Chapter 3 #2
“I like milk and sugar in my coffee.” Sachie spun toward the refrigerator, yanked it open and grabbed the jug of milk from inside the door. When she returned to the coffeemaker, it had quit dripping. She yanked the pot out, sloshing hot coffee over her hand.
“Damn!” she muttered and shoved the pot back into the machine.
Teller was beside her in a second. He took the hand she’d burned with the hot liquid, led her to the sink and ran cold water over the burn.
All the while, he held her hand, and her pulse raced, her stomach fluttered and thoughts spun in her head. If she just moved away from him, she could rein all that confusion in and get her head on straight.
But she didn’t move away. She let him hold her hand, trying not to like it so much. She had enough problems; she didn’t need to add hero worship to them.
So, he was easy on the eye. Really easy on the eye.
Sachie had dated good-looking guys before.
They tended to be more into themselves than the person seated across the table.
Besides, she wasn’t looking to start anything with anyone, especially not with a man hired to protect her.
And not while she was still suffering classic PTSD symptoms that, on many occasions, literally brought her to her knees.
As a counselor versed in all manners of trauma, she knew it took time to work through PTSD. Some didn’t ever get over it. They just learned how to live with it and got on with life as best they could.
With a stalker bent on making her life hell, she didn’t have time to seek the help of a therapist, so the trauma would continue. Her first goal needed to be to stop the stalker.
Teller turned off the water, grabbed the dishtowel draped over the oven door handle and gently patted her skin dry. “Better?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to say anything coherent with him standing so close and her breathing once again erratic.
“You sit.” He released her hand and turned her toward the kitchen table. “I’ll bring the coffee.”
Sachie crossed the short distance to the table and sank onto one of the seats. “I’m not usually so clumsy,” she murmured.
“And I imagine you’re not used to having your home broken into.” He cast a smiling glance over his shoulder toward her.
“No, I’m not.” She propped her chin on her fist and watched as Teller, who stood half-turned to her, poured coffee into the two mugs. “You live here in Hilo?”
“I have an apartment in town.” Teller faced her with the two steaming mugs in his hands. He carried them to the table and set one in front of her and the other across the table from where she sat. As soon as he’d deposited the cups, he returned to the counter for the milk. “Sugar?”
“In the cabinet over the coffeemaker,” she said.
He found the sugar and brought it, the milk and a spoon to the table.
While Teller sipped his black coffee, Sachie doctored hers with the milk and sugar, stirring longer than necessary as an awkward silence stretched between them.
“So, let me understand,” she said, needing to fill the vacuum, “Hawk sent you to protect me. How does that work?”
He set his mug on the table. “Where you go, I go until the stalker is caught.”
She frowned. “What if it takes weeks?”
Teller shrugged. “Then I’m with you for weeks.”
Her frown deepened. “‘With me,’ what does that mean?”
“I need to be where I can see you twenty-four-seven.”
Sachie raised her eyebrows. “You don’t intend to stay in my house, do you? Let’s be clear: I have no intention of sleeping with you or you sleeping in the same room with me. And there’s no way you’re going into the bathroom with me.”
“Sleeping with me is not part of my job description.” His lips quirked. “It’s completely optional. As for following you into the bathroom, as long as I clear it first, you’ll have your privacy.”
“And what about my work? I counsel minors. I can’t have you in the room while working with a patient. It violates client-patient confidentiality.”
“You can see your patients privately...after I’ve searched them for weapons.”
Sachie’s eyes widened. “You can’t treat them like criminals. They come to me for help, not to be harassed. And I’m not sure I want you to stay in my house. This is my space where I come for peace.”
Teller’s gaze went to the holes in the wall where the police officers had dug the bullets out of the sheetrock. “How’s that working for you?”
His words hit her in the chest and sank to the bottom of her belly.
“If I’m to protect you, I must be close enough to do my job effectively.” He leaned toward her. “Like I was in the backyard.”
“Oh my God. I completely forgot.” Sachie leaped to her feet. “You were shot. Shouldn’t we be taking you to the hospital or something?”
He shrugged. “I’d forgotten about it. It can’t be all that bad. It doesn’t hurt much, and I have a full range of motion.” He lifted his left arm over his head and winced. “It just stings a little.”
“Let me see.” Sachie rounded the table and stood behind him.
His dark T-shirt practically hid the fact he had blood all over his shoulder.
Sachie plucked at the fabric, trying to catch a glimpse of the wound beneath, but the shirt was glued to his shoulder in dried blood. “I have a first aid kit in the pantry. Can you get out of that shirt?”
He pulled the hem out of the waistband of his jeans and dragged it up his torso and over his head. The blood sticking his shirt to his back stopped him with his hands in the air.
“Wait,” she said. “Let me ease it off so you don’t?—”
He gave the shirt a sharp jerk, freeing his shoulder of the shirt and the caked blood.
“—start bleeding again,” Sachie finished, her words fading as she dove for the pantry and her first aid kit.
She plunked it on the table and ran to her dishtowel drawer for a clean towel and washcloth.
Quickly soaking the cloth under the sink faucet, she returned to Teller as a long line of blood dripped down his arm.
He twisted in his seat and held out his hand. “I can take care of it.”
She raised her eyebrows in challenge. “Do you have eyes in the back of your head?”
He grinned. “No, ma’am.”
“Sachie,” she corrected. “Ma’am?—”
“—makes you feel old.”
“Right. Now, turn around and let me clean the wound. You might need stitches.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she shot back as she pressed the damp washcloth to his shoulder and gently washed away the fresh blood along with the dried.
Once the wound was clean, she studied it carefully and quickly before blood started flowing again.
“You’re in luck. The bullet nicked you rather than embedding in the muscle. ”
“Like I said...flesh wound. No need for a three-hour wait in the ER to be told the same.” He turned his T-shirt around from inside out and started to put it back on.
“Just a minute, Mr. Osgood. You’ll need a bandage on that wound. It’s still bleeding.”
“Teller,” he corrected. “And it wouldn’t have started bleeding again if I hadn’t taken off my shirt.”
“Your shirt isn’t a bandage,” she muttered, picking through the kit to find a bandage the right size to cover the wound. “And you need some antibiotic ointment on it.”
“It’s really not necessary.” He raised the shirt over his head.
“Seriously, you’re going to argue about this?” She snatched his shirt from his hands and tossed it onto the counter out of his reach. “Now, be still until I’m finished. If you’re a good boy, I’ll give you a sucker.”
Teller chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”
Sachie snorted. “Call me Sachie.”
“Only if you call me Teller.”
“I will if you quit arguing over dumb shit,” she said and slathered ointment over the injury.
“It’s a deal,” he said and added, “Sachie.”
“Better.” She peeled the paper away from a bandage and stretched it across the wound and ointment. “And you’re all fixed up, Teller.”
He rose from his chair and held out his hand. “Thank you, Dr. Moore. Now, if I could have my shirt...”
She frowned. “Let me see if I have another T-shirt that doesn’t have a bullet hole and blood on it.”
“I kind of like my T-shirt. Don’t you think it makes me look like a badass?” He grinned and reached around her for the garment.
“Oh no, you don’t. A T-shirt is the least I can offer you after you saved my life.” She shifted to block him, managing to bump into his bare chest in the process.
He caught her elbows to steady her.