Page 17 of Bitter Truth
“I think we should wait until the vet examination for that.”
“You’re worried he might—” He darts a glance between me and the kit, not wanting to say anything negative about survival out loud.
“Oh, no. I think the raccoon will be fine.”
“Then why?”
“Because judging by the way it’s making eyes at you, I’m starting to suspect that he might be a she.”
I try not to feel jealous at the way Jake’s smile grows. At the look he’s giving the animal before him. But mostly, I’m relieved that he’s preoccupied.
Jake hasn’t asked me where I found the raccoon yet. And I really hope the question’s not in our future. I’m not going to lie to him, but I’m also not going to volunteer the information.
Because I saw his expression when he first spotted my bruised face. There was concern, yes, but beneath that was something else—anger. And if he was mad about me intervening at the drugstore, he’ll be absolutely enraged if he finds out I spent hours alone in the woods without even telling him where I was.
I might be reckless, but I’m not stupid. I may act like it sometimes, but I’m not. I know there’s a giant bullseye on me right now. I know I need to do something about it before someone hits their mark. But right now, I don’t have a clue what that something is, which means my only recourse is to be careful. And so far, I’m doing a horrible job of that.
CHAPTER 10
I wake with a gasp. Lie still in the dark as I catch my breath, straining to hear any sounds in the house. But there’s nothing. Not the creak of a door, the shuffle of a foot, not even the sound of Jake sleeping next to me.
My hand inches over the side of the mattress, to the grip of the pistol tucked beneath. I pull it out slowly, then sit up. Grab my phone from the nightstand and turn the screen on, using it to light the room. Just as I thought, I’m alone.
Slipping from the bed, I pull on my bathrobe, knotting the belt tight around my waist. Drop my cell in the pocket. Shove my feet into a pair of tennis shoes. Then, with gun in hand, I cross the room and ease the door open.
I creep down the hallway toward the room I’d spent hours cleaning and organizing earlier—the spare bedroom Butch used to refer to as the medical ward. Though somewhere along the way it had found a new use as a storage space in the years since he'd stopped takinginjury cases, it’s now back to serving its original purpose.
As I step inside, my eyes land on its newest patient. The kit lies curled in a corner of a cage that stretches almost the entire width of the room. As the only resident, there was no need to put the raccoon in one of the smaller enclosures.
And though I can’t help smiling as I take in the nest it made with Jake’s T-shirt, the one he’d surrendered straight off his back, the only way we could get the young raccoon to stop its sad mewing and settle in for the night, my overriding emotion right now is concern. I was sure I’d find Jake in here.
Backtracking, I pad silently toward the living room, then past it to the kitchen. Draw up short at what I find. Because there, lit only by the weak moonlight filtering in through the window, is the man I love. And everything is most definitely not okay.
A lump grows in my throat as I stand there, feeling like a voyeur as I stare at him where he sits in nothing but his boxer briefs, his head cradled in his hands as he hunches over the table. So many words form on my lips, but they all wither and fade before they have a chance to be spoken.
Jake wouldn’t want me to catch him like this. Whatever it is that’s happening, I don’t want to make it worse.
I feel my pulse fluttering beneath the thin skin of my neck as I back away, not stopping until I’m at the head of the hallway. I clear my throat softly. Then call out into the night.
“Jake?”
His voice sounds startled and anxious as he answers. “Yeah. In here.”
This time, when I reach the kitchen, he’s sitting up. He gives me a wan smile, one that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Is everything okay?”
His lips twitch. “Everything’s fine. I just couldn’t sleep.”
It’s a first. Since we started sharing a bed, Jake’s always fallen asleep right away while I lie awake for hours battling insomnia, dark thoughts, and even darker memories.
I enter the kitchen warily, approaching slowly like he’s a wild animal I might scare off.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
I remember reading an article once that suggested that if you needed to have an important conversation with a man, it was better to do it in a situation where he wouldn’t feel pressured to make eye contact, like while you’re sitting side by side in a car. That won’t work now, but I have another idea.
