Stella was surprised that Sam was so forthcoming and matter-of-fact. Harlow asked him a few more questions and he answered, but now his thumb moved over the back of Stella’s hand, feathering back and forth in a little caress that sent strange little darts of fire running through her bloodstream straight to her deepest core, making her all too aware of him. Just that small gesture.
She didn’t dare look at him. It had been too long. Way too long. She didn’t do relationships and she wasn’t certain how to react. The questions Harlow asked Sam seemed far away. Stella heard Harlow say she didn’t even have to use glue to close the cut, but after that, Stella concentrated on the way the single gesture, so small, made her body come alive. Or maybe it was the fact that she could sit in her camp chair in the early morning hours with the sun shining on Sunrise Lake, bathing the water in gorgeous colors, knowing Sam was alive. Knowing the killer didn’t get his way and the man she cared about wasn’t his first victim. There was no first victim.
“Earth to Stella,” Harlow called. “That lake mesmerizes you. I need you to listen to me. Sam never does and he needs to take antibiotics. All of them until they’re finished. We don’t know what was on that rock or in the water. I’ve given him a shot to get started and put antibiotic cream on the wound to be safe.”
She held out the tube to Stella, forcing her to pull her hand away from Sam or put down her coffee. Sam solved her dilemma by letting her hand go. She took the tube from Harlow.
“You need to put this on the cut a couple of times a day for two days. Then you want it open to the air.”
Sam reached out almost lazily and nearly managed to get the tube of antibiotic cream from Stella before she realized his intent.
“Woman.” There was a growl in his voice.
“Man.” She glared at him. The growl had an effect on her, but it wasn’t intimidation.
“I’m not five.”
“That’s the problem. Harlow knows you can’t be trusted to take care of wounds because you think you’re some kind of manly man who doesn’t need things like antibiotics the way normal people need them. I’ll just keep control of this and supervise you taking the pills too.”
Harlow burst out laughing as she took the first-aid kit from Sam and closed it up. “I’ve got to write up a report on you and then do the same on your injuries, Stella. But this is great. I’ve never heard the two of you interacting like this before.”
“I don’t have injuries,” Stella objected, frowning at her friend. “Griffen has misled you. The would-be killer punched me, but underwater, it isn’t like he could really hurt me that much. It was more that I was startled and it pushed me back and away from him. That allowed him to bring his legs up to his chest and drive his feet into me. He had fins on, but he still got me hard and drove me backward.”
Her hand went to her cheekbone. Why did her cheek hurt? It shouldn’t have. The water would have slowed the assailant’s punch. He couldn’t get enough force to really hurt her, yet she felt bruised. It wasn’t swollen, but it did feel tender. She brushed her fingers over the exact spot where the would-be killer had connected with her face. There was a small spot that hurt. Not really bad, but it was definitely a little sore. What did that mean? He’d been wearing gloves, but was he wearing a ring beneath the gloves? Something heavy that would have landed just right on the bone like that?
She looked at Sam. His eyes met hers. He knew. That would be another clue. Not an obvious one, but if he had been wearing a ring, it was a heavy one, not a wedding ring. They would have to write that down and she would have to think about how that felt. What shape it might be. Maybe find a way to sketch it.
Harlow’s fingers were gentle as she probed over Stella’s face. Stella did her best to keep from showing any kind of emotion, mostly because she could feel Sam’s gaze on her. She knew he didn’t miss much and she wasn’t very good at covering her feelings, not the way he was. She didn’t want him to know she was hurt, mainly because there was something that lurked behind his dark eyes, an emotion she couldn’t quite grasp, that scared her a little.
“Babe,” Harlow said. “He hit you right here, didn’t he?” Her thumb slid over Stella’s cheekbone. “Weird that he could hit you hard enough underwater to leave you sore. There’s no real bruising, but I can tell you’re very tender here. I’ll need you to stand up so I can look at your stomach and ribs.”