The farthest reaches of the cavern were deep in shadow, but she could see that more chairs like the one she was sitting on were piled against another wall, along with a number of folded tables, a stack of wooden pallets, and a row of metal garbage cans with the lids on. Open metal shelving held a hodgepodge of objects. Everything was covered with the fine silt that was the cave version of dust. But the room was dry and surprisingly warm and there was light.
Cal closed the door—he had to lift it by the handle to get it to move, and the hinges squeaked in protest—and returned to stand by the table just a few feet away. Knowing that avoiding doing so would reveal more than she wanted to, she met his gaze in what was meant to be a casual glance. From the thoughtful expression on his face as he returned her look, she figured he was on the brink of initiating a serious conversation. She tensed, wary about what the topic might be.
She did not want to talk about David. Or the plane crash that had killed her family. Or anything hard or painful. She was tired to the point of exhaustion, aching in every muscle, scared to death, shaken, grieving—and so aware of Cal that she could feel her body tightening just because he was near.
“We should be okay here until daylight,” he said. She got the feeling that it wasn’t what he’d intended to say, and wondered what he’d read in her face.
“That’s good,” she replied, grabbing on to the neutral topic gratefully.
He’d removed the watch cap and was running a hand over his hair. It looked seal black in the uncertain light. His eyes looked black, too, as they moved over her in an assessing way that worried her as she tried to work out what he was thinking. The chiseled planes and angles of his face were harsh with shadows. He looked tired and wired and big as a tractor trailer and tough as nails—and so handsome that her heart beat a little faster just from looking at him.
This is bad. You cannot fall for him.
She found herself watching as he pressed a hand against his coat just below his waist, and immediately had the distraction she needed.
“Are you bleeding?” She frowned as she nodded toward his wound, which was what he was pressing his hand against through the layers of his coat and other clothes, she knew. “You probably tore the wound open carrying me.”
And how was that for being matter-of-fact about something that still had her pulse tripping?
He lifted his brows at her. “Honey—oh, sorry, Gina—you’re not that heavy. And if you think that’s the most strenuous thing I’ve done all day, you obviously missed something.” As she acknowledged the truth of that with a little grimace, he unzipped his coat and pulled up yesterday’s crumpled and dried-stiff shirt to peer down and probe at the Band-Aids still adhering to his honed abdomen. As she blinked in bemused admiration at the strip of tanned, hard-muscled flesh thus exposed, he added, “It’s not bleeding, I don’t think. It hurts some, is all. Not enough to worry about.”
“Let me look at it,” she said, resigned to getting as up close and personal as tending his wound required despite the fact that, right at this moment, the idea of touching his bare skin set off all kinds of warning bells in her head.
To her surprise, and relief, he shook his head. Dropping his shirt, he looked at her semihumorously. “Weren’t you the one who said something along the lines of ‘getting shot is supposed to hurt’?”
She was, but she now discovered that she didn’t like the idea of him hurting. Worse, she didn’t like the idea that she didn’t like the idea of him hurting. What that told her was that she really was starting to get in too deep with him, and her poor damaged heart recoiled at the thought. Under different circumstances she would have insisted on looking more closely at his wound, but, worried by the turn their association was taking, she glanced down at the backpacks instead and said in a neutral tone, “You should probably take some Tylenol. There should be some in the first aid kits.”
“I will,” he said. Even though she was no longer looking at him, she could feel him watching her like a cat at a mouse hole, and it made her uncomfortable. To forestall the conversation she knew in her bones was coming, she hurried into speech again.
“We need to eat.” She tried to remember what she’d shoved into the backpack during her fraught foray through the kitchen cabinets. “Something besides protein bars.”
“You’re right.” He crouched beside the backpacks, unzipped one, and started rummaging around inside it. That brought him close enough so that she could have laid her hand against his bristly cheek—and the unnerving part was, she wanted to. He pulled out a first aid kit and handed it to her. “You fish out the Tylenol, and I’ll find us some food.”