A wan smile turned up Melissa's pale mouth. "She isn't sleeping, she's just too tired to open her eyes."
Relief coursed through Lori at the sound of her sister's voice. "Maybe I should come back later."
Melissa's hair slid against the white pillow as she slowly shook her head. "No, Lori. Stay. I'm glad you're here. You can give Wyatt a break from his hovering."
Wyatt frowned. "You make me sound like a helicopter."
Melissa opened her eyes, her gaze full of love as she looked on her husband's face. "But a handsome one. Go find some coffee, darling. Then a doctor. I know you've been dying to badger one all morning."
Wyatt touched Melissa's cheek. "First a helicopter, now a badger. I'm not flattered." But he smiled at her.
"I'll flatter you when you get me sent home," Melissa said. "Go find out when you can break me loose from this place."
"Not until I'm certain you're truly on the mend."
Melissa's hand came off the bed, then fell back against it as if a gesture took too much energy. "It's just the flu."
Wyatt shook his head, but he didn't contradict his wife. Instead, he looked over at Lori. "I could use a cup of coffee. And a chance to badger the doctors, as she said. Will you sit with her awhile?"
Lori nodded and came toward the bed. "I'd be happy to." She slipped into Wyatt's chair as he went out the door, setting the small pot of pansies she'd brought onto the table beside Melissa's bed. She leaned close to the other woman. "When you're feeling better, I'll bring candy."
Melissa smiled. "I'd appreciate that. I'm so mad I missed out on the wedding cake. Darcy said it was chocolate inside, and I love chocolate."
Lori shrugged. "I didn't eat any myself. Josh and I left right after the ambulance took you to the hospital."
A frown appeared between Melissa's blue eyes. "Oh, I hope I didn't ruin the reception. I made Wyatt call right away to let everyone know that I was going to be fine."
"I heard the reception went on as planned, a bit subdued, but the party perked back up after Wyatt called. So don't worry."
Melissa pinned Lori with her gaze. "But you did." Lori didn't know what to say to that. How could she logically explain to Melissa how scared she'd been without also telling her she was her sister? Now certainly wasn't the time for a revelation of those proportions. She swallowed. "Josh was ready to leave, too."
"That's right." Melissa frowned again. "I remember he was acting kind of … odd before I got sick."
"I thought maybe he didn't feel well too, but he says not." Lori thought back, trying to get a bead on Josh's mood of the day before.
"But for the most part you seemed to be having fun at the wedding, right?"
Lori nodded. "A lot of fun." Now that she saw for herself that Melissa was all right, yesterday's sense of well-being resurged inside her. "Everyone has been so kind to me."
"We like you," Melissa said. "I like you."
Lori stilled. "Thank you." She slid her gaze off Melissa's face and trained it on the dark hearts of the pansies, afraid of giving too much away. But her mood lightened even more. Thank God she'd come to Whitehorn! Thank God she'd met Melissa!
The door suddenly swung open. His face a mask of cold determination, Wyatt stalked in, followed by another man who was wearing a white coat. His hospital badge read "Dr. Noah Martin."
Lori's heart jumped. "What's the matter?" Without thinking, she grabbed Melissa's hand. Her sister's fingers were cold, and Lori squeezed them reassuringly, despite the sick fear growing inside her stomach.
Wyatt sat on the mattress on the other side of Melissa. Though his expression was grim, he brushed back the hair on her forehead with a tender touch. "Melissa, Noah got the test results back."
Melissa's gaze moved to the doctor. "What is it?" He cleared his throat. "You're going to be fine, Melissa, just as I said last night. Still, this is a hell of a thing to have to tell someone."
Lori's stomach clenched. "What is it?" She didn't even realize she'd spoken until Wyatt shot her a considering look.
"Go ahead, Noah," Melissa said.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat. "You were poisoned, Melissa. Probably with something you ate or drank at the wedding."
* * *
Chapter 11
« ^ »
Lori drove straight from the hospital to the gym. After grabbing her bag from the trunk of her car, she hurried inside. The zone, she thought. She needed to get away from all that was pressing on her mind and get into the zone.
