Assumed Identity(8)
That’s right. Mine’s bigger than yours, he taunted silently, watching the eyes go wide behind the stocking mask.
Just then a cat howled across the parking lot, and the attacker’s head jerked toward the interruption. Although the mewling was muted by the rain and thunder, Jake tuned his ears to the sound, as well, wondering if the guy was that easily distracted or if he needed to be on guard against some other threat. A quick glance revealed little except darkness, rain and the empty street beyond the parking lot.
Whatever had spooked the guy was evident in the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders as his breathing quickened. Or maybe he was finally wising up to the idea he wasn’t getting past Jake. With one last heave of breath, the shadowy figure cursed. “You should have minded your own business.”
And with that, he turned tail toward the opposite end of the alley.
The instinct to run after him jolted through Jake’s legs, but he stayed rooted to the spot. The woman was still down, out cold and completely unprotected. He needed to stay here. Besides, what the little creep lacked in skills, he made up for in speed, and Jake would have a hard time catching him.
What could he do when he caught the guy, anyway? It wasn’t like he could arrest the pervert. And though Jake had intimidation down to a science, outside of the bar where he sometimes had to show a rowdy customer the door, he preferred to keep his skills on the down-low. Calling attention to himself with the police or anyone else wasn’t something he could afford to do until he figured out whether he was the law, or running from it. Besides, the unconscious woman had to be his priority.
Once the figure in black had darted around the corner out of sight, Jake risked turning to the woman again. He tucked his knife back into its sheath and knelt down to test the chill on her wet cheeks. He could feel her warm breath, but she didn’t even flinch at his unfamiliar touch.
“Ma’am?” He hadn’t felt any bumps on her head. Did she have internal injuries? Was this shock? A blow to the carotid artery could interrupt blood flow to the brain, and that bruising welt was placed in about the right spot to make that happen.
Jake swore. How the hell did he know things like that?
He tapped her cheek again. “Come on, lady.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the squeal of tires on wet pavement in the distance. Was the little creep really that fast? Or did he have an accomplice waiting for him to make a quick getaway? What had they wanted with this woman? And how many men did they think it took to subdue a skinny slip of a thing like this, anyway?
Lightning flashed in the clouds overhead and a bad feeling crawled across Jake’s skin. The violence surrounding this woman didn’t feel random. An attacker and an accomplice sounded planned.
All the more reason to get her up and out of here.
He glanced down at the sleeping beauty. Despite the scrape along her jaw and the wet hair that clung to her forehead and cheeks, trailing sooty rivulets across her skin, she was stirring something more than concern and worry inside him. Being attracted to an unconscious woman couldn’t be a good thing. With his life in the state of flux it was, it wasn’t a good thing to be attracted to anyone. Angry at the damn hormones and feelings brewing inside him tonight, Jake swiped the water off his own stubbled face.
That’s when he got the idea to cup his hands to catch the rain. While he waited for his palms to fill, Jake thought about what had brought him to this spot in the first place, playing nursemaid to an injured woman.
He’d heard a scream on his late-night walk. He’d heard a lot of screams in his lifetime. He wasn’t sure how or why he knew that, but he knew the sounds of a woman in distress had always gotten under his skin and somehow gotten him into trouble.
For a few seconds, he’d considered ignoring it. Maybe he could report it anonymously when he got back to his apartment. He had too many problems of his own to get involved in somebody else’s trouble. But then he’d heard the whistle. Over and over. He’d heard the panic in that shrill sound piercing the rain and an alarm had gone off inside him.
Maybe he’d been itching for a fight, something to expel the frustrated energy that consumed him. Maybe it was the bar bouncer in him, trained to neutralize any ruckus before it got started. But when he’d cut through the alley behind the buildings to answer that alarm, he’d seen that loser dragging the woman out of sight behind the van—going after her with a baseball bat. Something inside Jake had snapped. The woman was in danger, and something in his DNA that he couldn’t remember had been compelled to save her.