‘What?’ Rob said.
‘Nah.’ Clayton shook his head. ‘Can’t have been.’
Stephen ignored them. He was already out the door and running.
Chapter 10
‘Give me some breathing room here, guys,’ Jo groaned while doing her best to ignore the sharp scent of antiseptic, ammonia and out-of-order human bodies that was part and parcel of hospitals everywhere.
She was hunched on a hard narrow bed in a small private room right next to the nurses’ station. Their muted conversation and the sound of medical trolleys rolling out in the hallway could be heard clearly, but only as a background hum. It was the foreground that was giving Jo problems right now.
Every available male member of the Hardy clan was looming over her, including Scott, who’d managed to get down to Margaret River Hospital from Perth in record time, no doubt accruing an impressive number of speeding fines. Angie had stayed back at the house to make sure the police would be taken to the spot where Stephen had found Jo limping through a row of grapevines, blood gushing down her leg.
Rob and Clayton immediately tried to accommodate her request and backed off to hover near the wall of the tiny room. Scott and Stephen didn’t move an inch. Ever since he’d hauled Jo onto the back of the four-wheeler he’d ridden to find her, Stephen hadn’t let her out of his sight.
‘Ignore her,’ Scott said. He was sitting on the end of the bed next to Jo’s feet, and Stephen was sitting next to her shoulder, holding her hand in a death grip. Both men were grey-faced and irritable.
Jo appreciated the attention, really she did, but the drugs weren’t working as well as they could have been. Her leg was throbbing from the fifteen stitches a doctor had put in it, and the adrenaline from her interaction with a.22-calibre bullet had finally drained out of her.
‘Yeah, thanks.’ Jo glared at Scott. ‘It’s easy for you to talk. You’re not sitting with your backside exposed to the elements and a throbbing leg.’ An air-conditioned breeze breached the back opening of her hospital gown, reminding her that she was currently flashing her arse to the universe. ‘Where are my clothes?’
‘Angie took them home.’ Clayton’s voice was deep and reassuring.
‘Dad, d’you think we could get Angie to loan Jo something to wear home?’ Stephen asked, his grip on Jo’s hand tightening momentarily. ‘They’re about the same size.’
Rob had been the one to drive them all to the hospital. He’d been hovering ever since, deep lines grooved around his mouth, brows beetled in worry, staring at Jo as if he expected her to expire any minute.
‘Yeah, mate,’ Rob said distractedly. ‘Jo, the doc said you have to stick around for a few more hours so they can make sure everything’s all right. Frankly, it’d make it easier for the police to interview you here too. You all right with that?’
‘I reckon I’ll have to be,’ Jo grouched then gave him a weak smile. ‘Thanks, Mr Hardy. I’m sorry for snapping.’
‘Call me Rob, love. You’re entitled to be worked up, given what’s happened. The sooner we catch who did this, the better.’ He reached over Stephen and gave Jo’s shoulder an awkward, embarrassed pat.
‘Thanks.’ Jo gave him another, more pained, smile and then turned it on Clayton. ‘Thanks for helping earlier too, Clayton.’ Stephen had been too busy staunching the blood from Jo’s wound to do anything, so his father and brother had taken over.
‘No worries,’ Stephen’s older brother said calmly. ‘I know your mum and dad are worried about you. Angie called them, but the police are probably already out at the farm holding things up.’
‘Yeah. I’m sure they’ll be over when they get the time,’ Jo replied, not knowing what else to say. Since he’d just tried to kill her, Ken was the last person she wanted to see right now, and she’d been dreading him dropping by the hospital. She had no doubt he’d feigned concern about her wellbeing. Given his obsession with maintaining appearances, she was surprised he hadn’t rushed into town the minute Angie had called. Maybe for once guilt had gotten the best of him.
Bastard.
She squeezed Stephen’s hand, felt Scott’s reassuring presence at the end of the bed, but the sick feeling that had been dogging her since she’d realised her father had deliberately aimed a gun at her and pulled the trigger didn’t go away. Instead, it balled up in her chest, tight, making her lungs feel far too small.
