No One Needs to Know by Debbi Rawlins Read Free Book Online

chest, but that one brush of her shoulder made them both freeze as if they’d done something illegal. Annie cleared her throat, and he managed to ignore the contact.
    He sat down with his coffee and tore open a package of gauze while he waited for her to fill her mug. The situation was perfect for his purposes. Sudden intimacy with a relative stranger was something no one could plan for. He would find out more about Annie in the next ten minutes than he would being shown around the sanctuary. But only if he stopped allowing himself to be distracted. She was a stunner, no argument there. Knowing how she’d used her looks to dupe his brother made him more the fool if he fell victim.
    Along with her coffee, she brought a wet cloth and clean towel to the table with her. A pair of scissors, antiseptic and other first-aid needs had already been laid out. He watched her eye his arm, her top teeth toying with her bottom lip. She winced a second before she swabbed him with alcohol, and so did Tucker.
    Far from the cool distance of someone used to causing pain, her expression was the picture of concern. A sharp inhale through clenched teeth, a soft, “Sorry,” as she used a second swab. Once she covered the cut with gauze, her shoulders relaxed, and she was again the confident woman in charge. What he couldn’t tell yet was if her empathetic response was completely false.
    “Thanks,” he said. “Now you.”
    “Oh. No. I can handle it.”
    “I doubt it,” he said, watching her reluctance turn into another blush. “I was there.”
    When she finally responded it was with a weary sigh. “Okay, but I know it’s nothing.” She slowly got to her feet, looking as if she’d rather be walking barefoot on hot coals. “It’s my back. I got caught on a wire.”
    He turned in his seat as she stood directly in front of him, his eyes level with her leather belt. Now that he was looking for it, he could see spots of blood on her shirt. She lifted it carefully, exposing a long stretch of what would have been perfectly pale skin. Instead, there were two sizable bruises that were coloring in darkly.
    “I don’t know,” he said, in no way faking his own concern, which made him uncomfortable. “Maybe you should get these checked out. It looks bad.” He touched the worst of it with careful fingers.
    Annie inhaled sharply. “If you’d stop poking at it.”
    “I’m trying to make sure there’s no internal hemorrhaging.”
    “I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”
    “This one’s over your kidney. It could be dangerous.”
    “I know there’s no real damage,” she said, lifting the shirt higher, but now with evident tension running through her. “I know because I was kicked by a horse years ago. So, the cut?”
    “Right,” he murmured, the word coming out low and slow as her bra strap came into view. It was the least fancy bra imaginable. White, no frills. A sensible bra that had no business looking like that against her pale flesh. Just as he had no business noticing.
    The bruises hurt him to see, and the cut was no picnic, but it was impossible not to notice the rest of her body. The sleek elegance of her lines, the curve of her waist, the indention of her delicate spine. This close, her scent came through. Yeah, she was no rose petal, not from a foot or so away, but from inches, she smelled like a ripe peach. Damn his senses for the traitors they were. He murmured another curse.
    “What? Is it that bad?”
    He cleared his throat and moved his gaze to where she’d been bleeding. Now that he had some focus, he saw it wasn’t a bad cut, on par with his own, but there was no way she could have taken care of it herself.
    Tucker got a swab at the same time he pulled himself together. “No. It’s fine. But it’s gonna sting like hell.”
    “Go for it.”
    He did, and this time, their roles were neatly reversed. He winced—especially with the feeling so present in his memory—although he didn’t apologize or make any noise at