The Marriage Profile

by Metsy Hingle

  What little peace he’d been able to capture outdoors dissolved in an instant. Justin tensed, and though he hated to admit it, his heart ached at just the sight of her. Even though he told himself he should go inside, that Ricky would probably be joining her at any moment, he remained where he was.

  As she began walking toward the center of the terrace, Justin thought she had spotted him and braced himself not to be moved by anything else she might say. But instead of continuing toward him, she veered to the right and stopped to stand before the railing that overlooked the gardens, where he had stood only moments earlier. A summer wind whistled across the terrace, making a mournful sound and ruffling the skirt of the dress she wore. If she noticed, she gave no indication; she simply leaned on the rail and stared out across the grounds.

  Moonlight combined with the soft lighting on the terrace to cast a shimmering glow on her hair. The same hair that he had curled his fingers into last night when they’d made love. Her bare arms and shoulders looked even softer, creamier in the diminished light, he thought. He couldn’t see her face, but there was a weariness in her stance, a slight slump to her shoulders that tugged at something inside him.

  Realizing what he was doing, Justin silently cursed himself. He needed to get out of here, as far away from Angela as he could. He reached for the handle on the door, intent on leaving, when something, some instinct or lawman’s sixth sense, kicked in, and he became aware that the night had gone silent. No owl hooted in search of a mate any longer. No squirrels chattered. No frogs from the distant ponds barked. He swung his gaze back in Angela’s direction, panned the terrace.

  And that was when he saw it. A movement in the darkness near one of the windows a few yards away and the shadow of an arm pointing a gun. “Angela, look out!” he shouted, and charged toward the arm pointing the gun.

  He heard the muffled pop. Heard Angela’s scream. Felt the burst of fire in his shoulder, followed by the sound of his own grunt as he hit the ground. The gunman had used a damned silencer, he thought as the world suddenly began to move in slow motion.

  “Justin! Oh, my God, Justin!”

  He could have sworn he heard Angela screaming at him, could have sworn he saw tears streaming down her face, felt her soft fingers holding his head in her hands and yelling for someone to help her. And just before the world went black, he could have sworn he heard Angela’s voice pleading, “Justin? Justin, can you hear me? Please, Justin, open your eyes.”

  “Please, Justin, open your eyes,” Angela pleaded, and he fought his way up through the shroud of darkness toward her voice.

  Opening his eyes, he saw Angela’s pale face. Then everything came back to him in a rush. The gunman aiming at her. The sound of the muffled shot. “Are you all right?” he demanded, and attempted to sit up, only to groan as white-hot pain seared his shoulder.

  “Take it easy,” Michael O’Day told him, and held him in place on the stone terrace with what Justin considered a surprisingly strong hand for a man who spent his days in a hospital operating room. The heart surgeon flashed him what Susan had termed the O’Day heartbreaker smile that had caused his ballerina sister to fall in love with the guy. “There’s an ambulance on its way to take you to the hospital. Try to be still while I listen to your heart.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance. And I’m not going to any hospital,” Justin argued.

  “You do, and you are if you want to get that bullet out of your shoulder,” Michael told him as he removed the stethoscope tips from his ears.

  Bullet?

  Only then did Justin look at his shoulder and see the blood that had soaked his shirt and now covered the shawl that Angela had been carrying.

  “Let me through. Let me through to my son,” Kate Wainwright cried out as she pushed her way through the circle of cops and people around him. “Oh, my God, Justin,” she said as she knelt down beside him.

  “I’m okay, Mother.”

  “Sheriff, we need to get a statement,” his deputy, Hank, cut in. “Did you see who shot you?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Justin began.

  “Can’t you see he’s hurt?” Kate Wainwright demanded and the deputy mumbled an apology.

  Ignoring Justin, she turned to Michael. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “He should be his good old surly self in no time at all—once we get him to agree to go to the hospital and have that bullet removed.”

  “Of course he’s going to the hospital,” Kate informed them. “Archy, go see what’s keeping the ambulance.”

  “Thanks a lot, O’Day.”

  “You’re welcome, Sheriff,” he told Justin as the ambulance siren blared and the EMTs came rushing through with a stretcher.

  “I can walk,” Justin argued.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Kate informed him.

  Justin glared at the grinning O’Day as he allowed himself to be loaded onto the stretcher.