‘Great, then.’ Clayton exhaled. ‘Well, Dad and I are going to go and talk to the police now. Angie’s got’em out at the farm. They’ll be checking all the registered guns in the area. We should work out who it was in no time.’
Jo stifled a sharp pang of frustrated rage at the knowledge the police wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing. She knew for a fact they wouldn’t find the rifle that shot her. Her father was too smart for that, but she kept quiet. ‘Thanks, Clayton.’
‘No worries.’
‘Yes worries,’ Stephen growled. ‘Just find out who the hell did this.’
‘Calm down. The cops are on it,’ Rob said.
‘They better find something. I’ll come out and help look once we get Jo home. We’ll be staying on the farm tonight. Put me and Jo together in my room, and Scott can sleep in Mike’s room,’ Stephen barked, making it clear that he and Jo were a couple. As if the others hadn’t gathered that already.
Stephen turned to Scott. ‘You’re staying too, right?’
Scott nodded. ‘Yeah. Stephen, guys, do you mind if I have a talk with Jo on her own for a bit?’
‘Yeah I do mind.’ Stephen’s expression instantly changed from worried to stormy. ‘I mind a hell of a lot. You don’t exactly look like you want to have a fluffy conversation and Jo’s been through enough.’
There were a few minutes of uncomfortable silence until Clayton loudly cleared his throat again. ‘Yeah, sure. We have to go anyway. You coming with us, Stephen?’
Stephen looked from Scott to Jo. It was obvious he wasn’t planning on going anywhere, but Jo really didn’t want Scott voicing his views of her father in public right now. That would be a total disaster.
She gently squeezed Stephen’s hand. ‘Go and see your brother and dad out. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘I’d rather stay.’
‘I know, but I need you to give me a few minutes here,’ Jo said firmly. Seeing from his expression that he was about to argue, she added with a weak smile, ‘Please? I’m fine.’
He caved after a long, tense pause. ‘Five minutes,’ he told Scott with a glare. ‘Upset her, mate, and you’re in for it.’ He leaned down to kiss Jo softly on the forehead before leaving the room with Rob and Clayton. Jo felt her eyes prickle, and her smile turned wobbly as she watched him go.
She wiped her eyes with her fingertips and turned to Scott. ‘Out with it.’
‘You going to tell the police it was your dad or do I have to?’ Now everyone was gone, Scott didn’t bother hiding how pissed off he was. He was a wreck; his long hair was all over the place, his face haggard.
Jo shook her head emphatically. ‘There won’t be any proof, Scott. He’s too smart for that.’
‘Yeah? Well, he’s not smart enough that we don’t have evidence of what he did to you and Amy years ago. I’ve got those photos of what he did to you girls after the party, remember? I brought them with me.’ He waved the brown manila envelope he’d been gripping white-knuckled since he’d turned up at the hospital.
Jo was already shaking her head, eyes filling with frustrated tears. ‘You know that was too long ago to have any currency now, and even if it wasn’t, I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. It’s the same as always. I can’t do anything while Mum’s still with him. If the police don’t pick him up in time he could do something stupid, even kill her before they got him. She’ll defend him till the day she dies, too. Even if they can pin this on him’—she gestured down to her leg—’she’d sell everything in the house to bail him out. It’s lose-lose.’
‘It’s screwed, is what it is,’ Scott snarled. ‘So you’re
just going to suck it up. Again?’
‘You’re acting like I have a choice here.’
‘You do. You just can’t see it, can you? He could have killed you, for Christ’s sake.’ Scott’s voice was rising.
‘Calm down. I know. I was there,’ Jo said, her voice shaking, hoping to hell Stephen and his family couldn’t hear Scott from out in the hall. ‘But I didn’t see him. So unless I lie and say I did, it’s my word against his.’
Scott snorted in disgust, his frustration obvious.
‘No, seriously, Scott, he’s too crafty. The minute I worked out what had happened, I knew there’d be nothing I could do.’
‘They can test bullets nowadays,’ Scott said, ignoring her. ‘They can see if one of his guns was fired.’
