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 swelling.
“That’s what happens when you try to play baseball with an injured wrist,” he murmured.
“It wasn’t baseball. I was planning to play T-ball with his head.”
Sawyer chuckled. “I wouldn’t have appreciated blood on my stuff, Reggie. Which one did you use anyway? Tell 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 all 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 tell us the man was after you?” he asked.
Her lips twisted in annoyance. “Because there’s no way to tell if he was. And there still 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 followed you here, Reggie. He broke into our home while we were gone. Which tells me he was watching. And waiting for his opportunity.”
Her gaze fell 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 finally 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, telling 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 all 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 finally 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 all. “There is someone who has a beef with me. Therefore anyone around me is also in danger.”
She cradled her injured wrist in her hand and rubbed her thumb lightly over the swelling. “Birdie could have been hurt or killed,” she said quietly. She glanced back up at Cam and then slowly turned to look at Sawyer and finally Hutch. “He broke into your house. Any one of you could have been here. He’s already killed one person. What’s another?”
“How did I know you’d say something like that?” Sawyer muttered.
“So you think a better alternative is for you to hole up in your house alone?” Hutch demanded. “You’re smarter than that, Reggie. Start acting like it for God’s sake. This martyr bullshit isn’t like you.”
She bolted to her feet and whirled around, her eyes flashing with anger. And to think, Cam had been thinking about how Sawyer could always elicit a reaction from Reggie. Cam looked at Hutch in a new light. The usually laid back, calm Hutch was teetering on the edge.
“No one said I was going to stay at my house alone, asshole,” she said in a near growl. “Just because I’d prefer not to put the people I care most about in danger doesn’t make me a fucking martyr.”
Hutch stood, shoved his hands in his pockets and hovered over her, staring down into her eyes. Anger rolled off him in waves.
Reggie didn’t back down an inch, and Cam wondered if he was going to have to get between them. Hell, what was up Hutch’s ass? It was usually Hutch getting between Reggie and Sawyer.
The irony wasn’t lost on Sawyer either. He regarded the two with undisguised amusement.
“Maybe,” Hutch said behind clenched teeth, “the people who care aboutyoudon’t like the idea of some asshole trying to kill you.”
