Blood And Bone by Dawn Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

open the door.
    The stooped outline lurched in front of her single headlight, and the glare illuminated the ugliest Hawaiian shirt she’d ever seen.
    Des Anderson.
    Relief swamped her like a tidal wave, turning her muscles soft for the second time in one night. The feeling, however, was short-lived. He may not have been the homicidal maniac she’d imagined, but the jerk had scared the life out of her. And all because he was staggering drunk. Even from this distance, the smell of beer was nearly overpowering.
    As he pitched forward, the light cast a ghostly pallor over his face. Dark smudges beneath his left eye, along his lip and circling the edges of each nostril stood out from the stark whiteness of his skin.
    Blood.
    He wasn’t just drunk, he was hurt.
    “What happened to you?” she asked.
    Her question stopped him short. He tilted his head the way her sister’s terrier did when asked if he wanted a cookie.
    Des opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, he sank to his knees and fell forward, sprawling face-first on the gravel at her feet.
    “You have got to be kidding.” Shayne looked down at the man passed out on the ground in front of her. Could this day get any more bizarre?
    She knelt next to him and shook his shoulder gently. He muttered something, but didn’t open his eyes. He looked worse close up. His battered face was dirty, and streaked with blood. His lower lip was swollen and cut, and the stink of beer clung to his filthy, torn clothes. Gingerly, she fingered the oozing cut surrounded by bruised flesh beneath his eye.
    “Anderson.” She shook him a little harder. “I can’t lift you. You have to get up.”
    “I just want to sleep,” he mumbled. He didn’t open his eyes, but at least he was coherent.
    “Fine, but you can’t do that out here. Come on, I’ll help you.” She gripped his arm and tried to tug him up, but he jerked away from her touch.
    “I got it.” Des pushed onto his knees and shoved his sopping hair back from his face.
    Without thinking, she brushed away the tiny stones stuck to his cheek. He didn’t seem to notice. “God, how much did you have to drink?”
    “Two beers.”
    “You smell like you drank a lot more than two beers.” She grasped his arm and helped him stand.
    “I’m wearing a hell of a lot more than I drank. I can walk, by the way.” He shrugged out of her grip and hobbled away from her along the edge of the road.
    “Can I drive you somewhere?” she called.
    “No.”
    Shayne sighed. “You’re in pretty rough shape, and it’s a long walk to town. My place isn’t far. You could call someone to pick you up.”
    He let out a humorless laugh. “And what would I have to do for such kindness? Tell you all my family secrets?”
    Her cheeks heated. “I’m not evil incarnate, you know. Actually, you don’t have to speak to me at all. At this point, I think I’d prefer it that way.”
    He stopped, but kept his back to her. For a moment, he didn’t move or speak. Probably deciding if he could stand to be in her presence for more than thirty seconds.
    “Fine,” he said at last, and shuffled to her car.
    She opened the passenger’s door for him and he lowered himself onto the seat slowly, as if every movement hurt. If the rest of him looked anything like his face, it probably did.
    She walked around the front of the car and slid behind the wheel. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the headrest. He didn’t say a word as she started the engine and pulled onto the road.
    “We can call the cops from my place.”
    He opened his good eye. “Cops?”
    “Yeah. Somebody obviously did this to you.”
    “What makes you think I didn’t deserve it?”
    “Did you?”
    He closed his eye. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
    Whatever that meant. She kept her attention fixed on the road, all the while doing her best to ignore her raging curiosity. Who beat the hell out him? And why? Did this kind of thing happen often? Maybe he was having an affair