“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said with a bitter laugh. “I suppose with all the other girls, you must’ve forgotten. Just to refresh your memory, we made…we had sex once. In a camper. At a party. I was sixteen and you were—”
“I remember.”
There was plenty of emotion in those two words, but Sheridan couldn’t begin to guess what those emotions were. “Owen was there, too. He was watching us the whole time. Did you know that?”
“No.” His complexion darkened. He was either angry or as embarrassed as she was. Except that Cain didn’t get embarrassed. He was too indifferent for that.
“Yes,” she insisted.
“How do you know?”
“He told me when he was here earlier.” Her head hurt. Her whole body hurt. But she had to stop crying. She didn’t want to cry in front of Cain. “He…he said he was outside the camper when we went in. It was the way he said it that led me to believe…he was there. Inside.”
Cain folded his arms, but he wasn’t relaxed. “Even if that’s true, you don’t have to worry. He hasn’t told anyone. He won’t tell anyone.”
“That’s it?” she said. “Don’t worry about it? He was a witness to the most humiliating moment of my life!”
He rocked back as if she’d slapped him, the flash of pain that crossed his face surprising her into silence. Then he stood up and left the room, returning a few minutes later with her prescribed medication and a glass of water to wash it down.
“Here.”
The harsh words she’d spoken had snuffed out the fire of her anger and resentment. But now she was cold and empty and ached with a sick sort of regret.
The pills were her ticket out. She needed them, needed the escape they’d give her. Taking them eagerly, she swallowed them both at once. Then, his jaw set, Cain took the empty glass and the tray and walked out.
Cain couldn’t get hold of Owen. So he sat outside on the porch steps with his dogs, grateful for the cool night air. He’d spent the past eight days thinking about the man who’d hurt Sheridan, the rifle that’d been found in his cabin, his stepfather’s deep-seated doubt and his mother. For some reason, being with Sheridan brought Julia back, made him miss her in a way that left him feeling as young and abandoned as he’d felt at seventeen. His mother had been the one right thing in his messed-up childhood, and he’d had to watch her waste away until she was gone.
He leaned back on his hands and gazed up at the starry sky.
Sensing his restless mood, Koda whined in commiseration, his tail thumping the wooden planks. Maximillian rested his muzzle in Cain’s lap, and Quixote dozed at his feet. Cain preferred the simplicity of animals to the complexities of humans. He probably should’ve let someone else take care of Sheridan. Let Ned post a guard at her hospital room door. Something. But he didn’t believe in a lot of the remedies used by conventional doctors. The chemical they prescribed for one malady only created another. Cain knew that with some work on his part and a little grit on Sheridan’s, he could do a better job. Maybe he couldn’t mask her symptoms quite so well, but he could heal her without causing other problems.
He wanted to do it, to give her a real chance at a full recovery. He supposed it was his way of trying to atone for corrupting her when they were younger, when he was so busy wreaking havoc with anything or anyone he could.
Nudging a rock out of the dirt, he tossed it across the clearing and listened to it land somewhere near the shed that housed his tools and lawn equipment. Owen had never mentioned the camper to Cain. Why would he tell Sheridan he was there? He had to know it would upset her, would upset any woman. It’d been her very first time, which made everything worse. And, apparently, it’d been humiliating. Cain had done his best, but…hell, he’d been a mixed-up seventeen-year-old back then. What did he know?
Grabbing the cordless phone he’d carried out with him, he tried Owen again. It was getting late, but he didn’t think he’d be able to go to bed until he made his stepbrother answer for the stupid blunder. It was one thing that Owen hadn’t made his presence known before any clothes came off, but it was even worse to embarrass Sheridan by telling her twelve years later.
This time the phone rang only once before Owen’s wife picked up. “Hello?”
“Lucy?”
“Cain!”
He heard the smile in her voice. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” she said, “but I hear you have your hands full.”
“Not really. I’m usually trying to heal something. A woman isn’t so different.” Well, maybe this woman was…
“From what Owen says, we’re not talking about a sprained ankle. I can’t believe anyone in Whiterock would hurt her like that.”
“I wish I knew who it was.”
“I do, too.”
“Is Owen around?”
“He’s in the bedroom. Just a minute.”
A moment later, Cain heard her voice again. “Here he is.”
“Take care,” he said and the phone was transferred to his stepbrother.
“What the hell did you say to Sheridan?” Cain asked before Owen could say a word.
There was a long silence.
“Owen?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You told her you were in the camper.”
“I didn’t tell her I was in the camper. I told her I saw her go in with you.”
“She thinks you were inside, watching.”
“I wasn’t.”
Cain hoped to God he could believe him. “So why bring it up?”
“Will you answer one question for me?” Owen asked.
“I’m pretty pissed off. That depends on what it is.”
“How’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Get her to give it up to you? She hadn’t even kissed a guy before you came along.”
Cain had been her first everything. But Owen didn’t sound as if he was speaking from conjecture or what he knew of her reputation. He seemed too sure for that. “What makes you think she’d never been kissed?”
Several seconds ticked by before Owen answered. Obviously, he’d heard the fresh suspicion in Cain’s voice.
“I intercepted a note to one of her friends,” he said at last.
“Which friend?”
“I don’t remember. Maybe it was Lauren Shellinger. She and Lauren hung out a lot.”