She headed toward the back, a startling sense of ownership quickening her pace. The curtain was open. Will was sitting up in bed. A drape was around his foot. Worst of all, Krakauer had a pair of pick-ups in his hand.
“No-no-no,” she said, jogging toward the two men. “What are you doing?”
Krakauer indicated the needle holder. “They didn’t let you play with these in medical school?”
Sara gave him a tight smile. “Thanks. I’ll take over from here.” He took the hint, returning the instrument to the tray and taking his leave. Sara gave Will a sharp look as she closed the curtain. “You were going to let Krakauer sew you up?”
“Why not?”
“For the same reason you weren’t left rotting in the waiting room.” Sara washed her hands at the sink. “If someone broke into my apartment, would you let another cop investigate it?”
“I don’t normally work burglaries.”
Sara wiped her hands dry with a paper towel. Will wasn’t normally this obtuse. “What’s going on?”
“He said I need stitches.”
“Not that.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “You’ve been acting strange since we got here. Is it Amanda?”
“Why? Did she say something to you?”
Sara had a creeping sense of deja vu. She’d spoken briefly to Amanda and gotten the same question about Will. “What would Amanda tell me?”
“Nothing important. She wasn’t making a lot of sense.”
“She seemed pretty sharp to me.” Sara resisted the urge to put her hands on her hips like a lecturing schoolmarm. “I saw Ashleigh Snyder on the news.”
Will sat up. “Did they find her?”
“No. They’re speculating that she might’ve staged her own kidnapping. One of her friends came forward and said she was about to flunk out of school.”
Will nodded, but didn’t offer his opinion.
“Are you working the case?”
“Nope.” His tone was clipped. “Still keeping Atlanta’s airport toilets safe from horny business travelers.”
“Why aren’t you on the kidnapping?”
“You’d have to ask Amanda.”
Here they were, full circle again.
“Is she all right?” Will asked, though the question seemed obligatory. “Amanda, I mean.”
Sara had never been good at staring contests, especially with someone as blatantly pigheaded as the man she’d been sleeping with for the last two weeks. “She has what’s called a Colles’ fracture. Ortho is reducing it right now. She’ll get a cast. She’s pretty banged up, but she’ll be okay. Normally, she’d be sent home, but she lost consciousness, so she’ll have to spend the night.”
“Good.” He stared at her blankly. Sara got the feeling that she might as well be talking to a brick wall. The tension between them was just as thick.
She took his hand. “Will—”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
Sara waited for him to say more. Then she realized they only had twelve hours before it would be too late to suture his ankle. She slipped on a pair of surgical gloves. She could tell from the mess that Krakauer had already cleaned out the wound. “Your ankle is numb?”
Will nodded.
“Let’s see what we have.” She pressed her fingers around the open skin. The laceration was at least an inch long and half as deep. Fresh blood wept out when she forced together the skin. She asked, “You didn’t think to tell me that a nail went into your ankle?”
“The other doctor said it barely needs a stitch.”
“The other doctor is never going to have to see your ankle again.” Sara rolled over the stool so she could sit down. She took the scalpel and used the edge to shape the jagged opening into an ellipse. “I’ll make sure there isn’t a scar.”
“You know that doesn’t matter.”
Sara looked up at him. There were worse scars on his body. It was something they didn’t talk about. One of the many things they didn’t talk about.
She tried, again. “What’s going on with you?”
Will shook his head, looking away. He was obviously still angry, but Sara had no idea why. There was no use asking him. As sweet and kind and gentle as Will Trent was, Sara had learned that he was about as forthcoming as an amnesiac with lockjaw.
She didn’t know what else to do but start suturing. Her glasses were in her purse, which she assumed was still locked inside her car. Sara leaned in close and hooked the needle into the flesh just beneath Will’s skin. The chromic thread dipped in and out as she placed a single row of interrupted sutures. Pull, knot, cut. Pull, knot, cut. Over the years, Sara’s hands had performed this same action so many times that she went into autopilot, which, unfortunately, gave her mind plenty of time to wander.
The same question she’d been asking herself for the last two weeks popped into her head: What was she doing?
She liked Will. He was the first man Sara had really been with since her husband had died. She enjoyed his company. He was funny and smart. Handsome. Incredibly good in bed. He’d met her family. Her dogs adored him. Sara adored his dog. Over the last few weeks, Will had practically moved into her apartment, but in some ways, he still felt like a stranger.
What little he revealed about his past always came in sugarcoated sound bites. Nothing was ever too bad. No one was that horrible. To hear Will tell it, he’d lived a charmed life. Never mind the cigarette and electrical burns on his body. The jag to his upper lip where the skin had been busted in two. The deep gouge that followed his jawline. Sara kissed these places and rubbed her hands along them as if they didn’t exist.
“Halfway there.” Sara glanced up at Will again. He was still looking away.
She tied off the last knot and picked up a new needle threaded with Prolene. She started the running subcuticular row, zigzagging the thread back and forth, all the while berating herself for giving in to Will’s silence.
When their relationship first started, none of this had mattered. There were far more interesting things Will could do with his mouth other than talk about himself. These last few days, his reticence had started to bother her. Sara found herself wondering if he was capable of giving more, and failing that, if she was willing to settle for less.
Even if by some miracle he decided to pour out his heart to Sara, there was still the larger problem of his wife. If Sara was being honest, she was afraid of Angie Polaski, and not just because the woman kept leaving nasty notes on the windshield of Sara’s car. Angie lingered in Will’s life like a vaporous poison. The joy that Sara felt as Will showed her around his old neighborhood had quickly dissipated when practically every memory he recalled had something to do with Angie. He didn’t have to say her name. Sara knew that he was thinking about her.
Which left Sara questioning whether or not there was any space in Will’s life for someone other than Angie Polaski.
“There.” Sara pulled closed the skin and knotted the loop. “These need to stay in for two weeks. I’ve got some waterproof Band-Aids at home so you can shower. I’ll get you some Tylenol for the pain.”
“I’ve got some at home.” He stared at his hands as he rolled down the leg of his pants. “I should probably stay there tonight.” He slid on his sock, still not meeting her eyes. “I need to wash some of my shirts. Do the laundry. Check on the dog.”
Sara stared openly. Will’s jaw was clenched. He was a study in controlled anger. She wasn’t sure if this was directed solely at Amanda anymore. “Are you mad at me?”
“No.” The answer was short, quick, and obviously a lie.
“All right.” Sara turned her back to him as she snapped off her gloves. She tossed them into the trashcan, then started cleaning up the suture kit. Behind her, she could hear Will moving around, probably looking for his shoe. Sara normally had a long fuse, but her bad day had made it considerably shorter. She reached under the bed and grabbed his shoe out of the basket.
