Page 17 of Wild Card
She’s tall for a woman, but still a hell of a lot smaller than I am, though. She feels fragile in my arms.
How could I have let this happen?
And how could James Carney continue to let this happen?
I set her down on the closed lid of the toilet and start the bath. She watches with a kind of casual disinterest, and I’m horrified for a moment that she thinks I’m going to assault her, or that I expect her to undress with me there. Lord knows I’d love to see the treasures under that shirt, but not like this.
“Are you okay on your own in here?”
She nods, and I leave a pile of clothes for her. While she bathes, I put a fresh sheet on the mattress. Then I wait. I’m afraid to leave her alone in the water. I can’t presume to know her well, but the way her fire’s drained from her is alarming.
Eventually I hear her calling my name.
The soft sound of it goes right to my cock. Not the time or the place. I need my attraction to her to give me a fucking break.
Her face is free of makeup, and she’s wrapped in the silky robe I’d picked out for her, sitting on the floor, her back against the side of the tub. I don’t know how to buy women’s clothes, but it’s easy to see what Catriona would look good in.
I can’t imagine there’s much she doesn’t look good in.
I tip up her chin, and she blinks lazily at me again. She still needs food and hydration, and I need to treat all the cuts on her face. It’d be a shame if they turned into scars.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice huskier than I intend.
“I need help washing my hair.”
Her hair. It’s damp from the bath, the strawberry blonde curls cascading down nearly to her waist.
“How?”
“I’ll lean back under the faucet.”
Mother Mary. Okay. I can do this. I turn on the tap, testing the temperature. When it feels warm enough, she eases her head under the running water. I rub shampoo into the soaked curls, massaging my fingers into her scalp. She winces, and I wonder what Lorenzo did to elicit that reaction. Thinking of his hands in her hair triggers that coil of rage inside me, so I take a deep breath and ease off on the pressure. Is she the first woman he’s hurt? Can I deal with the truth if she’s not? I thought I knew who my uncle was—not always reliable, but someone I knew would have my back when I needed it. He had before. It always balanced out his mistakes to a degree. Or so I thought. Maybe I just didn’t know the breadth of his wrong doings.
And I meant what I said to Catriona. If it were just his problem, I’d let her go, let Freddie have Lorenzo. I’d go to fucking prison, despite what happened to my father, and know I deserved it for my part in this. But it’s my grandmother now too.
She’d be revolted knowing her son tried to rape this woman, and under her roof, too. She loves Lorenzo, hell, so did I, probably until this afternoon. But some ethical boundaries supersede any loyalty I have to Lorenzo. If we do manage to get through this, I’m cutting him out of my life forever.
That Nonna can understand. She can still have us both, just not together.
I rinse the shampoo out of Catriona’s curls, and then, following the directions on the bottle, work the conditioner through the length of her hair, rinse that out too, and hand her a towel. She wraps her hair in it, piling it on top of her head. I help her up and take her back into the main room.
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.”
I have no right to run my fingers through her beautiful hair.
I hand her the Pedialyte. “You really need to finish this.”
She does, and I treat the cuts on her face with antibacterial ointment. She’s drifting to sleep by the time I’m finished. I should make her eat something, but I don’t know if I could.
Her eyes slide shut, and I stare at the freckles on her nose.
Fuck. I’m worried about her, and I’m not sure what to do.
Worried about James Carney’s daughter. The world is a strange fucking place.
I check her for other injuries and do what I can to clean those up too. The one on her shin is bad: red, swollen and angry.
I don’t want the details of how Lorenzo kidnapped this woman, but I know from what she’d said that he’d stuffed her into his trunk, and I wonder if he closed it on her leg.
He could’ve snapped the bone right in half.
I could tear down the rest of my bakery by hand fueled just by the ever-growing anger at what my uncle did to Catriona.
And what is wrong with her fucking father? How can he let his daughter suffer? I knew he was a selfish sack of shit, but does he really care more about his precious money than her safety?
The answer seems rather obvious.
And it’s bad news for everyone.
