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

to eat.” He was practically growling at her for something that was clearly not her fault.

“People need to quit telling me that,” Jo bit out.

Frizzle padded over to her and laid his abnormally large head in her lap.

The gesture sent a shock of envy straight through him.

Jo absently rubbed the hound’s head.

“Maybe it’s because no one sees you eating.” Lydia rose and headed for the door “I’ll tell Esther to prepare a tray.”

“And ice,” Wyn said. “I need to make a phone call.” He escaped the lavish room before he choked on the image of lace curtains, velvet upholstery, and silk bed coverings, more details designed to invade his dreams to deprive him of sleep every night for the next forty years.

He encountered Esther laden with a tray of food and two ice packs in the hall outside Jo’s room.

“That girl needs to eat more,” she said with a defensiveness that had him hiding a sudden grin behind his compressed lips.

“I need to use the phone.”

“Use the one downstairs in Victor’s study.” She disappeared into Jo’s room just as the telephone’s bell blasted the upstairs hall.

Tevi barged out the door, ran to a cut out nook in one wall and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?” Her shoulders tensed. “She can’t come to the phone. Someone tried to run her over. I can’t help thinking it was you.”

Now, what the hell could Jackson want? The man’s timing was as suspicious as ever. Hadn’t he shown up minutes after Wyn had found Penelope Knox all those years ago?

“Fine. Just quit yelling.” Tevi set the receiver down and disappeared into Jo’s room.

While the telephone in Victor’s office was a separate line, Wyn forewent his own call and waited outside Jo’s abode in a convenient and shadowed corner. A couple of minutes later Lydia, Tevi, and Esther exited the room in single file, happily noting Esther had left the tray behind. Maybe now Jo would eat with no one hovering over her.

Tevi broke from the group and went over to the telephone. She picked up the receiver and put it to her ear. After a second, in a huff, she said, “Fine,” then slammed the receiver on its hook.

“Why the devil does he want to speak to her privately?” Tevi grumbled.

Exactly what Wyn was curious to know.

The ladies filed down the stairs. Wyn took the opportunity to go to Jo’s door and placed his ear against the oak, like a common eavesdropper. He couldn’t hear a thing.

Lydia took two steps down, turned, pinning him with her odd discerning gaze. “Coming, Wyn?”

He faced her head on. “No.” He opened Jo’s door and slipped inside.

18

J

o covered the speaker end of the telephone receiver, waiting until the others were well and gone. The noise in the hall died away, and she put the piece to her ear. “What’s going on, Jackson?” she said coldly.

“You’ve got to help me, Jo.” His panicked trill sent shards of ice over her nerve endings. “I stopped for gas and someone stole my car.”

“How convenient, Jackson, because someone tried to run me down with a late model Packard not two hours ago.”

“Oh, shit.”

“You know, Jackson? You really could use a wife. One to curb your crass nature. Too bad you’ll be in jail.”

“Shut up, Jo. I need help.”

“Call Wyn. That’s all the help I can offer you.”

“Right.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Only, he’ll just come to the same conclusion as you and your suspicious sisters.” After a long pause, he asked, “Were you hurt?”

“It didn’t help my ankle,” she said with a mulishness she feared was becoming all too normal. She must be going soft because she believed him. She let out a sigh. “Where are you?”

“On the mainland.”

His words were a punch to the gut. “But—” She had no idea how to respond. She took a deep breath. “So, you were on the last ferry. I’m a fool,” she whispered.

“No. I caught the earlier afternoon ferry. Someone gave me a note. Told me they had something on…something on the person who shot at you.”

She drummed her fingers on the armrest, doubts resurfacing. “I see.” How could she have been so naïve, trusting anything Jackson said. “And just what did this note say?”

“That I would get more information on the ferry ride over.”

Jo let the long silence linger. She was furious. Mostly with herself.

“Hell,” he said on a low hiss. “You don’t believe me, do you? You really do think I tried to run you down.”

“It’s no secret to anyone in this town how you felt about my sisters and I coming to live with you and your parents.”

“We were kids,” he screamed in the phone.

Jo jerked the receiver from her ear. She put it back tentatively. “As it happens, I do believe you. I mean, Victor didn’t give over what we were to do in the event one of us was dead, did he?”

The door opened, and Wyn glided in like a large predatory cat and leaned against closed door. He looked like a midwestern throwback from the old west she’d read about in a dime novel. He only needed denim trousers, a revolver at his hip, and a Stetson on his head. His hard expression sold the look, nevertheless.

“Where exactly are you calling from?”

Wyn lifted a brow and pulled away from the door. He stopped in front of her with his arms crossed over his chest, his legs splayed, looking down his straight and almost perfect nose at her. She held the phone out so they could both hear.

Jackson said, “In a phone booth at the ferry station on the mainland. Ah, hell.”

“What?”

“They’re pulling a car out of the Sound.” He had that whiny tone she remembered from their days before she’d left for finishing school.

“A car out of the Sound?” She met Wyn’s eyes, frowning.

“My car, Jo. They’re towing my car out of the Sound. The Long Island Sound. I was headed back to the island. Damn, they ran it into the Sound.