A Bullet to the Heart, Kathy Wheeler [inspirational books txt] 📗

around the bone. “When did this happen?”

“Last Saturday.” Heat flamed her face. Victor and Max had been friends over the course of a lifetime. “I, uh, started a job at the diner.”

The doctor looked up, startled. “Victor wouldn’t have liked that, young lady.”

“Well, he’s not here, is he?” she said peevishly. The man was as old-fashioned as her uncle. He pursed his lips, showing her what he thought of her sulky tone. An expulsion of resignation rushed from her. “Sorry, Dr. Max. I’m afraid I haven’t been myself lately. With Victor’s death and…and everything.”

“Now, now.” He gave her knee an awkward pat. “Don’t you fret, Josephine. Regarding your foot, I don’t think there will be permanent repercussions. Did you pass out when you fell outside just now?”

“She didn’t,” Wyn told him.

“The good news is that your vision appears normal. But I want you to stay awake for several hours when you arrive home. Eight, if you can manage it. And call if you feel the slightest bit nauseous.”

He glanced over to Wyn. “You taking her home, Sheriff? She needs to stay off that foot.” He gave Jo his sternest doctor-face. “No working in the café, and no walking home for you. Not for several days.”

“Yes, Dr. Max,” she said meekly.

“Come on, Jo. Time to go.” Wyn strode over to pick her up.

Dr. Max stopped him. “Where are her shoes?”

“Ah, yes, her shoe,” he responded, not bothering to hide his amusement. He reached behind him and produced one scuffed-up flat. “I believe we’ve found your slipper, Cinderella.”

Heat crawled up Jo’s neck.

Dr. Max’s puzzled expression would have been laughable if Jo hadn’t felt like bursting into tears. News of this entire situation would be all over town by nightfall. “Where’s the other one?”

Della, Dr. Max’s nurse-receptionist, peered inside the room holding Jo’s completely unwearable other flat. “Here you are, dear. Cornelius dropped it off a few minutes ago. Said he found it in the gutter.”

Jo took it, blinking rapidly. “Er, thank you, Della.”

“Della, would you mind calling the manor house to let Esther know to watch for us?”

“Certainly, Sheriff.”

“Remember what I said, young lady. Stay off that foot.”

Wyn picked her up. Of course, they had to leave the clinic and go back across the street to the sheriff’s office, and while the street was cleared of do-gooder townspeople, it still felt as if the whole town were peering through creases of curtains as she and Wyn made their way from one place to the other.

Rather than going inside the sheriff’s office, Wyn strode around to the back of the building and deposited her in the passenger side of his parked squad car.

Once inside, he put the key in the ignition and cranked it. The drive to the manor house took less than ten minutes. He turned the car off and sliced her with the stormy depths of his gray eyes. “My mother stopped you on the street. To talk.”

Jo clamped her mouth into a tight line, still smarting from his adolescent treatment of her in front of Dr. Max.

Wyn turned to exit it the car.

Jo put her hand on his arm to stop him from leaving. The strength in his bicep reached her through his coat. “Yes. Annabelle told me it would be in my best interest to steer clear—of you.” Until she spoke the words aloud, she hadn’t realized how much they hurt. “Is there any reason your mother would have to warn me away from you?” she demanded softly.

His jaw firmed. “Of course not. It wouldn’t matter anyway,” he growled. He shoved the car door open. “We’d best get you inside.”

Esther met them at the door. “Josephine Ophelia, what on earth happened? Get in here, right this minute.”

“She needs an ice pack.” Wyn started for the stairs. “Make that two. One for her head.”

Wyn’s take-charge presumptuousness startled Jo. “What are you doing?” she hissed, then winced as the throb in her temple doubled in tempo. “Just take me to the library.”

Of course he ignored her. Arrogant male. “Hold still. You’ll make me drop you.”

Like that would ever happen.

“You need rest and food…” then added, “…and ice packs.”

“What’s going on out here?” Tevi called from the foyer. “Where are you taking Jo? Wait just one minute, Wyndel Smith, Jr. Why are you carrying her? You didn’t marry her, did you?”

“Oh, God,” Jo muttered.

They reached the landing. “Which one’s your room, Miss Weatherford?”

“Last door on the right.”

He kicked the door back, startling Frizzle. “Hey, boy. Gotta delivery for you.”

“Just set me on the chaise.”

“What’s going on?” Tevi demanded.

Lydia crowded her in the doorway.

Jo met Wyn’s gun-metal grays, willing him silent.

He answered with a raised brow.

She cleared her throat. “Nothing.”

Tevi marched in with Jo’s now pathetic shoes and scuffed handbag. She held them out, examining them. “You sure have been clumsy lately for a ‘big nothing.’”

“My ankle swelled up from being on it all day.”

“Is that why the rumors circulating around town are that a Packard almost ran you down?”

Jo swore under her breath, then caught Wyn’s aggravating amusement. “God, I hate this island,” she said.

Wyn’s mask of indifference slid into place in the instantaneous blink. “Where’s Jackson? I need to talk to him.”

“He’s not here,” Lydia said. “He hasn’t been home since he gave Jo a ride into town this morning. He said he was meeting with you after he dropped her off at the café. What’s really going on, Jo?” She hurried over and eased down on the edge of the chaise, reaching for Jo’s hand.

In a smooth diversion by running her fingers in her hair, she avoided her touch. “I don’t know. Someone driving a Packard didn’t see me and almost hit—”

“—they saw her,” Wyn corrected.

“We don’t know that.” Jo dropped her gaze to a frayed portion of her now-ruined skirt.

“Jackson drives a Packard,” Tevi said.

Wyn took in the feminine abode with a feeling of sinking loss. Seeing Jo in her natural habitat reminded him just how far apart their worlds were from one another. “You need something