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

a frog. It was the most beautiful sound he’d heard in a lifetime. “Bobby?”

“Dead.”

Her mouth formed an ‘O.’ Lust surged through him. Completely inappropriate, he told himself. “What of Mr. Styles?” she said barely above a whisper. “Or Jackson?”

“I haven’t heard from Jackson. I had to ask my father and Garrick to haul, er, retrieve Styles’ body from the lighthouse. He didn’t make it, darling.”

“We still need to do the ballistics, but I suspect he was shot by the same gun. The one that was used to shoot at you.” He scrubbed a palm over his unshaven chin. “I’m sorry, Jo. This isn’t something to discuss with you—not right now at any rate. You need soup. Or broth. Tea. You need tea.” He went to the door and yelled down the stairs for a tray.

“Coming right up, Sheriff,” Esther called up. “By the way, phone call for Jo.”

“Who is it?”

“Jackson. That boy’s been trying to disguise his voice from me since he was in short pants. Couldn’t fool me for a minute.”

“Is he still on?”

“Yep.”

“She’ll take it up here.”

Jo tried to shift her arm to a more comfortable position. A small tap at the door told her it wasn’t Wyn on his way back in. In any event, her new caller hadn’t waited for an invitation to enter. “Hello, Josephine.”

Jo picked at the comforter, unable to meet her eyes. “Hello, Mother.”

“Mr. Smith told me you believed Bobby Kingsley was your father.” Her quiet demeanor sounded more questioning than timid.

“He found me in New York City and said as much.”

“It’s not true, you know.”

Heat infused Jo. She remained silent, unable to think of a suitable response.

“We were part of a group that ran together in our pre-college days. Claudia—er, your grandmother—she would have ripped me to shreds for going with a boy like Bobby. It didn’t stop him from trying. Boys will be boys, after all.”

Jo glanced up quickly, then back down.

“Your grandmother was quite formidable.”

“Yes, I remember.” Jo’s smile felt as timid as her mother’s sounded. “She could be quite…mean, I recall as a child.”

Eleanor moved to the chair Wyn had vacated and lowered into it. “Josephine, I did you a disservice. Wallace Hayes was a horrible man. I didn’t realize it at the time of course. Claudia—that’s how I addressed her in my mind and to my friends at the time—had already had me analyzed by a psychiatric doctor when word came of Charles’ death. She’d never approved of Charles. But I suspect, in her mind, Charles was the lesser of two evils. But I loved him. I loved him fiercely.” Her voice had an edge, Jo never remembered. “I was devastated when news came of his disappearance. They prescribed pills and I devoured them, to my detriment and yours and your sisters’. I truly believed I had died right alongside him on that battlefield.”

Through yet another bout of tear-filled eyes, Jo studied her mother’s earnest expression. She wanted to reach out, but it was not in Jo’s ability to touch someone to comfort them. Not yet. She hated when people attempted to comfort her. It just seemed so…false. She blinked quickly.

“I know that I failed you. I know you suffered—”

“Do you?”

Eleanor’s gaze dropped to her lap. Inhaling deeply, she raised her eyes to Jo. “Yes. Yes, I’m afraid I do.” Her anguished plea stopped Jo’s automatic retort. “I realize there is nothing I can say or do to garner your respect. I don’t deserve your respect. I can only tell you, I was out of my mind with grief and Claudia took advantage of the fact. Something she had down to an art. I don’t say it as an excuse, but as a fact…”

Jo remembered that much about her maternal grandmother. She was a formidable woman. If one didn’t have a strong personality, one could find oneself swallowed up completely.

“I should have been there to protect you from the likes of Wallace Hayes. By the time he’d hatched his plan to institutionalize me, I fear I didn’t have much of…of anything, let alone a backbone or even a will to live. I let you girls down. And, for that I apologize.”

Jo’s silent cries spilled down her cheeks, though she didn’t raise her eyes. “He was a horrible man. But,” Jo said fiercely, “he never touched Lydia or Tevi.”

Eleanor reached over and squeezed Jo’s hand. “Thank you for keeping the other girls safe, my darling.” She rose and moved, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m so sorry, Josephine. So terribly sorry. I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive me.”

Jo blinked furiously, but it did nothing to stem the flow of her anguish. “We can’t change the past,” she said softly. “But…” she took a deep breath. “… perhaps we can change the future.”

Eleanor turned where Jo could meet her gaze. “Do you mean it, Josie?”

Jo nodded slowly, surprised to find she did mean it as yet more emotion spilled over. “Yes, I mean it.”

Her mother’s arms enveloped her, and Jo didn’t push her away, just laid her head on her mother’s thin shoulder and reveled in something she’d thought she’d lost forever.

Comfort.

22

W

yn strolled into the manor house library a couple of days later, his heart filled. He was a changed man. Jo sat in the bay window’s cushioned seat, her knees drawn up with her nose in a book, just as he’d pictured her all those years ago.

She glanced up at him. Her smile lit up the room, piercing his skin, his heart. He glanced around. They had the space to themselves.

“I talked to Jackson.” He lowered himself next to her. “The mainland police declared Bobby’s death an accident. It’s also been determined that the gun that killed Styles used the same ammunition as the bullet I found on the forest floor.”

She let out a shaky sigh. “The one shot at me.”

“Yes. The gun was in the lighthouse. The serial number was scratched through. Kingsley had been holing up there. It