The high-school boy at the desk smiled at her as he always did, holding on to her membership card as he copied her number into the ledger book. "You'd think we'd keep track of this on a computer," he said, shaking his head. "I need to talk to my boss about that."
Boss. The word made Lori think of Josh, and she swallowed, wanting to baish him from her mind as well. When he'd taken her home from the wedding last night, he'd asked about her plans for the next day. She'd hemmed and hawed, purposely not telling him about her inner vow to check in on Melissa. Purposely not giving him an opportunity to suggest they visit the hospital – or do anything else – together.
The boy returned her card, and Lori gave him a brief smile before moving toward the women's locker room to change into her workout clothes. But there wasn't any peace to be found there. As she turned the corner to a bank of lockers, her gaze met another's one of the young women who had attended Darcy's bridal shower. Lori had exchanged pleasantries with her at the wedding and reception the day before, too.
"Have you heard anything?" the other woman asked immediately. She was dressed in street clothes and she zipped up her bag as if she'd already completed her workout.
Lori hesitated. "Heard anything about what?"
"Who," the woman corrected. "Melissa." She slung the handle of her bag over her shoulder. "She's a special friend of yours, isn't she?"
"Yes. I – I guess she is."
"They announced at the reception that they'd stabilized her, of course, but I wondered if you had an update on how she's feeling."
"I just came from the hospital." In the face of such sincere concern, Lori half smiled. "She says she's tired, but on the mend. She even mentioned chocolate."
The other woman's face relaxed into a smile. "Oh. That's all right then. Talking about chocolate means she's definitely feeling better. Thanks." She walked toward the locker-room door, then paused before exiting. "Maybe we can work out together some time," she said, looking over her shoulder. "I run too."
"Oh. Yes. Sure." Lori replied, surprised by the friendly yet unexpected offer.
The woman smiled again and was gone, leaving Lori staring after her. Whitehorn had done it again – floored her with its small-town camaraderie and easygoing kindliness.
It frightened her too, though.
She stripped quickly and hastened into her sweat-shorts, T-shirt and running shoes. Just another few minutes, a few stretches, and she could seek out the zone. Seek out respite from thoughts of Melissa, Josh and even the cordial young woman who had just put out the first feelers of friendship.
Lori closed her eyes, suddenly dismayed by the idea that she wanted to run away from the very things she'd come to Whitehorn to find.
But she wasn't sure it was safe to look for those things here anymore.
With the gray track beneath her feet. Lori took off running after only an abbreviated version of her usual stretching routine. The mural-painted walls blurred, their colors flowing together as they always did, but Lori's mind didn't blur with them.
Instead, as clear as glass, she saw Melissa's pale face. Josh's rugged features, etched with concern. The tentative smile of the woman in the locker room.
What if David found Lori here in Whitehorn and hurt them?
Though there didn't seem to be any possible correlation between Melissa's poisoning and Lori's "gone west" ex-husband, that didn't stop the idea of him harming Melissa from rearing its terrifying head. In the logical, sensible part of her brain, she knew
that David wasn't responsible. But as sick as it sounded, she wouldn't put such an action past him.
Though it shamed her to think that she'd been married to a man she could have such despicable suspicions about, her shame had never stopped David's anger. What if he decided to direct his animosity at people she cared about, instead of at Lori herself?
Her heart chilled. Until she knew for sure where David was, she needed to be careful. Not for herself, but for Melissa and Josh. If her ex-husband did arrive in town, she wasn't going to let him guess that anyone cared about her.
Or that she cared for anyone.
* * *
By Monday afternoon, Josh was ready to tear something apart with his bare hands. Lori had appeared in the office this morning, her mood subdued. With her hair pulled back in a severe braid and wearing black pants and a black blouse buttoned up to the throat, it was obvious she'd retreated inside herself again. It was as if the past weeks had never happened.
It was as if they'd never laughed together.
Loved together.
That maddening, peachy scent of hers swirling around his head, he stared at a set of blueprints spread across his desk. "Lori!" he barked out.
