But that hadn’t been in the cards. He didn’t want someone to live with him and love him. He just wanted a woman for the occasional night, when he needed a body. Maybe he’d loved Angie, who’d treated him like dirt. He certainly didn’t love Merrie.
She wished she could smother her feelings for him. It would make her life easier. It would take time, she told herself. She couldn’t expect a hurt that went so deep to be healed in a matter of days. She just had to get through the worst of the emotional pain, and then she could start to heal.
The limo slowed down. Idly, she glanced out the tinted windows. Mr. Jones was pulling into a parallel parking space near an intersection headed out of Jacobsville. It was at a convenience store, the only spot parallel to the highway, with no other parking spaces around it.
“Mr. Jones, why are we stopping here?” she asked.
He didn’t turn his head. “Just need to check the tires, Miss Grayling,” he said with a reassuring smile. “It feels like one may be going flat. Only take a sec.”
“All right,” she said, leaning back against her seat. She hoped he wouldn’t take long. She was hungry and eager to go to the café.
She didn’t notice that Mr. Jones wasn’t bending down to look at a tire. He was speaking on his cell phone and looking out toward the long, straight highway that led to Victoria Road.
He started walking away from the limo. Merrie’s eyes were closed. She didn’t see him go. She didn’t realize what was happening, even when she felt the impact and glass shattered around her in what seemed like slow motion. She was being shaken violently. She’d forgotten to put on her seat belt. She was thrown against the other door from the force of the impact. The last thing she saw was the formidable grille of what looked like a huge pickup truck before she fell unconscious.
*
“WHAT A HELL of a stupid thing I did,” Paul groaned while he and Sari paced the waiting room outside the surgical suite at the Jacobsville hospital. “What a hell of a thing! I took a former police chief’s word for gospel. I should have checked him out, too!”
“You couldn’t have known that he had mob ties, Paul,” Sari said, sliding her arms around him. Her eyes were red from crying. Merrie was in bad shape. The impact had bruised her lungs and her stomach. They were currently repairing her lung and removing her spleen and appendix, which had been damaged in the impact. She had badly bruised ribs, and one hip was traumatized. On top of all that, she’d suffered a mild concussion. But she was alive. Thank God, she was alive!
“I should have suspected everybody.” Paul hugged her close. “I’m so sorry!”
She hugged him back. “She’ll be all right. Dr. Coltrain is the best surgeon on staff.”
“I know. I know, baby.”
They sat back down. The waiting was the worst part. They didn’t know what else Coltrain might find when he went in to repair the other problems. He hadn’t said much, but that in itself was a statement to anyone who knew him well. Sari did. He’d been her doctor, and Merrie’s, for years.
“Where’s Cousin Mikey?” Sari asked.
“Yelling at people,” he said simply. “Calling in markers. He’s gotten fond of our Merrie.”
“He’s not such a bad man,” Sari said.
“Yes, he is,” he said quietly. “But it’s good to have a bad man in your corner, sometimes. He’s talking to his mob boss buddy. He thinks they might relent if he asks nicely.”
“You said that the contract killer would consider it a point of honor to make good on the job he took.”
“That’s true. But he’ll have ties to Jersey,” he said. “He may have ties to the big boss. If he does, that man could be induced to put pressure on him to end the contract.”
“So there’s hope,” she said, grasping at straws.
He caught her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth. “There’s always hope.”
She smiled at him.
He drew in a breath. “Should we call that Wyoming rancher?” he asked. “He was pretty torn up when I told him the truth about Merrie. He had some sort of feelings for her, I know.”
“If he wants to know anything about her, he can call and ask,” Sari said, still resenting the way he’d treated Merrie.
“I guess so.”
Paul went to get coffee for them. Sari rubbed one eye, and he knew what that meant—a threatening migraine headache. She had them more often when she was stressed. Strong coffee might stave it off until they had a report on the extent of Merrie’s injuries.
While he was gone, Sari noticed a tall, well-built man coming toward her in a police chief’s uniform. She smiled. Cash Grier was over forty, but he could have passed for thirty. He’d lived a life that many men envied, and he was married to an honest-to-goodness movie star. They had a daughter and a new baby son.
“How is she?” Cash asked, dropping into a chair across from Sari’s.
“We don’t know. There’s a lot of bruising, and she’ll lose her spleen and her appendix.” She shook her head. “The driver took off. Paul checked him out. He had an ex-police chief lie for him when Paul did a background check.”