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Lexi took hold of his arm, her blue eyes running over the length of it. Vivid red scratches and teeth marks covered the skin, though miraculously there was no punctures or blood: he had escaped unscathed.
“He didn’t do any real damage.” She confirmed what he’d already surmised.
“Good to know,” he answered. “I like doctors about as much as Bud likes vets.”
She didn’t know what to make of his joke, unable to gather her thoughts together yet, then decided it must be a coping mechanism for stressful situations, and probably one of the reasons he’d managed to last so long as a marine.
Kane reached down and pulled up the hem of her jeans to calf level. His fingers were cool and rough, yet they scorched her skin. Her heart — already beating fast — hammered inside her chest.
His fingers probed her ankle gently, examining it for injury. She knew what he was doing. Understood that he was only making sure she hadn’t twisted it. Why then was his touch causing shivers to race up and down her spine?
“Does it hurt at all when I move it?”
He slipped off her sneaker then cupped her bare foot (she wasn’t a sock girl) in one large hand, the other wrapped around her ankle to stabilize it. Her hand reflexively rested on his shoulder for balance.
Tight muscles rippled beneath her fingers. She had a sudden flash of his naked torso in her mind — at least, what she imagined it would look like — and her mouth went as dry as the desert.
Forget pain, what was all this heat she was suddenly feeling?
“I’m fine.”
Please let go of my foot before I embarrass myself.
He set her foot back down, releasing it from his grasp. The immediate emptiness she felt took her aback. Her foot felt cold even after he put her sneaker back on.
Edward hurried in, a fresh coffee stain on his shirt as if he had set a cup down too fast. The dark brown liquid was still blossoming against the white of his shirt, soaking into his chest and turning the material translucent enough that Kane could see the outline of the small silver cross he wore around his neck.
Chris followed closely behind, bringing two people with him. A tall woman with a pristine cut bob who looked to be in her forties carried a first aid kit with her while the other staffer — a security guard with a limp and a worried expression — gripped onto a tranquilizer gun.
“Are you all OK? Is anyone hurt?” Edward’s sharp, dark eyes swept the room, darting between them. The earlier jovial character Kane had met had disappeared, replaced with a concerned boss and friend.
“We’re all fine,” Kane responded.
“He has some scratches on his arm,” Lexi supplied, unwilling to dismiss any possible injuries the collie might have caused. “He had Kane’s arm in his mouth for a while but he managed to keep him from damaging it too much.”
The woman hurried to Kane and opened her first aid kit. “Let me have a look.”
“It’s nothing, really,” Kane started to object, but the woman fixed him with eyes that were as sharp as her haircut.
“It’s procedure. We need to inspect both the incident and the people involved.”
Her no-nonsense tone brokered no disagreement. Reluctantly and despite feeling that it was overkill, he let her clean the scratches though he drew the line at bandages.
“It was the collie who attacked you?” Edward gestured at the cage where the collie had retreated to the back of his kennel, still growling, hackles still raised as his eyes darted between them all.
“Yes.”
The guard moved toward the dog, lifting the tranquilizer gun.
“No, don’t shoot him!” Lexi cried. “He was just upset because of all the changes today. He only came in a few days ago. I think he was under Emma’s care but she’s not here today and I think we were a few surprises too many for him to take.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Edward’s face.
“You know an attack on one of our volunteers is not something we take likely.”
“I do, but it was resolved and he really wouldn’t have attacked us if we hadn’t scared him. He doesn’t need more trauma. He needs kindness and understanding, and if you see the magic Emma has worked with him, I know you’ll agree.”
She was so earnest even Kane felt swayed by her argument. He was also somewhat impressed that she was putting the dog’s welfare above her own.
