He opened his mouth to protest again, then thought better of it. She was right, he wouldn’t do anything except dab at them to keep the rest of his uniform from getting blood on it.
With a shrug, he allowed himself to be ushered into her house.
Chapter Three
Sending the triplets off into the adjacent family room where she could keep an eye on them, Melinda had Carl pull a chair over to the kitchen sink. She ordered him to sit down, overriding his protest.
She frowned as she took his arm in her hand and examined the scratches more closely. They were deeper than she’d first thought. Four long red gouges that ran the length of his forearm from the bend of his elbow to the band of his wristwatch.
She was going to need a few things to do this right, Melinda thought. She raised her eyes to his. “Can I trust you to stay put here while I get the peroxide, or will I have to tie you to the chair?”
The question brought back memories buried deep in the past. The last time he’d been physically tied up, Melinda had been responsible for the handiwork. He was ten at the time and they’d been playing cowboys and Indians with all his cousins.
It took effort to block out the thought. Memories of her only undermined his resolve to somehow keep this whole incident, and her, at arm’s length, albeit a somewhat mangled arm at the moment.
“I’ll stay put,” he promised. He slanted a disparaging look at the damage on his arm. “Although you’re making more of this than you should.”
No, she thought as she hurried into the bathroom just beyond the family room, she wasn’t. If anything, she wasn’t making enough of it. It took very little imagination to carry this all one step further. The Angora could have easily swiped at his face instead, leaving it a bloody mess.
Thank God for small favors.
“Indulge me,” Melinda called back out of the depths of the medicine cabinet as she hunted down peroxide, gauze pads, iodine, cotton swabs, bandages and tape.
That’s what he had been doing, he thought. Indulging her. For most of his life. And it had gotten him nowhere, which only meant that it wasn’t meant to be. He was finally coming to terms with that.
Or trying to.
Giving in, Carl shrugged. “I suppose, for old times sake, I’ll let you play doctor.”
She returned, carrying the retrieved booty in her arms close to her body. Stopping by the table, she allowed the objects to gently rain down, then quickly sorted through everything. She armed herself with the swabs and peroxide and crossed to him.
Carl eyed the littered tabletop. He’d never been particularly fond of iodine. “Hey, I was only kidding about playing doctor. You’ve got enough stuff there for minor surgery.”
Her mouth curved. Maybe there still was a little bit of the boy left within the man after all.
“Better safe than sorry.” She glanced at her threesome, who were now heavily involved in a game of make-believe. Mollie and Matt were the mommy and daddy with Maggie, born a whole two minutes after them, being the baby. “Being a mother has taught me to be a little more cautious than I used to be.”
That, considering how reckless she’d once been, Carl thought, could only be a good thing.
“All right,” she ordered him, “I want you to hold still.”
Taking his forearm and holding it against her to steady it, Melinda began dabbing peroxide on the long scratches. When Carl winced, she could actually feel the liquid penetrating his skin herself. White foam lines formed along the area where Mr. Whiskers had wantonly left his mark.
“Sorry,” she murmured, dabbing more slowly. “Mr. Whiskers is usually a very docile cat.”
He watched her work, finding that he had trouble drawing his eyes away. With his arm tucked against her, pain was the last thing on his mind. “Maybe I just bring out the worst in Mr. Whiskers.”
“That would be a first.” She could feel him looking at her and raised her eyes to meet his. “For you, not the cat. As far as I can remember, you generally brought out the best in people, especially me.” Carl could always evoke a smile from her, no matter how down on the world her father had made her feel.
Carl searched for something to wrap his mind around, anything but the way her fingertips felt, gently moving along his skin as she cleaned the wounds. Anything but the way her hair fell into her eyes, a sexy golden curtain that made him want to reach out and…
Nothing. Reach out and nothing, he told himself firmly. He wasn’t going to do that to himself again, let his mind wander freely in fantasies that weren’t going to materialize. He was a man now, not some lovesick boy. Why did he have to keep reminding himself of that?
“Yeah, well, apparently not your cat.” He looked over to where the cat was sitting in a corner, grooming himself. Maybe it was his imagination, but damned if the furry creature wasn’t staring at him as he worked on each paw. “How long have you had him?”
Tossing out one swab, Melinda reached for another, mentally counting back the months.
“Nine months.” Melinda moistened the swab with peroxide. “I got him for the triplets.”
The cat wouldn’t have been his first choice for the children. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t people usually get dogs for their kids?”
She glanced over toward the trio. “Mollie, Matt and Maggie wanted Mr. Whiskers. They picked him out in the animal shelter. Actually Mollie picked him out and the others agreed. That’s the way it usually works around here. Mollie’s the ringleader.”
“You went to the animal shelter to get him?” He would have more easily pictured Melinda going to a fancy pet shop in Los Angeles, or to a private breeder.
She nodded. “I can’t bear seeing an animal thrown away like that. He was barely a kitten when we got him.” There was a fond smile on her face as she remembered. It was like love at first sight. The instant that Mollie saw the somewhat bedraggled kitten, she refused even to look anywhere else. It was either the Angora or nothing. “He took to them immediately. They really seemed made for each other.” Because he’d gotten hurt rescuing the animal, Melinda felt compelled to sell Carl on the cat’s virtues. “He’s really very smart—”
“No argument here.” Carl watched her sure, even strokes as Melinda finished cleaning the scratches and wiped off the peroxide residue. “He already knows how to get a deputy sheriff to jump through hoops.” As she bent her head down to more closely examine the scratches, he caught a whiff of her scent. Something tangy and arousing. He fought for order in his mind. “So, what are your plans?” he heard himself asking despite silent promises to the contrary. What she did was no business of his. Why couldn’t he remember that? “Just here to catch your breath?”
She glanced at him, wondering if by rephrasing the question, he was trying to subtly persuade her not to remain. “That, and to think about setting down roots again.”
“You?” Though she’d said words to that effect while he’d been in the tree, trying to capture the cat, it still somehow didn’t seem possible. “I can remember how hell-bent you were on never seeing Serendipity again.”
Melinda allowed a small sigh to escape. There were things she would have done over, given half a chance. Mistakes she wouldn’t have made. But there was no use in lamenting the past. She couldn’t do anything about that.
She could, however, do something about the present and the future. And she intended to.
“I said a lot of dumb things back then.” She looked back down at his arm and shook her head. “Any deeper and you