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“Just a wee nap.” Alastair shifted out from under the intimacy of her touch, reminding her they weren’t lovers. Or friends. Or anything at all to each other. He looked away and spoke to the darkness. “My head is splitting.”
Rainne swallowed the rejection—after all, she was the one who’d rejected him first. And hers had been much worse. “I’m not allowed to give you aspirin. If your brain is bleeding, it will make it worse.”
“My brain isn’t bleeding.” He lifted his right arm, forgetting it was injured, and winced. He studied the tight bandage she’d wound around his wrist while he’d been asleep.
“I really was out cold, huh?” Alastair’s eyes snapped to hers. “Wait a minute. What to do you mean you’re not allowed?”
“I spoke to Joe Barone; he works for Lake—”
“I know who Joe is. How did you speak to him? Are the phones back on?” He looked around the room as he spoke. “Still no power.”
Rainne pointed at the wall. “The intercom works. We can talk to the castle.”
“You might have mentioned that first.”
“We’ve been talking one whole minute, Alastair. It isn’t like I waited hours.”
He shot her a look that said he thought otherwise. “What did he tell you?”
“Not to give you aspirin and not to let you move around too much in case you make your ribs worse. He said you could puncture a lung.”
He stared at her for a second. “Not about my injuries. About the guy with the gun?”
“Oh.” Her cheeks burned. “Of course. There’s more than one of them. Joe doesn’t know what they want. They haven’t gone inside the castle. They seem to be waiting for something. Claire has gone into town to get help.”
Alastair struggled to his feet. He still wasn’t as steady as she would have liked. Rainne went to fetch him a can of Coke from the lockers while he checked to see if his jeans were dry. He turned them, as she’d been doing every few minutes, to make sure they dried evenly. Rainne tried not to look at him standing there in his underwear. But it was a small room and there wasn’t anywhere else to look.
“You’ve changed,” she blurted, then felt her cheeks burn.
“People do.”
“You’re bigger.” Why, oh why, wouldn’t her mouth stay shut? “Your shoulders.” She pointed just in case he didn’t know where he kept them. “Broader. You have more muscle, your body is wider and those weren’t there the last time I saw you...” She trailed off before she said the word “naked.”
Alastair looked down at the defined ab muscles she’d pointed to. He seemed at a loss as to what to say, which was new.
“Here.” Rainne thrust the can at him. “The fluid and sugar will help.”
Alastair took the can without comment, popped the top and drank until it was empty. “Got any more in there?”
Rainne fetched him another. She felt self-conscious and awkward as she wondered if she should mention the kiss. In the scheme of things, with everything they had to deal with, thinking about a kiss was really pretty stupid. Yeah. Maybe she’d keep her mouth shut. But the heavy silence was driving her crazy. She had to talk about something. Anything.
“So,” she said. “How’s your dad?”
Alastair stopped drinking to look at her. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We’re doing small talk now?”
“It’s just us, Alastair. Unless you want to sit in silence, then yeah, we’re doing small talk.”
“Okay.” He stared at her long enough to make her think he was going to take the silence option. “My dad is fine.”
Great. And there ended that conversation starter.
“And the business?” This was painful. She should just shut up and stare at the wall. But then she’d spend her time worrying about the guys outside and the danger everyone was in. Or if Alastair was going to keel over without medical attention. No. She needed to talk.
“The business is fine.” He pointed to the window with the can. “Not really the weather for fishing.”
She swallowed hard. It had only just occurred to her to ask about a girlfriend. What if he was in a relationship? She should have thought of that possibility before she turned up on his doorstep and declared her love. The thought was mortifying.
“Spit it out,” Alastair said. “Whatever it is you want to ask that’s giving you a constipated look.”
