“My head?”
“You got shot, remember? You had a graze on the side of your head, and then that bitch bashed you . . .”
“Soledad wasn’t the one who hit me. I told you, I saw her across the room looking terrified seconds before I blacked out.”
“People who’ve been knocked unconscious quite often don’t remember the last few seconds or even minutes before they were hit. Your memories aren’t reliable.”
“I remember everything,” she snapped.
His responding smile was disturbing. “So how’s your head feeling? Show me where the bullet grazed you.”
She didn’t bother fighting him, pushing her hair off her face so he could see the healing graze along the side of her head. “It’s fine. Not even a headache.”
He nodded. “What about your leg? It’s easy to get an infection down here and . . .”
“My leg is fine. Jesus, I’m sorry I ever said anything about germs,” she protested. “The leg is just about healed, see.” She turned so he could look at the place on her calf where the shard of wood had been. “It only hurts when I poke it.”
“Then don’t poke it,” he said.
“Good advice,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “Now that we’ve finished with my medical exam could we eat?” She dropped down on the bench opposite the frying pan. The concoction inside looked like garbage but it smelled divine. “I’m hungry enough to eat a goat.”
“That can be arranged. People raise goats for food around here.” He took the seat opposite her, handed her a wooden spoon, and dug in with his own ladle.
“What does goat taste like?”
“Goat,” he said succinctly. “Eat.”
It was delicious. Spicy and rich, even without any meat in it, and the only problem was that her large wooden spoon kept hitting against the ladle he was using. By the time they’d finished every scrap, she was deliciously full. He took the empty frying pan and dumped it in the sink. “Bedtime,” he said.
Jenny had just been feeling at peace with the world when his words sent her into a controlled panic. “I don’t . . .”
“Stop worrying. I’m not about to jump your bones.”
In fact that hadn’t been her worry. “The snake . . .”
“You’re sleeping with me. I dragged a second bed in so you can sleep in pristine glory. Those rooms used to belong to the nuns—you can just pretend you are one and you’ll be fine.”
She greeted this news with mixed emotion. “The question is, who’s the bigger snake, you or the anaconda?”
He laughed at that. “You’re welcome to stay in your old room. I got rid of the corpse but I didn’t bother to clean up the blood. That shouldn’t . . .”
“Don’t!” she said with a shudder. “I’ll sleep with you.” His slow grin was demoralizing. “You know what I mean,” she snapped.
“Your virtue is safe with me, gorgeous. Just promise me one thing.”
She looked at him warily. “What?”
“Don’t decide to kiss me in the middle of the night if you don’t want that virtue tarnished.”
“Not likely,” she sniffed,
ignoring the fact that she’d done just that the night before. Throwing herself at a man was a onetime occasion, a dire mistake that she wasn’t going to repeat, even if it didn’t feel like that big a mistake. “But if my virtue is safe then why did you buy the condoms?”
“Have I disappointed you?”
“No,” she said flatly, believing it. “I’m just curious.”
“Accidents can happen. Any more questions?”