Page 52 of Kane's Bounty
He tucked her protectively against his chest and closed his eyes.
* * *
As soon asshe woke up, her wall went back up.
Kane opened his eyes and watched as she quietly pulled her jeans and shirt on. He didn’t know what he expected when she turned and saw him watching. Not the shy smile she gave him.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Better.” She looked as if she wanted to say more. She was searching for words. Her eyes looked from one corner of the room to the other as if the small room could help her with the answers. “Banta is still in here.” She touched her head. “I can feel him, but it’s as if he’s in a fog.”
He nodded, sat up and grabbed his pants.
“Is that what you did?”
She was adorable standing there with bare feet, looking for answers.
“I tried to tuck him further back in your mind. For now, he will seem like a distant memory.”
“You said you can get rid of him.” She either wouldn’t or couldn’t look at him.
Kane stood up and pulled her hard against him. Her head turned up. “When this is all over,” he said. “We’ll work on it.”
“Why can’t you just take it away?” A plump tear tumbled over her lower lid.
He caught it with his thumb and wiped it away. “It doesn’t work that way. Your brain is not like a library where I can pop in and remove a book.”
“What then?”
“We can move the memory or turn it into another kind of energy. Right now, behind the block I put up, Banta’s memories feel as if they’re your own. We have to put them in their proper place. Since you’re not a telepath, you never learned how to do it. I have the memories of several people in my head, but I know how to organize them so I don’t confuse those thoughts and images with my own.”
“I get it.” She seemed disappointed.
His entire body strained with regret. “I wish I could take the memories away, Lena. If I could safely do that, believe me, I would. People have tried it and they never manage it. The person is never quite right after that kind of procedure. I could never risk losing you that way.”
She must have noticed his distress. Touching his brow, she smoothed the spaced between his eyes. “None of this was your fault, Kane. Stop blaming yourself. If anyone in this room is to blame, it’s me. I should have seen Oscar for what he was long before he put us all in danger.”
The knock on the door ended the conversation. He reluctantly released her and let Wade in.
“I have coffee. I didn’t know how Lena took hers. I brought sugar and those little creamers. I also got a few donuts.” Wade’s smile was bright and he looked very pleased with himself as he placed the pink-and-orange box of donuts on the card table with the cardboard carrier containing three covered coffee cups.
Lena plucked one cup out of the carrier, opened the lid and poured a couple of creamers in. “Good job, Shamus.”
Wade actually blushed. Then the big man shuffled from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry for hitting you back in Savannah. If it’s any consolation, those bikers beat the hell out of me after Kane grabbed you up.”
Her smile went right to Kane’s guts. His stomach tightened and so did his cock.
“It does actually make me feel a bit better,” she said.
Kane laughed. It made him feel better too. He liked the image of the tattooed biker woman and her friends beating the hunter down until the cops broke up the scene.
It took Wade a few minutes longer, but then he chuckled too.
They drank coffee and ate donuts. Kane was happy to see Lena munching on a cruller and listening to Wade recount every kick, punch and pinch they had inflicted on him in Savannah.
After fifteen minutes, Wade sobered. “I told the court I would deliver you at nine sharp.”
She nodded and went into the bathroom. The water turned on.
