Be With Me(28)

“It swel ed, and the brace was bothering her. I took it off and iced it down for a while and made her take a pain pil .”

Frustration beat at Cam. He wanted Reggie where she belonged. With them. But not like this. He wanted her to choose to be with them, not forced to remain because they insisted on protecting her.

He rubbed the back of his neck and stared up at the ceiling.

“What’s got you worried, Cam?” Sawyer asked.

“You seem to be stressing a lot lately, when you were the most confident going in.”

Cam looked at Sawyer and then at Hutch and found the same worry reflected in Hutch’s eyes.

Yeah, he supposed to them he had appeared confident. He was always the one tel ing them it would work out. He was a goddamn fraud. The truth was, he was scared shitless.

“I’m worried that we won’t be able to make her happy. And now I’m worried that we can’t keep her safe. I’m worried that I’l lose her,” he said truthful y.

“I think we al have those same concerns,” Hutch said. “But at some point we have to stop worrying about the what-ifs and focus on only the things we can control.”

“And what would those things be?” Sawyer asked dryly.

Hutch turned to Sawyer with a dark stare. “We can’t control how Reggie feels about us. We can’t control her fears. Al we can control is how we react to the situation. And we can damn wel make sure we present a united front. This wil never work if Reggie senses we’re divided in any way.”

“He’s right,” Cam said quietly. “We can’t convince her this wil work if we can’t even convince ourselves.”

Sawyer’s hand skimmed over his bald head in agitation. Damn good thing he kept it shaved or he’d probably yank his hair out anyway.

“We’ve been over this.” Frustration leaked from Sawyer’s voice. “Why do we have to keep going over it? I understand that we have to work together, but I won’t spend every goddamn minute of my time with her in a group setting.”

Reggie stirred beneath Hutch’s hand. Cam shot Sawyer a warning stare and held a finger up to his lips. Then his gaze dropped back to Reggie as her eyes fluttered open.

“Cam?” she whispered.

He smiled. “Heard you had some excitement while I was gone, Reggie darling.”

She made a face and tried to sit up, but she put her injured hand down to press against the couch. It folded beneath her, and she emitted a gasp. Hutch caught her and pushed her weight off her wrist.

As Hutch helped her sit up, Cam reached for her wrist. He turned it over in his hand and examined the swel ing.

“That’s what happens when you try to play basebal with an injured wrist,” he murmured.

“It wasn’t basebal . I was planning to play T-bal with his head.”

Sawyer chuckled. “I wouldn’t have appreciated blood on my stuff, Reggie. Which one did you use anyway? Tel me my Biggio bat isn’t now in police custody being logged as evidence.”

She glanced over and smiled at Sawyer, and Cam felt a pang of jealousy. As stupid as it was, as much as they’d al lectured about presenting a united front, he was sitting here resentful of the way Sawyer could draw a reaction from Reggie. It wasn’t always a good one. Sawyer could piss her off in one breath and have her laughing in the next. But she wasn’t the least bit indifferent to him. Sparks flew between the two of them anytime they were in the same room.

Hutch reached up and tucked a curl behind Reggie’s ear.

“Why didn’t you tel us the man was after you?” he asked.

Her lips twisted in annoyance. “Because there’s no way to tel if he was. And there stil isn’t.”

“Jeremy didn’t seem to think it was too much of a stretch that this guy was targeting you. Neither did your chief.”

She stared at Hutch, her lips drawn into a tight line.

“If there wasn’t enough evidence to support the idea before, there certainly is now,” Cam said. “He fol owed you here, Reggie. He broke into our home while we were gone. Which tel s me he was watching. And waiting for his opportunity.” Her gaze fel to her lap, where she held her injured wrist with her other hand. Tension boiled off her body.

Cam wanted to touch her, but even Hutch pulled his hand away from her hair.

“I can’t stay here,” she said. She kept her head down, refusing to meet any of their gazes. When she final y looked up at Cam, there was steely determination in her eyes.

Ice blue. It was a comparison he’d made often when staring into Reggie’s eyes when she was being a hard-ass.

Cam glanced at Hutch and Sawyer. Neither seemed inclined to ask the obvious question. Or maybe they were simply ignoring it, tel ing her precisely what they thought of that particular statement.

While he could understand their frustration, it wasn’t the way to handle Reggie. There were times when he wished he could go al he-man on her and she’d comply, but then she wouldn’t be the Reggie he loved so much.

“Why can’t you stay?” he final y asked.

As expected, Sawyer gave him a look that suggested he was a dumbass. Cam ignored him and focused his attention on Reggie.

“I would think it’s obvious,” she said in her oh-so-patient tone that suggested she didn’t have any patience at al . “There is someone who has a beef with me. Therefore anyone around me is also in danger.”