Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(51)

"I don't know if I can move," she confessed. "I'm limp."

He hauled himself up until he sat on the edge of the tub. She barely caught the tightening on his face as he rubbed his scarred leg.

"Does it hurt?" she asked hesitantly.

He shrugged. "It worked better before it got smashed to pieces. I'm just grateful that I can still walk on it."

She brushed her hand down the length of the series of surgical scars. She leaned forward, and tenderly kissed every one of them.

He murmured incoherently, and hid his face against her wet hair.

They stayed that way until Erin started shivering. He helped her to her feet, and they toweled each other off in a shy silence.

The room looked as if a hurricane had struck; blankets on one side of the bed, coverlet on the other, pillows on the floor, sheets torn half off the mattress. Erin's clothes were scattered everywhere. She started making the bed. Connor put his hand on her arm.

"Leave it." He picked up the blankets and pillows and tossed them carelessly onto the ravaged bed. "We'll just sleep on the other one."

It was hard for her to leave it messy, but the nagging, neatnik voice in her mind that usually ruled the roost was muted and faraway. She had bigger things to occupy her mind. An unmade bed was the least of her concerns. Her clothes were another matter, though. She repacked them all, and when she looked up, Connor was stretched out beneath the covers, watching her.

She glanced down at herself. Stark naked in front of him, and she wasn't self-conscious at all. She was transformed.

"You're so beautiful, Erin," he said softly. "You blow my mind."

Self-consciousness rushed back in a big, sweeping whoosh.

She let her tangled hair fall forward over her hot face as she shoved her toiletries case into the space allotted for it. That comment merited a graceful acknowledgment, if her throat would only stop shaking long enough to make one. "Thanks," she whispered.

He turned the covers down on her side of the bed and beckoned to her, baring all the rippling, lean muscles of his gorgeous torso in the process. "Come to bed with me?"

"In a minute. I have to try and get in touch with Cindy. Even though she probably won't talk to me."

"What's with Cindy? She OK?"

"I don't know yet." Erin dug her organizer out of her purse and curled up in the space Connor made for her. She tried the cell phone number first. It rang and rang. Then she tried Cindy's group house. Caitlin, one of Cindy's roommates, picked up. "Hello?"

"Hi, Caitlin, this is Erin, Cindy's sister. Is she there?"

"Uh, no. I haven't seen her in a while. But when she gets back, I'll sure tell her you called, OK?"

"Thanks," Erin said. "Ah, Caitlin, this guy she's seeing, this Billy. Do you know where she met him? Or anything about him at all?"

There was an awkward pause. "Uh… I'm afraid I don't. I've only met him a couple times," Caitlin said. "But he seems real nice to me."

"OK. Thanks. 'Bye, Caitlin." She hung up. The cold lump of anxiety in her belly was back.

"What's up with Cindy, Erin?" Connor's voice had taken on a hard, steely note that she had come to recognize.

She started working the comb through her tangled hair, and the task calmed down her trembling fingers. "She's left college during exam week. She's lost her scholarship. And now she's staying down in the city, God knows where, with a guy named Billy who drives a Jaguar and gives her expensive gifts. I called her new cell phone number yesterday. She told me that college was a stupid waste of time, and that her financial problems were over. She'd found new ways to make money."

He sat up, scowling. "Ouch."

"My sentiments exactly," Erin said fervently.

"Did she sound like she was high?"

She gulped. "Couldn't say. I don't have much experience with that. She sounded giggly and euphoric, but Cindy's always been giggly. And I think she's in love. That could account for the euphoria."

"We need to find out more about this guy Billy."

His casual use of the word "we" made her chest ache with gratitude. Not that anyone could help, but at least he cared. She scooted behind him and started combing his hair. "There's nothing we can do until she answers her phone and tells me more," she said.

Connor winced when she hit a tangle. "Erin, isn't once a night enough for this combing business? You'll comb me bald."

"You can't go to sleep with your hair tangled like that," she fussed. She worked through it till every lock was slicked back from his face. "Her roommates probably think they're protecting Romeo and Juliet by not telling me anything," she said. "Fluff-brained idiots."

He turned around, grinning. "There's more than one way to get information," he said. "I've got an idea."



Connor groped in the pocket of his coat for his cell phone and dialed Sean's number as he slid back into bed, into close contact with Erin's slender, curvy body. Good thing Sean's latest bed toy had mutated into a gigantic bloodsucking insect. Otherwise the chances of getting Sean at this hour would have been next to zilch. Sean's evenings almost always ended up in some woman's bed or other.