Caitlin was just about to open the door to her cruiser when the soft rustling of leaves made her whip her head around. She turned in time to see Tessa Sullivan tiptoe out of the copse of trees. The woman’s head was down, watching each careful step as she slid down the small slope that bordered the cobbled road.
She stepped away from her car. Raising her voice, she called out, “Mrs. Sullivan. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Sullivan jumped, skittish as ever. Her head popped up, wide eyes narrowing right on Caitlin. The sheriff searched for guilt there. All she found was honest surprise.
What a shame.
“Sheriff De Angelis. Nice to see you.”
“What are you doing here?”
Her question more of a demand laced with suspicion, Tess wondered if she should answer the other woman. Something told her that if she did, she wouldn’t be addressing the sheriff but Doctor De Angelis’s ex-wife instead.
That made her smile. “I thought I would take a walk, get some fresh air. The weather’s beautiful.” Her smile wavered. “Jack would’ve loved it. Autumn was his favorite time of year.”
“A walk? All the way to the mountain side of town? Convenient.”
“Not really. The doctor told me to stop by during office hours if I needed something to help me sleep. Maria brought me most of the way. I decided to walk the rest.”
“What were you doing in the trees? I’d thought you’d know it wasn’t safe by now.”
“I couldn’t help myself, Sheriff. I thought I heard a cat when I was passing by. I couldn’t just keep walking. I had to see if I could find it.”
“Did you?”
Tess shook her head slowly. “There was nothing there.”
“‘Course not. We don’t have any strays in Hamlet, you understand. Just pets. You won’t find anything in the woods except for trouble.”
With a small nod and a tight smile, Tess conceded the point. Sheriff De Angelis’s subtle dig managed to go straight to the bone. Oh, yeah. She understood. If you were a part of Hamlet, you belonged. But they wouldn’t tolerate any outsiders who begged to survive.
Strays. Right.
“Now that I think of it,” De Angelis continued, “I have to ask: where’s your shadow?” At Tess’s blank look, she explained, “Mason.”
“I’m not sure,” she hedged. “I thought he was on duty.”
“Didn’t stop him last night.”
Tess heard enough in the sheriff’s short answer to guess, “You heard what happened to me.”
De Angelis jerked her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing back at Lucas’s office. “From the doctor, actually. And you know what? That worries me, Mrs. Sullivan. Crime goes down in my town, I’ve got to know about it. I will know about it. But I should’ve heard about it from my deputy. Or the civilian claiming to be harassed.”
Tess’s brow wrinkled, thin lines marring her forehead. She pursed her lips, started to argue. “I never—”
De Angelis held up her hand, cutting Tess off. “Don’t. I’ve heard enough from Luc, and you can bet I'll be taking Mase to task for keeping this from me. You want to make a formal complaint, meet me at the station house.
“For now, I’ll tell you this just once, Mrs. Sullivan… consider it a fair warning: don’t make the mistake of thinking his loyalty is to anyone outside of town. No matter what, Hamlet always comes first.”
Tess didn’t know if the sheriff meant Mason or Lucas. Both, she decided. Caitlin De Angelis was just that proprietary.
She tilted back her head, jutting out her chin. If the sheriff saw it as a dare, so be it. “‘Hamlet helps’,” she said. “Am I right?”
Caitlin ran her gaze over Sullivan’s guileless face. She sniffed. “Yeah, well, I voted against that slogan.”
Without another word, she turned her back on the other woman. She was halfway around the rear of her cruiser when she realized that she was on her way back to Lucas.
Freezing in place, Caitlin pulled the thick rope of her braid over her shoulder. If she went back inside, she’d have to hear it all over again how she shouldn’t be jealous. That she no longer had the right.
Too bad she couldn’t turn her feelings off as easily as Lucas seemed to. To hear from Adrianna that Lucas was having brunch with an outsider had been a stab. Then to have him shrug off her attentions as easily as he had was an absolute insult.
