she was gently moving her fingers around the swelling at the back of Sam’s head. “Did you just make a joke? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you make a joke.”
“It isn’t a joke if Stella doesn’t have coffee.”
“That’s so true,” Harlow agreed.
“I’m right here, in case anyone hasn’t noticed,” Stella pointed out. “Sheesh. A little crack on the head and Sam thinks he’s a comedian.”
“I’ve always been funny,” Sam said without a change of expression. “It didn’t take a knock on my head to make me that way.”
Harlow burst out laughing. She shook her head. “I had no idea. I can’t wait to tell Vienna. The mere idea that Sam can crack a joke is going to slay her.”
“Don’t encourage him, Harlow.” Stella put her head back and looked up at the drifting clouds. It was good to be alive. “And Vienna doesn’t even have good sense. She’s a cat person.”
That made Harlow laugh more. “What does that mean? Cats have way more sense than dogs do. Bailey would have jumped into that cold water to save your ass and so would my silly little beagle, Misha. Vienna’s cat, however, would have turned her nose up in pure disdain. She would have known better.”
“She’s got a point,” Sam said. “Bailey would have.”
Bailey lifted his head and looked up at Stella with his brown eyes. She scratched behind his ears. “Because you’re so loyal, right, boy? You would have saved me. That cat of Vienna’s would have let her drown.”
“Are you talking baby talk to that huge animal?” Harlow demanded. “Isn’t he supposed to be some badass protection dog?”
“I don’t talk baby talk to my dog,” Stella denied. She did, all the time.
“She does,” Sam confirmed, and reached out to take her hand right in front of Harlow.
His hand was warm. His fingers strong. Whatever Harlow was going to say was cut off mid-sentence when she saw him take Stella’s hand. It was the first time Sam had actually made any kind of real public claim on her, if one could call hand-holding a public claim. Sam didn’t seem the type of man to hold hands. He was just too reserved for any kind of public acknowledgments or displays of affection.
Harlow bent her head closer to Sam’s wound. “This isn’t as bad as it could have been. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot and make things seem far worse than they are. Do you have blurred vision?”
“No. A bit of a headache at the back of my head where the knot is. It’s centered right there. More of a throbbing, like I can feel my heartbeat there.”
Stella was surprised that Sam was so forthcoming and matter-of-fact. Harlow asked him a few more questions and he answered, but now his thumb moved over the back of Stella’s hand, feathering back and forth in a little caress that sent strange little darts of fire running through her bloodstream straight to her deepest core, making her all too aware of him. Just that small gesture.
She didn’t dare look at him. It had been too long. Way too long. She didn’t do relationships and she wasn’t certain how to react. The questions Harlow asked Sam seemed far away. Stella heard Harlow say she didn’t even have to use glue to close the cut, but after that, Stella concentrated on the way the single gesture, so small, made her body come alive. Or maybe it was the fact that she could sit in her camp chair in the early morning hours with the sun shining on Sunrise Lake, bathing the water in gorgeous colors, knowing Sam was alive. Knowing the killer didn’t get his way and the man she cared about wasn’t his first victim. There was no first victim.
“Earth to Stella,” Harlow called. “That lake mesmerizes you. I need you to listen to me. Sam never does and he needs to take antibiotics. All of them until they’re finished. We don’t know what was on that rock or in the water. I’ve given him a shot to get started and put antibiotic cream on the wound to be safe.”
She held out the tube to Stella, forcing her to pull her hand away from Sam or put down her coffee. Sam solved her dilemma by letting her hand go. She took the tube from Harlow.
“You need to put this on the cut a couple of times a day for two days. Then you want it open to the air.”
Sam reached out almost lazily and