Her Holiday Secret. Jennifer Greene
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probably want to know something like this had happened to you—?”
“She would, but I just don’t want to upset her.” Her sister was fragile right now, but trying to explain Joanna’s circumstances was none of the stranger’s business and just took too much energy to even try. Maggie left it.
“Well, maybe there’s someone else? Husband, boyfriend—?” There was just a spark of the devil in his eyes again, making Maggie feel like the question implied more than a fill-in-the-blank on his police form.
“No. Friends, of course...but it’s the middle of the night. I can’t see waking someone up and scaring them for no reason. And I’ll call my sister in the morning.” She swallowed hard. “As far as the accident, I keep trying to remember what happened, but it just won’t come. I have this terrible feeling that I was to blame. The nurse—Gert—didn’t think so, but I don’t know if she was telling me the truth. Oh, God. Please tell me there wasn’t a child involved—”
“Hey, take it easy there.” Andy leaned forward, his notebook form forgotten. “A drunk driver swerved in your lane. Hit you head-on. There was no way you could have avoided him.”
“You’re sure?”
“I didn’t actually see it, didn’t get there until about ten minutes after it happened. But it was right on Main Street, and four witnesses saw the accident. They all gave me the same story, and the skid marks, condition of the cars—all the evidence—pointed in the same direction. In fact, my coming in here at all was just policy, to complete the report. But there was no doubt about how the accident occurred. You were not responsible.”
Maggie searched his face. People fibbed for so many reasons—some of them well-meaning, like the doc and nurse who could have shaded the truth to reassure her. Yet she saw the character lines etched on his brow, the way Andy met her gaze like an unflinching straight shooter. She just sensed a man who’d never soft-soap the truth. And that was great. She believed him. Except that if she hadn’t caused the accident, she felt even more confused why that anxious, guilty feeling was still haunting her conscience. “The man who smashed into me, the drunk driver—is he all right?”
“He won’t be, after I get finished slapping charges on him and he sees Judge Farley,” Andy said dryly. “But as far as injuries—he’s less beat-up than you are. And you haven’t asked, but there’s no way to pretty up the news about your car. I’m afraid it’s totalled. Not that I have a mechanic’s judgment, but the front end was crushed like an accordion—when I first saw it, I was afraid we weren’t getting you out in one piece.”
“I don’t care about the stupid car.” She backpedalled swiftly. “Well, of course I care. I’d rather eat clams than go car shopping, and I’m allergic to clams. But the car’s insured. And it just doesn’t matter, not compared to somebody being seriously injured. Just tell me one more time, okay? That no one else was hurt?”
“You were not responsible. And no one else was hurt.” When she still studied his face suspiciously, he scratched his chin. “Still having a hard time believing it, huh? Didn’t anyone ever tell you it was okay to trust the law?”
Well, he made her smile. “You think I should trust a guy I don’t know from Adam?”
“Hell, no. Just me. Honest to Pete, I’m trustworthy as a Boy Scout.”
“Uh-huh. Well, the truth is, sheriff...” Maggie hesitated. “Did I hear that ‘sheriff’ right? Or was it supposed to be lieutenant or deputy? Not that I haven’t had tons and tons of run-ins with the law, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to call you—”
“Andy will do fine.”
She saw the dance of humor in his eyes—he didn’t seem too worried by her vast claims of previous run-ins with the law. And she told herself there was no reason not to skip the formalities and move to first names...his job pinned him as a good guy, and his face was darn near an atlas of integrity lines. Even without knowing him, Maggie instinctively sensed he was hard-core honest. It was just that other factor.
The man-woman thing. Any man who could arouse a rapscallion set of female hormones in a battered woman defined dangerous to Maggie. Interestingly dangerous. Maybe darn-near fascinatingly dangerous—especially since she hadn’t felt that tug for a guy in a blue moon. But she was all too aware that her judgment was temporarily and annoyingly goofy. To assume he meant something by that eye connection and those slow, lazy smiles seemed foolish.
Cripes, she was just trying to sit up and a dozen aches screamed distractingly at her, and her head pounded like hammers at a carpenters’ convention. Embarrassing her no end, her hands were even shaky. “Well, what I started to stay... Andy,... is that I bumped a fender when I was sixteen, but that’s the closest I’ve ever been to a real accident until tonight. This not being able to remember is driving me crazy. I just want to go home. I’m positive it’d all come back if I were just home, around my own stuff...”
He seemed to sense where she was leading, because he shook his head. “The way I heard it, Ms. Fletcher, there isn’t a chance in hell they’re letting you out before tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah, I already tried arguing with them. But maybe if you’d consider using the power of the law on my side?”
“I’m real willing to use the power of the law. On their side. Trust me, Gert’ll watch over you better than a mom. I’m telling you, she’s ruthless. I’ve run across her before—with my job, you get some bumps and bruises now and then. She’ll drive you stark crazy with all the fussing.”
“But that’s exactly the problem. I hate people fussing over me.”
His mouth kicked in another grin. “Yeah, you kind of gave me that impression. Feeling helpless not exactly your favorite thing?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I’ll bet you can. But not tonight I’m pretty sure you won’t die from being spoiled for one night, will you?”
“Yes.”
Another grin—which definitely wasn’t every man’s response when Maggie got touchy on the subject of self-reliance. “I can’t figure out how come I haven’t met you before. In a small town like White Branch, I usually run into everyone sooner or later.”
“Well, I moved here about four years ago, but I don’t usually run around robbing banks or causing trouble—except in my free time, of course. And car accidents just haven’t been my thing. Until tonight, anyway. Darn it.” She lifted her hand to the incessantly throbbing bump on her head. “This not being able to remember is just so stupid. I’m not the type to get shook up in a crisis. The opposite is true. I do rescue work, for Pete’s sake. But the last twenty-four hours are just a total blank in my mind, and I can’t seem to make a single detail come back.”
“Maybe it’ll all come to you after a good night’s sleep.”
“Maybe it’d come to me if I were just home.”
The curly-haired nurse popped her head in the doorway. “Andy! You low-down skunk. I told you ten minutes, max, and you’re still in here!”
“I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” Andy grabbed his notebook and battered Stetson from the bedside table and lurched to his feet. He winked at Maggie before turning around. “Gert—just so you know, she was trying to talk me into springing her out of here.”
Maggie’s jaw dropped at his betrayal—for all the good it did. Gert turned on her faster than a ruffled hen. “Over my dead body. You don’t belong anywhere but right here, honey. A concussion is nothing to fool around with...” The nurse continued nonstop with impressive plans involving bedpans and ice chips and needles.
Maggie met Andy’s eyes from around Gert’s side and mouthed, “If we ever meet again, you’re dead meat.”
Andy murmured unrepentantly, “You go, Gert.” But he hesitated right when he reached