It took every ounce of her considerable willpower to return to the driver’s side of the cruiser. From the weight of the Sullivan woman’s curious stare, she knew her every action was studied, dissected. That bothered her. And the fact that she cared what some outsider thought just made her more pissed off.
Once she was sat behind the wheel, Caitlin rolled down her window. “Good day, Mrs. Sullivan,” she said before peeling away.
And if she got a little pleasure from causing the outsider to stumble back onto the path, well, she was only human.
18
Tess waited until the rear bumper of Sheriff De Angelis’s cruiser faded from sight. Only then, when she was sure she was alone, did she wipe her sweaty hands on the side of her jeans. That was too close for comfort.
Exhaust lingered in the thick autumn air. She coughed, hoping that she didn’t carry the acrid stench with her as she hurriedly crossed the street. Pausing only to run her trembling fingers through the soft waves of her hair, she forced herself to head straight for the front door.
Though she knew she shouldn’t and every impulse screamed at her to run back to Ophelia and hide, she braced herself and knocked.
When no one answered, she told herself that she would knock one more time; if the door stayed shut, she would leave. She knocked, and was just stepping down when she heard the soft creak of the door pulling in. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Lucas De Angelis leaning against the doorjamb, a small smile flirting on his lips.
“Tessa, what a pleasant surprise.”
At least someone was glad to see her.
Concern flashed across his flawless features in the next instant. Stepping out of the doorway, he leaned over Tess, bracing her with his hand on her shoulder. “You look shaky. Something wrong?”
She probably should’ve calmed down some more before she went to the door. How could she expect a doctor not to notice her nerves?
“I’m alright. It’s just… I had a run-in with the sheriff a few seconds ago.”
Lucas let her words sink in. Because Hamlet was Hamlet, it was inevitable that their breakfast at the coffeehouse would get back to Caity eventually. He’d been prepared for her reaction. It never occurred to him that he should probably warn Tessa what she was getting into by speaking to him in plain sight.
He closed his eyes, shook his head. That woman would be the death of him. Resigned, he asked, “She say something out of line?”
Tessa’s shrug was an answer in itself. “What was she doing here?”
“She’s working tirelessly on your husband’s case,” Lucas said, and it was the truth. Well, a truth. “She had some more follow-up on it for me.”
“She’s looking at me. She thinks I'm responsible. I know it.”
His hand was still on her shoulder. He gave her a reassuring squeeze. “You have nothing to worry about.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that he was wrong, then closed her jaw with a snap. No worries? Yeah, right. Jack was dead and his murderer was still at large.
Whatever their intentions, someone took the time to create a threatening note and leave it for her to find.
The sheriff thought she was guilty.
The doctor’s ex wouldn't let him go.
And the formerly sweet deputy had left bruises on her skin.
Pulling on her sleeve, hiding the marks from Lucas, Tess wondered if she should warn him about Mason’s strange visit. She ultimately decided against it. She could handle him. She could handle the sheriff, too. So long as she held onto the fact that she didn’t strangle her husband, no one could accuse her of anything.
&nbs
p; They would never be able to prove otherwise for the simple fact that she didn’t do it.
Lucas watched as Tessa’s expression went from concerned to defiant before her eyes shuttered, closing for a moment. When she opened them again, her golden eyes seemed dull. The bright spark in her gaze, the vibrant humor from brunch was eerily missing.
And it was all his ex-wife’s fault.
“Look, let’s not talk about Caity. Let’s talk about you. What are you doing here?”
Left unsaid was how he had dropped her off outside of Ophelia less than six hours ago. What could she have to say to him that couldn’t have been said earlier? Especially now that Caity had caught on to the fact that was some sort of… relationship budding between the two of them, the doctor and the outsider.
First brunch, now Tessa was visiting him at his office. It was like waving a red flag before a bull. It was dangerous to antagonize the sheriff. Even Lucas had to admit that.
