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shouldn’t. Chances were the E.R. doctor would be a man, if they did go to the hospital.
    “That’s not long.” Twenty minutes would certainly be shorter than going to the emergency room. She didn’t think she had the strength to get up. She definitely knew she couldn’t walk, not without staggering. And how would they explain that she was doped up?
    That could get Noah in trouble.
    “No...but you’d have to take off your shorts,” he pointed out.
    She didn’t plan on ever seeing Noah again, anyway. They might pass each other once or twice over the next few months while she was in town, but she could muster a wave and move on, couldn’t she? Forget that this ever happened?
    Gathering her nerve, she reached beneath her to undo her cutoffs. Then she wiggled them, along with her panties, down over her hips.
    “Hurry,” she said. As innocuous as her actions were, she didn’t want to add to her humiliation by having Gran wake up to such a sight.
    She’d taken him by surprise. His sudden silence and stillness told her that.
    “You don’t have a problem with finishing, do you?” Was the painkiller she’d taken affecting her decision-making ability? Maybe. She felt sort of...distant and relaxed, despite what was going on.
    He cleared his throat again. “I’m thinking...maybe we should wake Milly and let her do this part.”
    “Except she couldn’t see well enough to do the other part.”
    Tension hung thick and heavy in the room—awkwardness, embarrassment, hesitation. She’d already bared her ass and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.
    “It’s just a butt, no big deal.” She kept her face turned into the couch because she didn’t want to look at him. He’d changed since high school, but not enough that she couldn’t recognize him—or see the resemblance to Cody. There was also the hero worship she’d once felt. This was worse than walking up and congratulating him on a good baseball game....
    But finishing what they’d begun seemed the most direct route to accomplishing their goal. She’d get through it and then she’d forget about it. Noah wasn’t part of the life she’d built since leaving Whiskey Creek. He didn’t matter. No doubt he’d forget this by tomorrow, too. He hadn’t even remembered her, and she’d watched him for two years with such longing....
    “I know you can’t be shy,” she prodded when he didn’t move.
    “I’m definitely not shy, but I’ve never touched a woman who...who’s been—”
    “Noah, I wasn’t raped last night.” She wondered what he’d think if she told him the only rape she’d ever suffered had been instigated by his brother and carried out by his teammates, that the man who’d thrown her down the mine shaft was one of those teammates. “Just get the job done, okay? I understand the difference between removing a few slivers and...and other activities.”
    “Maybe it would be easier if you didn’t cringe every time I touch you.”
    After everything he’d been in high school, and she saw no reason his status in Whiskey Creek would’ve changed, it probably came as a shock that she didn’t want his hands on her. As far as she was concerned, a dose of indifference now and then would be good for his ego. “This isn’t exactly a pleasurable process.”
    “I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about earlier when I was trying to get you out of the mountains.”
    Because of who he was. He was the twin brother of the man who’d caused her so much pain. They weren’t identical, but there was a strong family resemblance and that was a hurdle she had to clear whenever she looked at him, even if it was merely a glance.
    But he didn’t understand that, of course, and she couldn’t tell him. So she cut to what mattered at this particular moment.
    “Don’t worry. I’m not that fragile.” Not anymore, anyway. It’d been fifteen years since she was raped by a handful of Whiskey Creek’s most popular athletes. She’d slept with two