Law stood up, Argyle dumped onto the floor. “Jori, it’s not like that.”
Trembling, she backed away from him. “I need some air.” She turned abruptly away, grabbed her North Face vest off a chair, and headed out his front door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The chill blast of air surprised her. The weather was turning quickly, as it often did in December in the Ozarks. The evening sky was clear but there was a ridge on the northern horizon that spoke of a Blue Norther headed their way. But Jori didn’t pause to go back for hat and gloves. She tucked her hands under her arms to protect them, bent her head to protect her eyes, and hurried down the gravel pathway that led back toward the main road hidden by the trees.
Her boots made so much noise on the gravel that she didn’t realize she had been followed until a hand snagged her elbow from behind.
She swung around to meet Law staring down at her, his Henley and sweat shorts the only protection against the wind. He didn’t say anything, just stood, big and solid and powerful even on crutches, waiting for her to offer some explanation.
Suddenly she was angry, angrier than she had allowed herself to be at any point in four years because it didn’t matter. Nothing worse could happen.
She tried to jerk her arm free of his grasp and stepped away from him, putting up a hand to stop him from advancing again. “I kept thinking that if I just held on, held it in, things would get better. Or at least not get worse. I was innocent. I didn’t know anything. But that didn’t stop anything. My whole life went to hell and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Nothing!”
Law felt her pain like a jab. He knew about how quickly things could go sideways. One second perfectly fine. The next, jagged bits of one’s life were flying away, having burst into a million tiny obscenely painful pieces that would never, ever fit back together properly. The difference was he’d known the risks, and accepted them as part of a job he wanted to do. She had never seen disaster coming.
He didn’t know what else to do so he held on to her arm. When she tried to pull away again he applied only as much pressure as was necessary to hold her in place.
She looked down at his grip that completely wrapped around her upper arm, and then her cinnamon-brown eyes met his in blazing anger. “Let me go.”
“I believe you, Jori. I. Believe. You. Are. Innocent.” He said the words separately, hoping they would sink in and take hold in her thoughts.
She held his stare a moment longer. “I was okay when people dropped me as a friend. I’d done something stupid. So maybe I deserved what happened to me. But not my family.” The wind was whipping her voice away but she didn’t seem to care. “Many of my parents’ so-called friends disappeared, too. They found themselves abandoned at so many social functions they simply stopped going. My dad is a director of academic affairs at UAMS so it didn’t really make a difference in his professional life, but my mother’s clothing boutique suffered. People came to spy on the mother of the felon, but they didn’t leave their money. She nearly closed her doors that first year after I went inside. I brought that shame on them. And they did nothing to deserve it.”
“Jori.” She backed up a step as he took one toward her. “It’s over.” He took another step. This time she didn’t retreat. “You’re safe. It’s over.”
“Don’t think I’m feeling sorry for myself. I’m just so damn angry!” She gasped in a breath of icy air as she stared up at him. “I don’t know what to do with all the anger.”
“Get even.” He said it calmly as he reached out and caught a strand of her hair flailing in the wind. He brought it back to tuck behind her ear but it wouldn’t stay. Poor ear. It was red with wind and cold. He covered it with his big palm, fingers diving into the hair behind to cradle her head. He didn’t know about a woman’s pain. Or the death of a lover’s dream. But he did know about evening the score. That had been his job all his life, protecting the innocent and getting justice for victims. He was a great avenger.
She still stared at him, but something was kindling behind her eyes. Hope.
“How?”
“We can begin by finding out what really happened the night Rogers died.”
“Can you do that?”
“I can.” The only way he knew how to seal that promise didn’t have words to go with it. He brought her in so that he could cradle her head against his chest. “I’d really like a chance to ask Erin Foster a few questions.”
She didn’t fight him as he held her close. She was shivering in his arms so he tightened his hold, wanting to give her as much of his body’s surface heat as possible. If it was too much, she didn’t protest.