Page 34 of Playing With Temptation

“Um…”

It took me a moment to realize she wasn’t explaining. I shifted in the bed, felt the uncomfortable pull on my shoulder, and the ache in my head made itself known when I once again opened my eyes. This time I ignored the throbbing and fully opened them to find Rainy staring at me. Pale face, bloodshot eyes, her hair was piled on top of her head, but not in one of those artfully arranged buns women pull off. Hers was just plain messy, like she’d just secured it to get it out of the way. And lastly, she looked freaked.

“I’m not mad, sweetheart. Just curious,” I told her. “How’d you know I was here?”

Her eyes dropped to my bare chest, and I hoped someone had cleaned the blood away.

“Sophie,” she whispered.

That tracked. What didn’t is why Rainy would be at the hospital. The painkillers were wearing off if the twinge in my shoulder was anything to go by, not to mention the pain bouncing around in my skull intensified when I turned my head to look at the clock on the wall. My vision was blurry, but I could still make out it was after two in the afternoon. She should be in the pickup line at school.

“You should be picking up your boy,” I told her.

“Mom’s picking him up and taking him back to her house.”

When my gaze slowly made its way back to Rainy, she had her eyes pinned to my right shoulder, or more to the point the bandage covering the stitches underneath. I had matching stitches on the back of my shoulder, ditto on the bandage. And two staples on the back of my head.

“It went straight through,” I explained.

“Huh?”

“The bullet. It went straight through. Just a few stitches.”

She didn’t take her eyes off the bandage when she said, “And staples.”

“Rainy,” I called and waited for her gaze to lift. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Totally fine.”

Other than a bruised ego from tripping on a downed tree branch and knocking myself out when my head hit the stump, I was fine.

“Okay,” she murmured.

She didn’t look convinced and since I didn’t know what to say to her to make her believe me, I went back to my earlier question.

“What should you have told me?”

That startled her out of her haze. She no longer looked freaked out about my injuries. She looked panicked. Her eyes darted to the IV bag, then to the machines next to my bed, then to the corner of the bed.

“Rainy?”

“We should wait until you’re not in a hospital bed after getting shot.”

Shit, I was getting annoyed again.

I didn’t get why she was in my hospital room. I didn’t understand why she’d arrange for her mom to pick up her kid. What I did get was she was good at evading anything that was important.

“I can see the muscle in your cheek jumping,” she murmured.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than her eyes rounded.

Yeah, she didn’t mean to say that out loud. Just like she hadn’t meant for me to hear her mumbling about her telling me something when she thought I was asleep.

I went back to another question she’d yet to answer. “Why are you here?”

Her gaze shifted back to my shoulder, which was too bad she wasn’t looking at my face to see the muscle in my cheek was no longer jumping, seeing as I was grinding my molars to stop myself from saying something I’d regret.

“Shay was here,” she whispered.

I didn’t miss the hurt in her tone. Which on some level I understood. I’d loved her once. There was a time when I thought my future would include her and our children. I’d planned for that. I’d wanted that. I was destroyed when she took that away.