Page 27 of Shadow Burn

He kept his voice quiet. Every officer in the place seemed to be listening even when they weren’t looking. “You don’t need to sit in front of the windows while they work. How about we move to the laundry room? It’s out of the way, and Mallory can find you there if he needs more from you. It would be better for Priss, too. She’s had a hell of a night and we don’t want her to get spooked and dash out the door.”

A small crease formed between Katherine’s brows. Her gaze went past him to the hall and the direction of the bedroom. He watched her mind run the map of the house and assess the suggestion as if it were a route in hostile territory. Then she nodded once. “All right.”

Jasper stood and offered his hand. She looked at it for a second before taking it. Her fingers were cold, the skin rough with the dried blood in her palm, and he had to fight the urge to close his hand hard around hers to anchor her. Instead, he helped her stand slowly.

While she leaned down to gather Priss, Jasper hurried to carry a kitchen chair into the laundry room, then went back for a folded throw blanket from the arm of the couch, a bottle of water from the fridge, and the small first-aid kit Garrett had left on the kitchen counter.

The laundry room was narrow, with a washer and dryer along one wall, shelves of detergent and cleaning supplies on a shelf above them, and a tile floor cold enough that Katherine’s bare feet curled when she stepped inside. The room smelled faintly of bleach, fabric softener, and the dusty warmth of the dryer, which was still holding a forgotten load of towels.

“Sit,” he said.

She sat, cradling the cat. Priss immediately leaned against Katherine’s chest with exaggerated offense. A feline shield.

Jasper unfolded the blanket and draped it around Katherine’s shoulders. She pulled one edge close with her uninjured hand. The gesture was small, but it made something in his chest loosen and hurt at the same time.

“Drink.” He twisted the cap off the water and handed it to her.

She took two obedient sips, then lowered the bottle. “I’m not incapacitated.”

“You’re in shock.”

Her eyes lifted to his. Hazel, shadowed, too dull under the laundry room’s overhead light. “Why are you hiding me in this room and looking like you’ll kill anyone who gets too close to me?”

Because I heard the shot and the line went dead. Because for three minutes on the road, I didn’t know if I was driving toward you or toward your body. Because if I start thinking too hard about the sound you made when you saw the gun, I’m going to put my fist through a wall and that won’t help anyone.

He set the first-aid kit on top of the dryer and opened it. “There are too many windows in the living room.”

“What?”

“You were too exposed. This room is safer.”

For a moment he thought she would question him further. Katherine liked complete answers. She demanded truth, even when it was ugly. What he said sank in. “Oh,” she said, “because the intruder might try again. To…kill me.”

“It’s precautionary. My training kicking in.” He pulled a clean washcloth from a stack on the shelf, wet it in the utility sink, and wrung it out. “I need to clean the cut on your cheek.”

“I can do it.”

“No. You hold Priss so she doesn’t attack me.”

That earned him a weak smile. She nodded, stroked the cat, and tilted her face up.

Permission granted. Jasper stepped closer and braced one hand lightly against the back of the chair, not touching her yet, giving himself half a second to get his head right. Blood had dried along the delicate line of her cheekbone, a thin red track against skin that had gone too pale. A few tiny glittering fragments clung near her jaw.

He touched the washcloth to her face as gently as he could.

Katherine inhaled, quick and sharp, but she didn’t pull away. Priss’s ears flattened.

“Sorry,” Jasper said.

“It’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Her eyes flicked to his, and for one strange second the room narrowed to the space between his hand and her cheek, the soft rasp of cloth over skin, the faint tremor she was trying to suppress.

He’d been trained to treat injuries under much worse conditions. He’d cleaned blood off men in the dark, wrapped wounds with incoming fire snapping overhead, kept pressure on arteries while calling coordinates into a radio. None of it had prepared him for the simple act of wiping blood from Katherine Townsend’s face in a laundry room while her cat glared at him from her lap.

“You’re angry,” she said.