Page 41 of The Hero Within
"Oh, no need to run along, young lady," the stranger called, sounding exactly like someone's jovial uncle. He winked as he breathed out a wreath of smoke. "I'm sure Johnny's manners will get better."
"She has things to do," Johnny replied flatly. "And her brother's around. Her bounty hunter brother."
"A bounty hunter brother, huh?"
The sight of the sudden intensity of the stranger's eyes haunted her until this day.
Bartholomew Cane.
I drew him right into Adam's life.
Eden shuddered, bowing her head to rest on her knees.Stop it. It's not your fault. You had no way of knowing what Cane would do to Adam.
Easier to say than to believe.
But now there was another aspect of the puzzle to uncover, one she'd never thought about before.
Knowing what she knew now, had Colton been trying to protect her from the real monster? She'd almost forgotten how he'd shoved her behind him, putting his body between them as if to protect her.
I didn't want to remember it.
And why had he kissed her back in the first place?
It was the one piece of the puzzle she'd never been able to fit into place. Becauseshe'dstarted it. She'd gone afterhim, so despite the guilt and hate twisting her into knots after everything that happened, she could never believe he'd just done it to toy with her, or to use her.
"Are you all right?" CJ asked, breaking through the ever-looping repeat of her thoughts.
"Fine," Eden managed to mutter.
But the questions wouldn't go away.
And whether Colton refused to discuss it or not, she needed to know the answers—if she had any chance of sorting through the confused jumble of emotions in her chest.
He'd spentmost of his life being hunted, one way or another, so he knew when a predator was stalking him.
Even if it was the prettiest damned predator he'd ever seen.
Johnny's eyes narrowed as Eden circled the fire and knelt at his side, bringing her medical kit with her. He'd seen her haul it out of her pack earlier. He was pretty sure she'd packed more in the goddamned kit than she had in the way of clothes. The only personal item he'd seen was a hairbrush she tugged out constantly, as she retamed her curly hair, again and again throughout the day. Prepared for any emergency, except humidity.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
Tension slid through him. There'd been a certain look in her eyes ever since she saw his scars, and it made him panic. "The same way I did an hour ago when you asked."
"I want to check your wounds," she said, tapping on the hem of his shirt. "Off."
"You've checked them twice. They're getting better."End of story.
He didn't know why her sudden attention unnerved him so much.
Or why he both craved and feared it.
"I want to check them again," she said, without a single trace of heat in her voice.
"Leave it alone, Eden. Pretending to give a damn doesn't become you." He rolled to one knee, about to get the hell out of there. Nothing had changed. Nothing. He couldn't trust this new form of truce between them. "Mierda."
A hand punched him in the shoulder lightly. "Language."
"You speak Spanish?"
