Her fingers spread across her tummy and she met his gaze. Her brow furrowed slightly as she shook her head. “I didn’t hit my stomach or land on it. I’m sure the baby’s fine.”
“Turn your head. Let me look at that cut,” Ash told her. He examined the wound closely. “How badly does it hurt?” he asked.
“Just kind of throbs and stings a little.”
“I don’t think it’s more than a cut. Scalp wounds bleed like crazy.” He took out his phone. “But I’m going to call an ambulance anyhow.”
“No,” she said emphatically.
“Sorry, standard procedure.” He dialed. “This is Detective Ash Kendall. I’ve got a home invasion with injuries,” he said and gave the address. “And send an ambulance.”
Rachel’s hazel eyes sparked with anger. “You’re getting an ambulance out here to bandage a cut on my head?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, standard procedure. They’ll check you out and issue an official report of your injuries. Don’t worry about it. Here, let me help you up.”
He took her hands and helped her to her feet, then guided her to a chair. She seemed so small. His anger at whoever had done this flared again.
He sat across from her, watching her closely. Her eyes weren’t dilated and she looked directly at him, so she wasn’t having trouble focusing. At least she didn’t have a concussion. “Tell me what happened.”
“I’d just lain down for a nap when I heard something. Like wood splintering. I realized someone had broken in the front door. I grabbed my keys and tried to run out the back door, but—” She paused and shuddered. “He grabbed me from behind and hit me on the head.”
“With what?” Ash asked.
“I don’t know. It hurt. I guess I was knocked out for a while, but I could hear him throwing things around and cursing.”
Ash glanced back toward the kitchen. “He didn’t go out the back,” he said.
“No. It’s a double dead bolt, and I guess I fell on top of my keys. He had to have gone out the front.”
Sirens sounded in the distance. “They’ll be here any minute,” he said. “As soon as the EMTs are done with you and the detectives question you, I’ll get you out of here.”
“No. The way it sounded, he tore up everything. I need to put things back.”
Ash stood and held out his hand. “You won’t be cleaning in here for a while.”
“What about my clothes?” she asked.
“Not ‘til CSI gets through. You know the drill.”
Her face shut down. She nodded. “Do you think I could have a drink of water?”
Ash smiled at her. “I think we could manage that.” He filled a glass from the cold water dispenser on her refrigerator and handed it to her. She sipped it carefully, trying not to tilt her head much.
He sat at the table across from her. There was dark, dried blood on her neck and occasionally she’d brush at it with her fingertips.
Ash closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The sight of the dried blood catapulted him back twenty years, just as it did every time he worked a violent crime, to the morning he’d woken to hear Natalie’s screams. He’d worked dozens of murders and assaults in his eight years on the job, and every one of them evoked that awful morning.
He’d been thirteen, too young to have prevented his parents’ deaths, but old enough to feel guilty that he hadn’t. Time and wisdom had allowed him to forgive himself.
After all, the kids’ rooms had been in a separate wing of the mansion. The police had said that if their bedrooms had been near their parents’ room, they all might have been killed.
Ash knew himself well enough to know that he’d chosen law enforcement as a way to make up for not saving his parents. Every time he collared a murderer, he felt a little less empty, a little less damaged by his mom and dad’s violent deaths.
Now he was going to be a parent himself. That odd tightness started in his chest again. He’d come over to Rachel’s apartment to acknowledge his responsibility to her and the baby, but now, seeing her so hurt and small, he realized his heart hadn’t really been in it. He’d resigned himself to doing his duty toward her and their child—nothing else. Just his duty.
But now, someone had hurt her and could have hurt his baby—their baby. Something primal swelled up within him—a fierce protectiveness—adding to the mix of anger and that other emotion he couldn’t name.
“Rach,” he said, glancing over at her.
Her eyes met his.
“I swear to God, I’m going to find who did this. And until I do, I’m not letting you out of my sight. You and that baby are my responsibility, and I’ll be damned if I let anyone get close enough to hurt you again.”
Rachel’s brow wrinkled and she looked down at the water glass.
He watched her trace the condensation on its side with a finger. She hadn’t liked what she’d heard, and he knew why. His intention had been to reassure her, but it hadn’t come out exactly right. He’d sounded harsh and angry.
From the look she’d given him, it appeared she didn’t believe him. She had to know he could take care of her. So why did he get the feeling she didn’t want him to?
THE POLICE AND the EMTs arrived at the same time. Rachel found herself in the hands of two young men in scrubs who cleaned the blood from her scalp wound, then called over a policeman who took photographs. Once he was done, one of the EMTs applied something to the cut that stole her breath, it stung so badly.
“I’m putting sterile strips on the cut,” he told her. “It’s not bad enough for stitches. It’s shallow and about two centimeters—that’s about three quarters of an inch.”
She nodded.
“Don’t wash your hair for a day or two, then have it looked at. It should be closing up by then. If your head hurts, take some acetaminophen or ibuprofen. And it would be a good idea if you stayed with someone tonight, so they could check on you about every four hours, just to be sure your pupils are equal in size and you aren’t feeling dizzy or seeing double.”
She didn’t have anyone she could stay with, certainly no one she could call at this hour. But that was okay. She felt fine, except for the throbbing headache and the blurred feeling in her brain.
As she thanked the EMTs, she saw Detective Neil Chasen coming toward her. He was a big man, tall and muscular, with skin so dark it almost looked black. She smiled at him.
“Rachel, how’s your head?”
She made a wry face. “Hurts.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Neil sat down at the kitchen table. “I’ll get this over with as quickly as possible. I need to ask you some questions about the person who attacked you.”
She nodded gingerly. Every movement of her head increased the throbbing. She much preferred the intense but quickly gone burning of the medication to the persistent headache she had now.
“Take me through what happened,” Neil said. “Start with when you got home.”
“I stopped at the grocery after work, so I got home about six. I put the groceries away, and decided to lie down for a few minutes.” She paused, debating whether to tell Neil she was pregnant. She decided it wasn’t relevant. “I don’t think I went to sleep. I heard a crash, like wood splintering, then I heard the front door swing open and hit the wall. It squeaks. So I knew someone had broken in.”
“Do you know what time that was?”
“No.”