Heartbreaker (26 page)

"What happened?" Michelle cried
frantically as she helped John into the kitchen. His arm was heavy around her
shoulders, which told her more than anything that he was hurt worse than he
wanted her to know. He sank onto one of the kitchen chairs.

"I lost control of the truck and ran
into a tree," he muttered. "My face hit the steering wheel."

She put her hand on the towel to keep it in
place, feeling him wince even under her light touch, and lifted his hand.away.
She could see thin shards of glass shining in the black depths of his hair.

"Let me see," she coaxed, and eased
the towel away from his face.

She had to bite her lip to keep from moaning.
His left eye was already swollen shut, and the skin on his cheekbone was broken
open in a jagged wound. His cheekbone and brow ridge were already purple and
turning darker as they swelled almost visibly, huge knots distorting his face.
A long cut slanted across his forehead, and he was bleeding from a dozen other
smaller cuts. She took a deep breath and schooled her voice to evenness.
"Edie, crush some ice to go on his eye. Maybe we can keep the swelling
from getting any worse. I'll get my purse and the car keys."

"Wait a minute," John ordered.
"I want to clean up a little; I've got blood and glass all over me."

"That isn't important—"

"I'm not hurt that badly," he
interrupted. "Help me out of this shirt."

When he used that tone of voice, he couldn't
be budged. Michelle unbuttoned the shirt and helped him out of it, noticing
that he moved with extreme caution. When the shirt was off, she saw the big red
welt across his ribs and knew why he was moving so carefully. In a few hours he
would be too sore to move at all. Easing out of the chair, he went to the sink
and washed off the blood that stained his hands and arms, then stood patiently
while Michelle took a wet cloth and gently cleaned his chest and throat, even
his back. His hair was matted with blood on the left side, but she didn't want
to try washing his head until he'd seen a doctor.

She ran upstairs to get a clean shirt for him
and helped him put it on. Edie had crushed a good amount of ice and folded it
into a clean towel to make a cold pad. John winced as Michelle carefully placed
the ice over his eye, but he didn't argue about holding it in place.

Her face was tense as she drove him to the
local emergency care clinic. He was hurt. It staggered her, because somehow she
had never imagined John as being vulnerable to anything. He was as unyielding
as granite, somehow seeming impervious to fatigue, illness or injury. His
battered, bloody face was testimony that he was all too human, though, being
John, he wasn't giving in to his injuries. He was still in control.

He was whisked into a treatment room at the
clinic, where a doctor carefully cleaned the wounds and stitched the cut on his
forehead. The other cuts weren't severe enough to need stitches, though they
were all cleaned and bandaged. Then the doctor spent a long time examining the
swelling around John's left eye. "I'm going to have you admitted to a
hospital in Tampa so an eye specialist can take a look at this," he told
John.

"I don't have time for a lot of
poking," John snapped, sitting up on the table.

"It's your sight," the doctor said
evenly. "You took a hell of a blow, hard enough to fracture your
cheekbone. Of course, if you're too busy to save your eyesight—"

"He'll go," Michelle interrupted.

John looked at her with one furious black
eye, but she glared back at him just as ferociously. There was something oddly
magnificent about her, a difference he couldn't describe because it was so
subtle. But even as pale and strained as she was, she looked good. She always
looked good to him, and he'd be able to see her a lot better with two eyes than
just one.

He thought fast, then growled, "All
right." Let her think what she wanted about why he was giving in; the hard
truth was that he didn't want her anywhere near the ranch right now. If he went
to Tampa, he could insist that she stay with him, which would keep her out of
harm's way while Andy Phelps tracked down whoever had shot out his windshield.
What had been a suspicion was now a certainty as far as John was concerned;
Beckman's threat went far beyond harassing telephone calls. Beckman had tried
to make it look like an accident when he had run Michelle off the road, but now
he had gone beyond that; a bullet wasn't accidental.

Thank God Michelle hadn't been with him as
she usually was. At first he'd thought the bullet was intended for him, but now
he wasn't so certain. The bullet had been too far to the right. Damn it, if
only he hadn't lost control of the truck when the windshield shattered! He'd
jerked the wheel instinctively, and the truck had started sliding on the dewy
grass, hitting a big oak head-on. The impact had thrown, him forward, and his
cheekbone had hit the steering wheel with such force that he'd been unconscious
for a few minutes. By the time he'd recovered consciousness and his head had cleared,
there had been no point in sending any of his men to investigate where the shot
had come from. Beckman would have been long gone, and they would only have
destroyed any signs he might have left. Andy Phelps could take over now.

"I'll arrange for an ambulance,"
the doctor said, turning to leave the room.

"No ambulance. Michelle can take me down
there."

The doctor sighed. "Mr. Rafferty, you
have a concussion; you should be lying down. And in case of damage to your eye,
you shouldn't strain, bend over, or be jostled. An ambulance is the safest way
to get you to Tampa."

John scowled as much as he could, but the
left side of his face was so swollen that he couldn't make the muscles obey. No
way was he going to let Michelle drive around by herself in the Mercedes; the
car would instantly identify her to Beckman. If he had to go to Tampa, she was
going to be beside him every second. "Only if Michelle rides in the
ambulance with me."

"I'll be right behind," she said.
"No, wait. I need to go back home first, to pick up some clothes for both
of us."

"No. Doc, give me an hour. I'll have
clothes brought out to us and arrange for the car to be driven back to the
house." To Michelle he said, "You either ride with me, or I don't go
at all."

