Page 71 of Piece You Saved

His lip kicks up in a grin. “You sound likeyouwant to get to know me too.”

“Well, I don’t. I’m not interested in you.” I try to appear disgusted as I rake my gaze over a guy so good-looking that women must feign injuries all the time so he can look them over. “You’re not my type.”

The grin turns into a laugh. “Jane, Jane, Jane… I think you forget I’m a shifter with a sharp nose. Do you know what my nose is telling me?”

I clamp my thighs together and fix my eyes on the monitor where nothing is happening. I really wish something would.

“Stop being rude,” I mutter, blushing again, unable to stop.

He laughs again.

It’s a nice laugh. Rich, deep, and mellow all at once. As genuine as the one from the hospital, if not as loud. It tempts me to do the same because I’ve had so few people in my life who laughed like that. Few reasons to want to as well, but that’s a different story.

His laughter soon dies down, and I almost wish it wouldn’t. “Jane?”

I pretend to be absorbed by the monitor. “Yeah?”

“I’m the determined kind of doctor,” he says.

I put more effort into ignoring him. “Makes sense. Doctors fight to save their patients every day,” I say, pretending to misunderstand him.

“You see, the thing is, I think you like me,” he says, sounding pleased by it. “I think you liked me before, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

I did. I do. And I shouldn’t.

I’ve never met a shifter who knew how to laugh like him, and who’s so surprisingly easy to talk to that it’s like we’ve always done it.

“Kade was right about you. You do have a big head.Toobig.”

“Probably,” he admits cheerfully.

A moment passes in silence as I continue to check the cameras.

“What’s with the boarded windows?” he asks.

I shrug. “Oh, I think a wolf jumped through the glass.”

“Why would a wolf do that?”

“Not sure,” I lie. “Maybe he was lost.”

Silence.

“Jane?”

If he asks about Rylan, I will not hesitate to lie. I’ve pulled more than enough people into my shit show of a life. I don’t intend to drag anyone else in to have their throats torn out.

A bush rustles in the garden. Leaning closer to the monitor, I narrow my eyes at it until I realize it’s wind blowing and nothing more. “Hmm?”

“Now that you’re relaxed, tell me why would someone dump a body in your backyard.”

I rip my eyes from the screen and find him scanning the kitchen again. He’s never been in the house before, or this kitchen, and yet he looks right at home. As if he’s sat at this same table a thousand times before. Why is that?

“You were flirting to get me to relax?”

Why do I find the thought so upsetting?

He cocks his head as he studies me, those blue-green orbs roaming my face as lazily as he just did the room. He doesn’t seem to even notice my scars, so I don’t use my hair to hide them the way I ordinarily would.

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