  “You want to ride in the ambulance with him, Kate?” Michael asked.

  “Please, Mrs. Wainwright,” Angela cut in. “Would it be okay if I went in the ambulance with him?”

  His mother’s eyes widened at the request. She hesitated a moment, looked over at him with that same worried look clouding her eyes that he’d seen often when he was growing up. He recognized that look now for what it was—the concern of a mother for her child. But when she shifted her gaze back to Angela, her expression softened and she said, “Of course, you go ahead. Archy and I will meet you at the hospital.”

  For the last twelve of her thirty-two years she’d either been a cop or worked in law enforcement as a profiler. In that time she had seen her share of blood. While she would never become immune to the horrors of violence and its aftermath, she would never have been able to survive her chosen profession without developing a tolerance for bloodshed. Yet at the sight of Justin being shot, watching him go down and blood pooling around him, she’d nearly fallen apart. Had it not been for Justin’s sister Susan calming her down and assuring her that Dr. O’Day would be able to take care of Justin, she had no doubt that she would have become hysterical. She still wasn’t sure if her statement to Justin’s deputy had even made sense. She knew she’d been of little help since she hadn’t seen anything but Justin going down. And the blood. She shivered at the memory.

  Sitting in the waiting room of the hospital now with her former in-laws and several of Justin’s siblings and friends, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what they thought of her plea to accompany Justin in the ambulance. And they probably were wondering why on earth she was even there, she admitted.

  “Here, you look like you could use this.”

  Angela looked up at the slender blonde offering her the cup of coffee. “Thank you,” she said, and tried to put a name with the face.

  Apparently recognizing her confusion, the woman smiled at her and said, “I’m Jenny. Hawk’s wife.”

  “Hello, I’m Angela Mason, Justin’s…Justin and I used to be married.”

  “I know. Hawk told me,” Jenny said. She motioned to the chair next to Angela. “May I?”

  “Oh, yes. Please.”

  “I’m afraid your lovely dress is probably ruined,” Jenny told her. “Blood is a tough one to get out, but I have this spot remover that’s worked well on fabric stains in a few of the places I’ve done interior design work for. If you’d like to try it, I’d be happy to send you some.”

  Angela looked down at her clothes, saw the bloodstains on her dress. Justin’s blood, she thought, and shivered as she recalled hearing him shout to her, then turning and seeing him get hit, his body falling to the ground and blood spilling from his shoulder.

  “Try not to worry,” Jenny told her, giving her arm a motherly pat. “He’s going to be fine. Hawk tells me that Justin’s much too stubborn to let a bullet keep him down for long.”

  Angela smiled at that. “Yes, he is stubborn,” she murmured, unable to keep the wobble from her voice.

  The doors from the hospital operating
room swung open and Michael O’Day walked out. Angela stood at once. She was barely aware of Jenny taking her coffee cup from her fingers, putting it aside and then Jenny taking her hand and holding it in a show of support.

  “How is he, Michael?” Kate Wainwright asked as she stood beside Archy, his arm around her shoulders.

  “He’s fine. No serious damage,” the good-looking surgeon told her. “His upper arm is going to be sore for a few days and he’ll need to wear a sling for a while, which he isn’t too happy about, I might add. But that’s really just to keep him from overusing the arm and to give the wound a chance to heal.”

  “Thank God,” Kate said, and buried her face in Archy’s shoulder.

  “Doctor, could I see him?” Angela asked, and realized almost at once that as Justin’s ex-wife her need to see him could in no way usurp his family’s need. “I’m sorry,” she told Justin’s parents. “Of course, you’ll want to see him first.”

  “It’s all right,” Archy told her. “Somehow I suspect Justin would much rather see your pretty face than mine. What do you say, Kate? Is it okay with you if Angela sees the boy first?”

  Kate swiped the tears from her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. “Archy’s right. You go ahead, dear. Now that I know my baby’s going to be okay, I don’t mind waiting.”

  “Your baby?” Michael O’Day repeated, his voice filled with humor. “You should have heard the colorful language that baby of yours was using when I was working on his shoulder.”

  But Angela didn’t wait around to hear Kate’s reply because she hurried through the doors, eager to see for herself that Justin was all right. Not sure what to expect after the crazed ride in the ambulance during which he’d drifted in and out of consciousness, Angela was relieved to see him sitting up in the hospital bed and glaring at the nurse who’d stuck a thermometer in his mouth and was taking his blood pressure.