Michelle stared at him in frustration, but
she sensed he wasn't going to back down on this. He'd given in surprisingly
easy about going to the hospital, only to turn oddly stubborn about keeping her
beside him. If someone drove the car back to the ranch, they would be stranded
in Tampa, so it didn't make sense. This entire episode seemed strange, but she
didn't know just why and didn't have time to figure it out. If she had to ride
in an ambulance to get John to Tampa, she'd do it. She was still so scared and
shocked by his accident that she would do anything to have him well again.

He took her acquiescence for granted, telling
her what he wanted and instructing her to have Nev bring the clothes, along
with another man to drive the car home. Mentally she threw her hands up and
left the room to make the phone call. John waited a few seconds after the door
had closed behind her, then said, "Doc, is there another phone I can
use?"

"Not in here, and you shouldn't be
walking around. You shouldn't even be sitting up. If the call is so urgent it
won't wait, let your wife make it for you."

"I don't want her to know about
it." He didn't bother to correct the doctor's assumption that Michelle was
his wife. The good doctor was a little premature, that was all. "Do me a
favor. Call the sheriffs department, tell Andy Phelps where I am and that I
need to talk to him. Don't speak to anyone except Phelps."

The doctor's eyes sharpened, and he looked at
the big man for a moment Anyone else would have been flat on his back. Rafferty
should have been, but his system must be like iron. He was still steady, and
giving orders with a steely authority that made it almost impossible not to do
as he said.

"All right, I'll make the call if you'll
lie down. You're risking your eyesight, Mr. Rafferty. Think about being blind
in that eye for the rest of your life."

John's lips drew back in a feral grin that
lifted the corners of his mustache. "Then the damage has probably already
been done, doctor." Losing the sight in his left eye didn't matter much
when stacked against Michelle's life. Nothing was more important than keeping
her safe.

"Not necessarily. You may not even have
any damage to your eye, but with a blow that forceful it's better to have it
checked. You may have what's called a blowout fracture, where the shock is
transmitted to the wall of the orbital bone, the eye socket. The bone is thin,
and it gives under the pressure, taking it away from the eyeball itself. A
blowout fracture can save your eyesight, but if you have one you'll need
surgery to repair it. Or you can have nerve damage, a dislocated lens, or a
detached retina. I'm not an eye specialist, so I can't say. All I can tell you
is to stay as quiet as possible or you can do even greater damage.''

Impatiently John lay down, putting his hands
behind his head, which was throbbing. He ignored the pain, just as he ignored
the numbness of his face. Whatever damage had been done, was done. So he'd
broken his cheekbone and maybe shattered his eye socket; he could live with a
battered face or with just one good eye, but he couldn't live without Michelle.

He went over the incident again and again in
his mind, trying to pull details out of his subconscious. In that split second
before the bullet had shattered the windshield, had he seen a flash that might
pinpoint Beckman's location? Had Beckman been walking? Not likely. The ranch
was too big for a man to cover on foot. Nor was it likely he would have been on
horseback; riding horses were harder to come by than cars, which could easily
be rented. Going on the assumption that Beckman had been driving, what route
could he have taken that would have kept him out of sight?

Andy Phelps arrived just moments before Nev.
For Michelle's benefit, the deputy joked about John messing up his pretty face,
then waited while John gave Nev detailed instructions. Nev nodded, asking few
questions. Then John glanced at Michelle. "Why don't you check the things
Nev brought; if you need anything else, he can bring it to Tampa."

Michelle hesitated for a fraction of a
second, feeling both vaguely alarmed and in the way. John wanted her out of the
room for some reason. She looked at the tall, quiet deputy, then back at John,
before quietly leaving the room with Nev. Something was wrong; she knew it.

Even Nev was acting strangely, not quite
looking her in the eye. Something had happened that no one wanted her to know,
and it involved John.

He had given in too easily about going to the
hospital, though the threat of losing his eyesight was certainly enough to give
even John pause; then he had been so illogical about the car. John was never
illogical. Nev was uneasy about something, and now John wanted to talk
privately to a deputy. She was suddenly certain the deputy wasn't there just
because he'd heard a friend was hurt.

Too many things didn't fit. Even the fact
that John had had an accident at all didn't fit. He'd been driving across rough
pastures since boyhood, long before he'd been old enough to have a driver's
license. He was also one of the surest drivers she had ever seen, with quick
reflexes and eagle-eyed attention to every other driver on the road. It just
didn't make sense that he would lose control of his truck and hit a tree. It
was too unlikely, too pat, too identical to her own accident.

Roger.

What a fool she had been! She had considered
him as a danger only to herself, not to John. She should have expected his
insane jealousy to spill over onto the man he thought had taken her away from
him. While she had been trying to draw him out, he had been stalking John.
Fiercely her hands knotted into fists. Roger wouldn't stand a chance against
John in an open fight, but he would sneak around like the coward he was, never
taking the chance of a face-to-face confrontation.

She looked down at the two canyons Edie had
packed for them and put her hand to her head. "I feel a little sick,
Nev," she whispered. "Excuse me, I have to get to the restroom."

Nev looked around, worry etched on his face.
"Do you want me to get a nurse? You do look kinda green."

"No, I'll be all right." She
managed a weak smile as she lied, "I never have been able to stand the
sight of blood, and it just caught up with me."

She patted his arm and went around the partition
to the public restrooms, but didn't enter. Instead she waited a moment,
sneaking peeks around the edge of the partition; as soon as Nev turned to sit
down while waiting for her, she darted across the open space to the corridor
where the examining rooms were. The door to John's room was closed, but not far
enough for the latch to catch. When she cautiously nudged it, the door opened a
crack. It was on the left side of the room, so John wouldn't be able to see it.
Phelps should be on John's right side, facing him; with luck, he wouldn't
notice the slight movement of the door, either.

Their voices filtered through the crack.

"—think the bullet came from a
little rise just to the left of me," John said. "Nev can show
you."