Jo let out a short, bleak laugh. ‘The old man’s had an unregistered gun since before they tightened the laws around here years ago. Who knows where he’s got it stashed? And the cops don’t do that kind of test for what will be blamed on a few ricochets from some stupid kids shooting rabbits. It’s a truly screwed situation, and don’t think I don’t know it.’
Scott stood up and began pacing the length of the bed. ‘This just makes me so pissed off! I know you’re worried about your mum, but that isn’t good enough. I want to go over there and . . . hell, I don’t know, do to your dad what he’s just done to you, but I wouldn’t bloody well hit him in the leg.’ He threw up his hands and spat out the last few words, face contorted in anger.
‘Yeah. Me too. But I can’t and neither can you. So how about you suck it up and give me a hug.’
Scott walked over and grabbed her shoulders and mashed her face to his chest.
‘Ouch,’ she yelped, and his grip immediately loosened.
‘Stop whining,’ Scott murmured against her hair, his voice catching. ‘I don’t even want to tell you what it felt like to be on the other end of that phone, Jo. You’re family to me. I love you, idiot. Give me a bit of room here to be pissed off, all right?’
‘All right,’ Jo said in a small voice. ‘Although my leg’s killing me, so you can let me go, then find a nurse to give me something to knock me out.’
‘Not until you talk to the cops.’
‘Then find me Stephen,’ Jo grumbled. ‘He was making it better before.’
‘That I can do,’ Scott replied with a small smile before going out into the hall and bellowing for Stephen, much to the annoyance of every nurse on the ward and most of the patients.
Stephen’s returning bellow almost got them kicked out of the small hospital.
‘Scott,’ Jo called out just before he left.
‘Yeah?’
‘Can you run interference if Dad drops by? He’ll do it to keep up appearances, but I feel sick at the thought of seeing him. Don’t make a scene and don’t try to stop him coming over in the first place. I want things looking normal. I don’t know how to explain things to people yet, let alone Stephen. He’s going to be worked up enough as it is and I don’t want him getting suspicious, especially not after he was with me this morning when I ran into my dad. It was pretty obvious we weren’t happy families.’ She drew a shaky breath. ‘This is all so messed up. I know it’s asking a lot . . .’ She let her words trail off as Stephen sprinted back into the room, giving Scott a dark glare, then searching Jo’s face for any signs of upset as Scott quietly exited.
‘What’s asking a lot?’ Stephen demanded. Jo saw for the first time he had reddish-brown stains all over the front of his shirt and jeans. Her blood. He didn’t even appear to notice them. He was too busy hovering over her, gently taking up his place next to her on the bed.
‘I just asked Scott to update Dad on what’s going on if he drops by. I didn’t want that to be one more thing for you to worry about.’ Jo managed to say without even flinching at the partial lie.
Stephen’s expression darkened. ‘I can’t imagine what your parents are going through. They’ll probably be basket cases right now.’
‘Yeah.’ Jo’s breath caught as the enormity of what had happened hit her fair in the chest. She tried to swallow back a massive lump of tears but a couple escaped before she could wipe them away.
‘You all right?’ he asked her, stroking her hair back from her cheek.
She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Yeah. I am now.’
Ken Blaine was held up talking to the cops and didn’t make it over to Evangeline’s Rest until late that afternoon, and by then Jo was fast asleep from a combination of exhaustion and pain medication. Stephen had tucked her in himself and stayed with her until her eyes closed and her breathing had evened out. He’d liked seeing her in his bed, even if the thought of what had put her there made him psycho-furious. He’d never had a girl stay over in his room when he was a kid, and he had a gut feeling that his teenage self would approve of him having Jo there right now. He stood up and brushed Jo’s cheek with his fingers before leaving the room and quietly closing the door.
Jo settled, Stephen, Clayton and Scott migrated outside to the porch to have a beer and collectively brood. Angie had left to work her afternoon shift at the Evangeline’s Rest cellar door, and Rob had gone out with Stephen’s uncle, Les and Ken Blaine to see if they could find any tyre tracks that would indicate how the bastard who shot Jo had gotten around their farm. Stephen would be out there himself, had wanted to go, but Jo had asked him to stick around and he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone.