Her eyebrows arched in mild surprise, she appeared in his doorway. "Yes? Did you want something?"
He didn't want anything but to see her, touch her, talk with her. "You never told me how the rest of your weekend was."
She'd resisted every attempt he'd made at conversation from the moment she'd arrived in the office. When he'd called her last night, she'd been polite, but distant then too.
"The rest of my weekend was fine."
He ground his back teeth. "You felt okay? I wondered if Melissa was just the first of a Whitehorn flu epidemic, and you two are pretty tight."
Lori hesitated. "I… No, I don't think I'm catching the flu."
"Well, I had a fine Sunday too." Though she didn't seem the least bit interested in it. "I came into the office and worked." Only because he couldn't think of anything else to do, other than mooning on Lori's doorstep, which he was pretty certain – especially now – she wouldn't have welcomed.
"Um, well, that's nice," Lori said, though the expression on her face added nothing to the banality.
Frustrated, Josh grabbed up a pencil. "Is there something wrong?"
She blinked. "Not at all."
The pencil snapped in two. "I'm going out to check on the progress at the Hip Hop site." He surged to his feet.
"All right."
Though the words were innocuous, for the first time that day Josh detected a flicker of feeling on Lori's face. And the feeling, damn it all, was relief. As he came around his desk, she instantly turned and moved off to put distance between them.
"Lori," he said softly.
Her back to him, she halted. "What?"
"You're running away from me."
"I'm not." But she said it too quickly.
Josh inhaled a calming breath. "Okay. Fine. Whatever you say." Her shoulders appeared to relax, and the gesture ticked him off all over again. He made a quick calculation, then slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I need you at the Hip Hop," he said.
She swung around. "Huh?"
He wasn't going to let her off so easily. "Yeah. I need you to … to take some notes."
Her eyebrows slammed together. "You what?"
"I need you to take some notes." He said it reasonably, as if he didn't have pencils and paper. As if he couldn't take his own notes, thank you very much.
Her mouth opened, then she closed it, apparently deciding against arguing with him. "I'll get my purse."
He smiled. "Perfect." If it took him the rest of the day in her company, he was going to figure out what was going on inside her beautiful, stubborn head.
He didn't have much luck on the car ride to the Hip Hop. Though he threw out a few generic comments, she let them slide past her with little more than a ladylike grunt or two.
She saved her animation, her smiles for Wyatt North. When they ran in to the other man as they stepped into the newly framed building, Lori didn't hesitate to press him for the latest on Melissa's condition. Josh was interested himself. He still couldn't believe what Lori had told him about Melissa – that she'd been poisoned.
At the same moment, new husband and Whitehorn detective Mark Kincaid strode up. "Just who I've been looking for," he said to Wyatt. "I dropped by the hospital, but Melissa told me I'd find you here."
"So it's really true?" Josh asked Wyatt, looking over at Mark for confirmation too. "Someone intentionally tried to harm Melissa?"
"It's true." The determined expression on Mark's face made Josh remember that the other man had spent eight years on the New York City police force before returning to Whitehorn. "And I wish to God I could guarantee I'll find out who is behind the poisoning and the fire before Darcy and I leave on our honeymoon."
Wyatt didn't look any less determined. "Whether you find out who's behind it right away or not, I can guarantee nothing else – no one else – is going to hurt Melissa."
Josh shook his head. "I still don't understand. Poisoned? I just can't wrap my mind around that."
"It sounds crazy, doesn't it?" Mark answered. "But Noah Martin ran the tests twice. And because the only person affected at the wedding was Melissa, well, it comes way too soon after the arson for my peace of mind. I think someone has it in for her."
Lori, her face pale, made an anxious noise. Josh grabbed her hand. When she tried to pull away, he ignored her, warming her cold fingers between his. Then, through the open spaces in the wall studs, he caught sight of an odd couple picking their way through the Hip Hop parking lot.
