nose running, wearing a jacket two sizes too big, and yet under her straggly hair and dirty face, he’d seen a kindred spirit, a survivor, a fighter.
She’d been up to no good. He knew that but nothing more about what she’d been doing that night.
From out of nowhere, another memory flashed across the corner of his mind, of a powerful hand, a man’s hand, and a strong wrist, and the tattoo that snaked up both of them and disappeared under the cuff of a pale gray shirt. A sudden pain had him lifting his hand to his heart, and for a split second, it was hard to breathe. Then the moment passed, but not the memory.
Yeah, he knew people here. He’d had a life in this city, one at least as rich and rough as hers, and maybe it was still there for him, if he wanted it.
“Sure,” she said, turning toward the kitchen, going to make the coffee.
He watched her leave, fighting a sense of futility. Even if he wanted his old life back, he didn’t want it as much as he wanted Lancaster, and that truth still begged the question he was facing tonight.
How much did he want her?
Too much.
Fuck. He stepped into the bathroom and stripped off his makeshift bandage and his T-shirt in order to give his knife wound a good look-see. He’d gotten off easy this time. Despite King’s ultimate warrior skill set, he’d gotten only one good strike in, right in Con’s side meat, missing all his vitals and his ribs.
Without giving it a thought, he opened the door to the linen closet and found exactly what he was looking for, a plastic tub full of first aid supplies, including a suture kit. In the other room, he could hear Jane opening cupboard doors, and he went to work.
About halfway through his fourth stitch, he realized he wasn’t alone.
He glanced up and found her standing stock-still in the doorway, staring at him.
“Why don’t you wait for me in the kitchen,” he said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“S-sure.” She choked out the word, but she didn’t move, not one inch.
Hell. He didn’t blame her for staring. He knew what he looked like, and he was a mess. More mess than she would want to deal with, and he didn’t blame her.
“Was it King who cut you?” she asked.
“Yes, and if you’re going to faint, you’re on your own until I’m done,” he warned her, finishing off the stitch and reaching for the povidone-iodine.
She didn’t budge.
“Who did that to you?”
He had a lot of scars, but he knew which one she meant, the epic track running down the center of his chest.
“Maybe a guy named Dr. Souk, maybe not,” he said, disinfecting the stitches. “I try not to spend a lot of time wondering about the things I don’t remember. In this case”—he shrugged—“I think it’s best that particular memory is gone.”
He pressed a thick gauze bandage over the sutures and started wrapping more gauze around his waist to hold the bandage in place.
“How’s the coffee coming?” he asked, glancing up.
She was really looking him over now, cataloging every wound he’d ever suffered, every cut of the knife.
Good.
She needed to see it all.
Some of the butchery he remembered, being strapped to a gurney, going under with Souk’s face looming over him, and waking to a new set of bloody bandages—and, without fail, a new level of strength and power and speed that in the end wasn’t worth the price to be paid.
He was glad someone, somewhere, had blown that bastard’s brains out.
“The coffee?” she said. “It’s, uh, coming along fine.” Moving another step into the bathroom, she reached into the tub for the first aid tape.
He ran out of gauze, held the end, and waited while she tore off a piece of tape and smoothed it into place. Her fingers were cool to the touch, sweetly feminine, gentle—and enough to make him want all the trouble she could deliver.
“Thanks,” he said, deliberately moving away. “We should—” He stopped in the same instant that her gaze flew up to meet his. The stark look on her face told him she’d heard it, too, the creaking sound of someone stepping up onto the front porch.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
He wanted in.
Beneath the oddly rotten stench of this end of the block, Monk could smell the woman from the alley, the one in the golden dress with the bangles on her wrist. He’d followed her trail up the hill, and it