“Why?”
“Law of inertia, I guess,” he murmured. “You know, an object at rest stays at rest. Every day that passed without me calling made it that much harder to pick up the phone and close the distance between us. After a while, it seemed easier to accept I’d waited too long to repair the damage.”
She reached out her hand to take his again in support, not surprised when he chose to use his right instead of his left. Now that she thought about it, she realized he rarely used his left arm when he didn’t have to. The fight in the alley behind the club, driving his SUV, even while eating—in almost all those cases, he used his right arm for everything while his left hung loosely at his side.
“How did you injure your arm?” Alyssa asked, closing her fingers around his and gently squeezing. “Did it happen in Afghanistan?”
He lifted his left arm and placed that hand over the one his right was already cupping. The movement didn’t seem like it hurt, but she could tell he was moving carefully.
“No, it didn’t happen in Afghanistan.” He took a deep breath, then let it out. “It happened during a drive-by shooting back in November—people associated with my former chief of police. They were trying to kill a young woman simply because they thought she was different from them. I got hit in the back of my upper arm. There was a lot of damage and I’m still trying to overcome it.”
Alyssa knew his injury and how he was dealing with it was none of her business, but that didn’t stop her from caring.
“Is that why you always wear your jacket?” she asked. “So no one can see the scars?”
Zane returned her gaze, so many emotions flickering across his features that she found it hard to breathe. Self-loathing and doubt. Confusion and fear. Something else that almost seemed like longing. But then the mask that had started to slip was back and the emotions disappeared.
“Sometimes I forget you’re a fed, trained to be observant.” When she didn’t say anything, he continued, “But yes. The scarring is pretty bad.” He broke eye contact, gazing over at the parking garage again. “I wore a bandage wrapped around it for weeks, so I wouldn’t even have to look at it. But the doctor said it was slowing down the healing process, so I just make sure to wear a jacket whenever I go out. Fortunately, the weather here is cool enough right now to do that. If it were the middle of summer, I’d be in trouble.”
Alyssa couldn’t help but shake her head. Up to now, she’d never seen Zane lack for confidence in anything. Not in the way he carried himself and not in the way he interacted with others. On the contrary, he filled any room he was in with an aura of calm masculinity. She’d never thought of him as anything other than self-assured and comfortable in his own skin. But when the topic of conversation turned to his injured am, everything about him changed. It hurt like crazy to see him like that.
She knew a little something about scars, of course. Not the physical kind, but scars nonetheless. They had a way of getting thicker—rougher—if you didn’t force yourself to go through the agony of breaking them down. But sometimes it was hard finding the courage to deal with them when you carried them on your own. Sometimes you needed help.
“Hiding yours scars makes them worse, Zane. Not physically, but in every other way. Especially emotionally. If you refuse to let people into your world, the scars take on a life of their own and you’re all alone with them.”
He looked at her. “Sounds like the voice of experience. Want to tell me about it?”
“It is.” Zane was trying to get her to change the subject and she wasn’t falling for it for a second. “And I’m willing to tell you about it. After we talk about you a little more.”
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked, though she was pretty sure he already knew.
She motioned at his left arm. “Why don’t we talk about exactly how you were injured, and more importantly, why you’re working so hard to hide it behind a leather jacket?”
Zane snorted, like he’d been expecting something like that. “Maybe it would be easier if I showed you. One picture being worth a thousand words and all that.”
Alyssa was a little surprised by the offer but nodded. “If you’re comfortable with that…okay.”
He locked eyes with her, a slight smile tugging at his lips. “I have to admit, normally I wouldn’t be, but with you, I am.”
* * *
Zane had no idea why he was shrugging out of his jacket so he could show Alyssa the god-awful injury he’d gotten from those hunters. But what she’d said about being alone with his scars because he wouldn’t let people in made a lot of sense to him. His friend Brooks had said something similar to him back in Dallas about needing to stop using his injured arm as an excuse to push people away. He’d been pushing people away for so long, it seemed like all he knew how to do.
But he didn’t feel like pushing Alyssa away. When he was alone with her like this, surrounded by her scent and mesmerized by the sound of her voice, he found himself having a difficult time remembering why he’d been fighting the connection they so clearly had. The idea that she was his soul mate still scared the hell out of him—especially since she was FBI—but at the same time, there was something about her that gave him the courage to take risks he thought were beyond him.
He got his leather jacket off his left shoulder, making sure not to move that arm any more than he had to. Contracting his triceps could cause anywhere from a slight twinge to a burning firebrand of pain. Since he never knew which he was going to get, he tried his best to avoid aggravating the shredded muscles as much as he could.
Alyssa stood and came around the table, her expression curious as he carefully pushed the sleeve of his T-shirt up higher. Something as simple as skimming his fingers over the scar tissue along the back of his arm could trigger a stinger of pain, so he definitely avoided doing that.
“It’s difficult to explain,” he said as Alyssa studied the long, ragged scar that ran along the back of his arm from an inch below his left shoulder all the way down to his elbow. Several places along it, horizontal slices had been made so the skin could be folded back, exposing the damaged tissue underneath. “But basically, the bullet I got shot with was filled with…well…poison, for lack of a better word. It destroyed most of the muscle and it had to be taken it out. That’s why my arm looks so messed up.”
He glanced at Alyssa out of the corner of his eye, waiting for her to look away from the ugly scar in disgust, but she didn’t. He waited for her to ask the inevitable question about whether it hurt or not. That’s what the few people who’d seen the wound usually started with. But instead, she reached up and gently rested the palm of her hand on the vertical scar. He instinctively held his breath, waiting for the wretched pain to come.
But it didn’t.
In fact, as he slowly let the air ease out of his lungs, he realized Alyssa’s touch felt unbelievably nice. It was hard to describe, but the contact was both soothing and exciting, calming the tremors that had been a near constant companion since the shooting, but also creating a pleasant tingle everywhere her fingers traced. He was once again thankful she didn’t have a werewolf’s hearing, or she would have picked up on the fact that his heart was racing.
Alyssa moved her fingers along the wide suture line of the main scar and the smaller lines radiating out from it, pressing and examining the injury, her expression curious and a little confused. “These cuts don’t look like something a doctor would do with a scalpel. I don’t mean to make this sound like a joke, but it looks like someone took a steak knife to you.”
