Along Came a Husband. Helen Brenna
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his sweatshirt. She pulled the fabric aside. A large padded bandage taped to his skin was soaked through with more blood. She eased off the bandage.
Oh, God. A bullet wound. Who would want to kill a man already dead to the world?
Although the shot appeared to have gone clear through Jonas’s side, the wound was still bleeding. Grabbing a clean towel, Missy pressed it against the gaping holes, both front and back, but blood continued to flow. No doctors. What had he gotten himself into this time? Didn’t matter. She couldn’t do this on her own. The only problem was that gossip traveled on a little island the size of Mirabelle like rain down a gutter, but if she didn’t act quickly—
Sarah? Too complicated.
Ron and Jan? Her neighbors, the Setterbergs, had become more like a mother and father since she’d moved to Mirabelle. They’d drop everything to help, but how could she explain Jonas? No. She couldn’t handle disillusioning them. Not them.
Sean. He’d keep this quiet.
Grabbing the phone, she dialed his number only to hear a recorded message. “You’ve reached Dr. Griffin…”
At the end of the familiar greeting, she said, “Sean, it’s Missy—”
The phone line crackled. “Missy?” He was obviously screening his calls. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, but I need your help. For someone at my house. Can you come right away?”
Sean lived only a few blocks down the street in a home very similar to Missy’s. “What’s the condition? I need to know what supplies to bring.”
She hesitated. “A gunshot wound.”
There was a long pause on the line. “What—”
“Please. He needs you right away.”
“He? Missy—”
“I’ll explain when you get here. Hurry.”
She hung up, knelt back down and applied pressure to Jonas’s wound. As she stared at his face, memories enveloped her. The helicopter wreckage, the charred black remains of a body, the wake, the funeral. It hadn’t been a dream. It had been real. She’d relived every god-awful minute of it for years afterward. Jonas was supposed to be dead. Yet here he was on the floor, hurt but very much alive. It didn’t make sense.
“How could you do this to me?” she whispered, emotion clogging her throat.
A brisk knock sounded on her front door. She peered through the curtain to find Sean standing on her steps, yanked open her door and ushered him inside.
Sean took one look at Jonas and, biting back the questions, flung off his raincoat and tossed it over a nearby chair. “Let’s get him up somewhere, so I can work.” A few moments later, after half carrying, half dragging Jonas’s heavy body toward the back of her house, they had him lying atop her bed. “Let’s get these wet clothes off him.”
While Sean held up Jonas’s limp frame, she tugged off his sweatshirt and shirt. “Get his pants off, too,” Sean ordered as he went about cleaning the wound. “We need to get him warm.”
Missy went to the waistband of Jonas’s jeans and hesitated as her fingers touched the line of black hair trailing down his bare abdomen. Heat spread through her as she glanced at Jonas’s toned upper body. He’d been lifting again, heavily, and his skin seemed darker than normal, as if he’d been in the sun.
“Missy!” Sean said, snapping her out of her appraisal. “We don’t have any time to waste. This man’s in shock. Get him warm. Quick.”
She grabbed the waistband of Jonas’s jeans and worked to undo the button, draw down the zipper and drag the damp fabric off his too-cool skin. Thank heavens his boxers remained relatively in place.
“Get every bit of wet fabric off him,” Sean said. “Or it’ll drain his heat.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.” Sean was pulling supplies out of his bag. “Now.”
Missy did her best to avert her gaze as she tugged at Jonas’s boxers. The moment she cleared his ankles, she drew a heavy quilt over his lower body, but the image of his nakedness was already branded in her mind. No wonder no man had been able to measure up, in more ways than one, all these years.
Dammit. Stop it. He ruined your life once. Do not let him ruin it again.
Resolutely, she glanced at Sean. “What else can I do to help?”
A half hour later, Missy having assisted where needed, Sean had cleaned and stitched the entrance and exit wounds as well as two other cuts and had finally stopped the bleeding. While he’d been busy, they’d barely spoken other than requests for this and that.
He was wrapping Jonas’s chest, when he said, “This guy’s lucky the bullet went straight through his side, but he’s got a broken rib. Various other cuts and contusions.” He pointed at the slices on the side of his face, as if Jonas had been punched by a man wearing a ring, and the bruising on his arms and abdomen. “Someone really worked him over, but from the old scars it looks like he’s used to it.”
Missy well remembered the other bullet wound on Jonas’s shoulder, but the three-inch scar on his right arm was something new.
“He’ll need to be on antibiotics,” Sean went on. “And he’ll need this bandage changed at least—”
Jonas’s hand shot out and grabbed Sean’s wrist. His eyes fluttered open and he glared at Sean. “Who are you?”
“Jonas!” Missy hissed. “Let him go!”
Sean stared back at Jonas. “That’s a damned strong grip for a half-dead man.”
“Answer my question or lose a hand.”
Sean’s only sign of emotion was the slight flaring of his nostrils. Missy had never seen the calm, unflappable doctor this angry. She placed her hand on Jonas’s. “Let him go right now, Jonas, or so help me God I will kick you out of my house!”
Without glancing at her, Jonas loosened his hold on Sean’s wrist.
Sean slowly pulled away. “My name’s Sean Griffin. I’m Mirabelle’s only doctor.”
Jonas threw an accusatory glance in her direction.
“I considered letting you bleed to death.” She glared back at him. “But I wasn’t sure how to dispose of the body.”
Jonas turned back to Sean. “Tell anyone I’m here, and if I get the chance…I’ll kill you.”
“You hurt her—” Sean tilted his head toward Missy “—and I’ll kill you.”
Jonas’s gaze flashed at Missy as he was assessing the connection between her and Sean. His eyes held the barest hint of betrayal before he quickly looked away. “Understood.” Clearly in a lot of pain, he lowered his eyelids and seemed to focus on his breathing.
“Here.” Sean poured a couple pills out of a bottle, reading Jonas better than most. “This’ll help with the pain. Let you sleep.”
“Don’t need it,” Jonas growled.
Sean sighed. “Fine.” He set the medication on the bedside table.
Missy crossed her arms and frowned at Jonas. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“It’ll have to wait until morning.”
“I want answers now.”
He cocked his head toward Sean. “Then he needs to leave.”
Sean shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere until I know Missy’s safe. How do I know whoever shot you won’t be showing up on her doorstep in the middle of the night?”
“Because I know how to cover my tracks.