He nodded in their direction, indicating Homer Gilmore and Connie Adams. Homer, a parka over his striped pajamas and ratty bathrobe, appeared to be mumbling to himself. In a wool coat and electric-blue beret, Connie Adams was close to his side. "Didn't someone mention Homer was complaining about the Hip Hop food?" Josh asked.
Wyatt and Mark exchanged a glance, and just then Connie looked up, catching sight of the group. Her face brightened and she linked her arm through Homer's to change his direction and tow him toward the framed entrance to the restaurant.
As she stepped over the threshold, she smiled brilliantly at Wyatt. "Just the man I wanted to see!" she called out gaily.
Wyatt's eyebrows rose, but Mark murmured to him quickly. "Distract her and give me a couple of minutes alone with Homer."
Wyatt sent Mark a pained look, but he moved obediently forward to meet Connie while the detective gave Homer a hearty hail and beckoned him closer. Stroking his long gray beard with nervous fingers, Homer inspected Mark out of the corner of his eyes and scuttled forward. "What do you want, Mr. Police?" Homer asked, his voice suspicious.
"Just wanted to know how you're doing, Homer," Mark said genially. "And what you've seen happening around town lately."
Homer stroked his hand over his beard again. He darted a look at Josh, then Lori. His hand slowed and his eyes narrowed. "Heard you were in the hospital," he said to her.
In Josh's hand, Lori's fingers jerked. "Me?"
"Lori?" Josh said, his gut knotting at the thought. "Not Lori," Homer said. "Melissa. The one who makes that gawd-dang-awful stuff she calls hash."
"This is Lori," Mark said. "Not Melissa. But speaking of Melissa, Homer—"
"She looks like her," the old man grumbled, darting another glance at Lori. "Maybe somebody wanted to put her in the hospital and made a mistake," he went on. "Poison, arson," he mumbled under his breath.
A trickle, like icy water, ran down Josh's spine. "For God's sake, Homer—"
"You stop bothering him!" Connie's strident voice called out, and she broke away from her conversation with Wyatt to hurry over to her charge. "He's an old man. He doesn't know anything about anything." She glared at Josh, then Mark. "Let's go, Homer."
Within seconds, she'd whisked herself and the shuffling old man out of the restaurant. They headed across the st
reet, Homer looking over his shoulder as if he was afraid of being followed.
Staring after them, Mark sighed. "I can't figure out if he's just an old coot or a crafty old coot."
Wyatt strolled up, shaking his head. "I can tell you that Connie is one for the record books anyway."
Josh looked over at his friend. "Why's that?"
"She just asked me out to dinner. My wife is in the hospital, the victim of poisoning, and I think that woman just propositioned me. Or was planning to, if I'd accepted her invitation."
The notion that Wyatt would consider for even one second Connie over his beloved wife Melissa made Josh smile. He looked down to share his amusement with Lori. Who didn't look amused at all. Instead, she appeared even more withdrawn, and the only color in her face was her sapphire eyes.
As the other two men launched into a discussion of possible motives for the arson and poisoning, Josh drew Lori away. "Are you all right?" He thought of crazy old Homer and what he'd said. "I hope you're not worried someone was really trying to poison you." He lowered his voice. "It's not your ex-husband, is it? You haven't seen or heard from him, have you?"
Lori shook her head. "No, I…" She swallowed. "But…" With a quick movement she slid her hand from Josh's grasp and turned away from him. "It's just that I don't know what he's capable of," she said, her voice a harsh whisper.
Josh stared at her stiff shoulders, her bent head, the tension evident in her spine. "What's the matter, Lori?"
"The dark side always turns up," she whispered. "There was the wedding and then the poisoning. I think I'm free of him, and then … what if this time he decides to hurt someone other than me?"
He froze. "My God," he said. "You … you…" He couldn't finish the thought in words, but it sounded in his head all the same. She thought her ex-husband might come to Whitehorn and hurt someone. Not Lori, this time. But someone else. No wonder she was trying to distance herself again. It was just another way to protect herself.
"Oh, honey." His chest ached and he lifted his hand, then dropped it to his side. They were back to square one, he realized.
IN LOVE WITH HER BOSS Page 13