Tessa already believed Caitlin had it out for her. If she wasn’t careful, that might turn out to be truer than she expected.
“It’s been three days,” she said imploringly. “After last night… I just want to know what’s going on. When will I be able to leave? Is she any closer to finding out what happened to Jack? No one will tell me anything.”
Lucas didn’t blame her for using any method she could to get information. If he were in her shoes, he’d be doing the same thing. Still, he found it interesting that, rather than Deputy Walsh, she was coming to see him.
He tried not to sound too pleased as he noted, “So you thought you’d track me down here and I would?”
He would. He definitely would. There was something about Tessa Sullivan. Whether it was her pretty face, the way she refused to let life break her, or even the innocence he sensed deep within her that made him feel so protective toward her, he'd had the urge to look out for Tessa since the instant their eyes first locked. Caitlin never needed him to protect her, not really, and he found that it felt good to be so important to another person.
The jut of Tessa’s chin dared him to refuse her. “I thought— wait.” She spun around, took a step away from the building. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“I thought I heard a cat in the woods before,” she explained as she started down his driveway. She pointed at the trees. “The sheriff told me there aren’t any strays, but I know what I heard. That sounded different.”
Lucas started to go after her. “What did it sound like?”
“I don’t know. I thought I heard a click or something. Like maybe—”
At first, he thought it was a firework going off. A loud pop, the whizzing sound of the bullet streaking through the air, the slam when it struck the facade, chips of brick flying everywhere. But no one aimed fireworks at other people, and there wasn’t an impact if they did, more of a contained explosion. Lucas understood all of that in the split second after the shot rang out.
An instant later, he realized that someone in the woods had just fired a gun at them.
Like a deer caught in a hunter’s crosshairs, Tessa froze at the end of the driveway. She threw her hands up in the air, as if that would do something to ward off the gunshots.
Lucas was already moving. Before his brain fully grasped what the hell was going on, his arms were pumping, his legs flying as he ran to her, shouting, “Tessa, no!”
He grabbed her, tucking her under his chin as he wrapped his arms around her. He covered her entire body with his, making it impossible for her to be hit. The first shot was wild, striking the front of his office building. If the erratic shooter fired again, odds were that neither one of them would be struck. Lucas wasn’t a gambler. Zero odds were the best odds. He wouldn’t let her get hurt.
And that’s when the second shot went off.
Aim was better that time. The bullet came within centimeters of burying itself in Lucas’s upper arm. Heat flared across the skin where the bullet tagged him, followed by the warm rain of blood as it started to spill. He wasn’t shot, but he was definitely hit. Cursing under his breath, he tightened his hold on Tessa in case the gunman fired a third time.
Seconds turned to minutes without another pop. Lucas’s labored breathing filled the air, mingled with Tessa’s panicked mews. She clawed at his arms, trying desperately to escape the cage they made.
The tinny buzz in his ears cleared enough for him to begin to make out her words. She was talking to him, saying something. His arm stung like hell. It took everything he had to ignore the sudden excruciating pain and focus on Tessa instead.
“Let me go! Let go of me! You shouldn’t have shielded me. You’ve been hit, you moron!”
Not the thanks he’d been expecting, Lucas thought. Gingerly moving his sore arm, testing it, he kept her hidden in his embrace. “I know, but it’s better than you being shot. It was just a graze, I promise.”
“How do you know?” she demanded.
“Because I can feel it.” And it fucking hurt. “I won’t let you go until I’m sure there won’t be any more stray bullets coming at us.”
Tessa stomped on Lucas’s shoe. That didn’t hurt—she was barely more than a hundred pounds, his boots were reinforced, and, besides, the heat and pain radiating from his injured arm meant nothing less than a broken bone was going to distract him from it.
Still, the shock he felt at her attempt to disable him was enough for him to drop his arms in surprise. Taking advantage of his lapse, Tessa ducked out of his embrace.
“Where did you get hit? I want to make sure you’re okay.”
