mattie finished, she rose and walked to the window and looked out at the snowy landscape beyond. She chose her next words carefully. “The Jaguar can clear me, Cutter.”
“We have to catch him first.”
“I agree.” She turned, watched his eyes narrow. “The best, maybe the only way to catch him is staring you right in the face. For some reason you’re not seeing it.”
“Don’t go there, Mattie.”
“Use me as bait.”
“No,” he said flatly.
“You know it will work.”
“I know it’s a bad idea.”
“Bad for whom?”
“For you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Don’t you see? All of us win. You get your man. I get cleared. And we nab this bastard once and for all.”
His jaw flexed. “If he gets his hands on you, he’ll kill you.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“I’m not.”
“It’s my decision.”
“The hell it is,” he said. “Damn it, Mattie, you have no idea what that son of a bitch is capable of.”
“I think I do.”
A rough sound that was supposed to be a laugh ground from his throat. “You don’t have a clue.”
“I know that I’d rather face death than life in prison for something I didn’t do!”
Cutter jumped to his feet. When Mattie turned away, he grabbed her arm, and with his other hand he ripped open his shirt. Buttons flew and bounced on the floor. He worked the shirt from his body and flung it onto the back of a chair. Then he turned his back to her.
She gasped at the sight of the angry red scars crisscrossing his back. It was as if his flesh had been melted, removed and then dribbled back on like hot wax. It struck her that even when she’d treated his bullet wound, he’d never allowed her to see his back. Now she knew why, and her heart shattered.
“My God,” she heard herself say. “Cutter…”
“This is what he’s capable of,” he said in a low voice. “Take a good long look before you decide you want to use yourself as bait.”
Mattie put her hand over her mouth in shock. She knew the physical wounds on this man’s back had long since healed. But how could someone ever recover from such a terrible ordeal? Cutter had suffered agonies she couldn’t imagine. What kind of monster could do some thing like this? The knowledge that this had been intentionally done by another human being outraged her, sickened her.
“The Jaguar did that to you?” she asked.
“Took him fourteen hours, but he got the job done.” Cutter turned to her, his face an unread able mask. “Take my word for it. You don’t want to cross him.”
Her mind was reeling. She’d always suspected there was something personal between Cutter and The Jaguar. Now she knew what that something was, and it horrified her. “I’m sorry,” she heard herself say.
“Don’t be.” Bending he snatched his shirt from the floor. “Those scars keep me focused. They help me do my job.”
She didn’t know what to say. She remembered the nightmare he’d wakened from and wondered what agonies were locked inside his head.
He started to put on the shirt. Before Mattie realized she was going to move she was out of the chair and going to him. She didn’t know what she was going to do once she reached him. All she knew was that this man had suffered horribly. The need to take away his pain, to give him what little comfort she could superceded the need for caution, the need to protect herself.
He jolted when she put her hand on his shoulder. Surprise and caution and another emotion she couldn’t quite read filled his eyes when he turned to her.
“He hurt you,” she said.
“I screwed up. The Jaguar upheld his reputation.”
“Cutter, he’s a monster.”
“My point exactly.” He made another attempt to pull on the shirt. When she stopped him, he shot her a questioning look. “Mattie…”
“You don’t have to hide them from me.”