The police had already ruled out anything premeditated, because neither Jo nor Stephen had told anyone apart from Scott and Amy that she was driving down with him that day. Instead, they strongly suspected it had been someone hitting Jo by accident when shooting rabbits on Evangeline’s Rest. Stephen hoped to hell his dad or the police found something, anything, soon. He was still having trouble quelling the absolute rage that had been with him since he’d first spotted Jo limping towards him, blood rushing down her leg. He shuddered at the thought.
‘So, you and Jo Blaine, eh?’ Clayton asked Stephen after a few minutes of scowling introspection on all counts. The question immediately lightened the mood.
‘Yeah. Since a week ago.’ Stephen narrowed his eyes at Scott. ‘Someone’s been playing matchmaker.’ He’d only worked it out himself when Scott had backed off so quickly in the hospital.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Scott said, feigning innocence.
‘What’s with that, mate?’ Clayton gave Scott a surprised look. ‘Wasn’t Jo your girlfriend for years?’
‘Yeah, what’s with that?’ Stephen demanded, still smarting that he’d been kicked out of Jo’s room in the hospital so she and Scott could talk. She’d told him they’d just talked about how to stop their respective families getting too worked up about stuff, but Stephen didn’t see why he couldn’t have been present at that conversation.
‘We’ve never been together except in this genius’s imagination years ago.’ Scott gestured to Stephen with his can of beer. ‘Jo and Amy Blaine are family, have been since I was ten and Jo was twelve. She’s like my sister.’
‘How come we didn’t know you were friends, then?’ Clayton asked. ‘You must have met her years before she came to that Christmas thing when you were kids.’
‘Yeah. Four years before, when I was ten and she was twelve,’ Scott said, his expression going blank. ‘You’ll have to ask Jo why. Not my story to tell.’
‘If you’re in it, must have been your story too,’ Stephen growled.
‘Can’t. Sorry.’ Scott shrugged, distracted by the sight of a car approaching the house.
Clayton followed his gaze. ‘Looks like Ken’s car. You think we should wake up Jo?’ he asked Stephen.
‘No,’ Scott barked before Stephen could say anything. ‘I’ll go and have a talk with him. Promised Jo I would. Stay here. I’ll tell him to come back later, all right?’
Before Stephen could say anything, Scott was out of his chair and jogging over to where Ken had pulled up in front of the house. Stephen got up, fully prepared to
walk over and talk to Ken himself but Clayton put a hand on his arm, holding him back.
‘Not worth it, mate. Just ask later, eh?’
Stephen looked down at his brother. ‘Do you have any idea how I’m feeling right now?’
Clayton scowled. ‘If it’s half of how I’m feeling, pretty shit.’
Stephen made a low, frustrated noise. ‘I mean, first we end up with his girls having to move to the city after I fucked up at the party—’
‘Remember that being Jeff more than you.’ Clayton and Jeff were best mates, but that didn’t mean Clayton hadn’t taken a chunk out of Jeff years ago when it had all happened.
‘And now this!’ Stephen finished. ‘There’s got to be a way we can stop kids getting on to the farm. This could have been a hell of a lot worse than it was.’ Just the thought of Jo being fatally wounded left him cold and sweaty despite the heat of the day.
‘I’m gonna go and talk to all the farmers around here. We’ll get on top of it.’
‘If you don’t take care of it, I will.’ Sometime during the day, Stephen’s easygoing façade had evaporated. He felt raw and furious, and he wanted a fight.
He glared at Scott, who was still talking to Ken. Their voices were too low to hear a damn thing, but from their body language, neither man was happy. ‘Screw this, I’m going over there.’
Clayton shook his head. ‘Just stay here and let him take care of it. From what I gathered, Jo asked him to; that’s why she wanted you to leave, right? They were friends for years, weren’t they? So Scott probably knows Ken better than you do, anyway.’
Stephen’s reply was forestalled by Ken pulling away from the house, and driving off at high speed, tyres kicking up gravel as Scott returned to the porch.
‘What the hell was that about?’ Stephen demanded when Scott sat back down again.
Scott ran his hand over his hair, his expression taut. ‘Nothing much. Jo asked me to keep her parents away until she’s up to dealing with them.’
Unforgettable You: Destiny Romance Page 15