Leaving his bad arm hanging at his side, Lucas looped his good arm around Tessa. He hugged her close, tightening his grip when she struggled to get free. “I’ll show you,” he promised, “after we get inside. We’re sitting ducks out here. I don’t want either of us getting shot at again.”
Tessa wrapped her arm around his waist. Considering he was more than a head taller than her, he thought it was sweet that she was trying to help support him as they zig-zagged their way back inside the safety of his office. Once they were in, Tessa pushed the front door closed and locked it.
“The wound. Let me see.”
Lucas was already peeling off his lab coat. He had on a short-sleeved t-shirt underneath which meant that he only had one layer of fabric protecting him against the bullet. The graze burned through the white coat before taking a chunk out of his arm. He watched the blood drip down his skin with a professional eye. It felt a lot worse than the injury was.
He’d gotten very lucky.
Tessa didn’t think so. Reaching out, she stopped when there was a two-inch gap between her fingers and his bloody flesh. It was like she couldn't bring herself to actually touch him. That bothered him way more than the cut did.
“You’ve been shot,” she whispered.
“I know—”
“Shot shot,” she echoed. “The bullet hit you and everything. Oh my god.”
“It’s fine, I—”
“It’s not fine. There’s no reason for you to have been hit. It should’ve been me.”
Lucas’s fist tightened reflexively. A fresh spurt of blood bubbled and started to trickle. “Don’t say that, Tessa. Don’t.”
Ignoring him, she pulled away. She looked around the office, only just realizing that it was the front room, the place where patients waited to see the doctor. There wasn’t anything there to help her. “Where are your supplies? I’ve got to clean that out now.”
That caught him by surprise. “What? No. I’m the doctor. Even one-handed, I’m sure I can fix this myself.”
“Let me do it.”
“Tessa—”
“Listen to me. When I first started college, before I became a teacher, I took nursing classes. Let me take care of you.”
Her jaw was set. He can see she was feeling responsible for his injury. If it gave her some peace to play nurse, fine. It couldn’t hurt. Besides, as the only doctor in town, there was never anyone left to take care
of him. It might be nice to be the patient for once.
“I’ll get the supplies,” he told her. “You can bandage me up when I get back.”
“No. Tell me where. I’ll go.”
Maybe it was the blood loss making him weak, but he decided not to continue arguing with her. Even though it would’ve been faster to get them himself, Lucas gave her instructions on how to find his examination room. Everything they would need to do a quick bandaging would be in there.
Tessa disappeared. He used the sleeve of his lab coat to try to staunch some of the blood. She returned a few minutes later with an armful of supplies that she dropped down on one of the waiting room chairs.
Her pale complexion had turned a sickly shade of green in the time she was gone. He expected her to hurl any second. To his surprise, she managed to keep it together. Gritting her teeth, she picked up the disinfectant first and tore the lid off.
Though he expected the sting, the disinfectant burned worse than actually getting shot had. Tessa chanted apologies under her breath as she dabbed the wound with a freshly soaked cotton ball.
It didn’t look so bad once all of the blood was washed away. The cut was about three inches long, the length of the side of his bicep, and it was way shallower than she initially thought.
The bullet had taken off quite a few layers of skin, though, and while it was shallower, that didn’t mean it wasn’t just a little deep.
“Do you think we should stitch this up?”
He kept his voice mild. “You’re the one with the nursing classes. What do you think?”
“I think I should let you get sepsis,” she muttered, peering closely at the depth of his wound. Then, as if she just heard what she said, she gasped. Covering her face with her gloved hands, she hurriedly apologized. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Apology accepted,” Lucas said solemnly. He let a small, inappropriate grin tug at his lips only because her face was covered and she wouldn’t know he was teasing. To be honest, he liked that spark of temper she showed. It was way better than watching her take another headfirst dive into a pool of guilt. “So… stitches? Yay or nay?”
Don't Trust Me (Hamlet Book 1) Page 18