  “Much better,” the sturdy-looking nurse said as she removed the blood-pressure cuff from his arm and took the thermometer from his mouth.

  “I want my clothes,” Justin informed the nurse, who didn’t even look up from the chart on which she was writing. “Did you hear me? I want my clothes so I can get out of here.”

  “I heard you, Sheriff. And I’ll tell you what I told you the last time—I’ll let the doctor know.”

  “You tell O’Day I’m leaving—with or without my pants.”

  Unfazed, the nurse walked away from him, pausing only long enough to tell Angela, “He’s supposed to rest quietly. If he gives you any trouble, ring for me.”

  “Angela,” Justin said upon spying her standing there. “Good thing you’re here. Come over here and help unhook me from this stuff,” he told her, motioning to the IV bag and monitor hooked to him.

  “I don’t think you should do that,” she told him as he struggled to get up.

  He pinned her with serious green eyes—eyes that were all cop. “Did they catch the shooter?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Ricky had told her when he’d called her at the hospital that a search had been made, but with the huge crowd whoever had shot Justin had been able to get away.

  “Then I need to get out of here so I can find him,” he said, and resumed his efforts to untangle the sheets from around his legs.

  “Your deputies are looking for him and Luke Callaghan called in some security people he works with to help.”

  When the IV line got in the way of his efforts to free himself from the sheets, Justin swore. He let out a breath. “Listen, I am not dead. I am not dying. I have what amounts to little more than a scratch on my shoulder. I’m fine. So will you come over here and give me a hand with these sheets?”

  Angela went to him, assisted him with the sheets. And as she straightened and came to eye level with him, she couldn’t help noticing the bandage that covered his shoulder—and the dark red stain beneath the thick gauze. He was too busy studying the IV lock in his hand to notice her scrutiny. Despite his attempt to downplay his condition, there was a gray cast beneath his sun-bronzed skin, and shadows stood out like faint bruises beneath his eyes. “Justin, please. You’ve been shot, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. What you need to do is rest.”

  “What I need to do is find my clothes so I can get out of here. Check that closet over there for me, will you, while I see if I can get this thing off?”

  She found his suit hanging there. Evidently his blood-soaked shirt had been cut off of his body in order to remove the bullet. The knowledge of how close he’d come to being killed caused her stomach to pitch.

  “You find them?”

  Swallowing back the bile that had risen in her throat, she grabbed the pants, jacket and boots. “I found them.”

  He’d managed to remove the IV needle from the shunt in his hand and stood beside the bed clutching a hospital gown below his waist and staring down at the colored sensor leads on his chest. “Am I supposed to just rip these things off?”

  “I think so.” She suspected it was the prospect of him ripping out some chest hairs that made him hesitate. He made a grunting sound and tore the sensors off from his chest one by one.

  “Thanks,” he said when he took the pants from her. Still favoring his injured arm, he held the slacks out in front of him and looked up at her. “I may need a hand putting these on.”

  But even as she helped him, she argued, “Justin, you really shouldn’t be doing this. You’re in no condition to leave the hospital.”

  He zipped up the slacks and sat down on the bed. “I told you, I’m fine. You want to hand me my boots?”

  “You’re not fine. You were nearly killed. Why are you doing this?”

  He slid on one boot. “Because I need to find that shooter.”

  “Why does it have to be you? Why can’t you let someone else find him? Your deputies or Luke Callaghan’s people.”

  “Because they’re not the sheriff,” he informed her as he slid on the other boot and stood. “I am. And it’s my job.”

  “And what if it’s his job to kill you?” she demanded, remembering that terrible sense of dread she’d had earlier that evening and realizing how close Justin had come to being killed. Maybe he was lost to her and they would never be together again. But she didn’t want to even imagine a world without Justin somewhere in it. “Have you even stopped a minute to consider that? What if that gunman is out there somewhere?” she asked, pointing at the doors. “Suppose he’s just waiting for you to walk out of this hospital so he can finish the job he started?”

  Justin looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. And she supposed she couldn’t blame him. She knew she must sound like a hysterical female, but even after all that had happened already, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something worse was yet to come.

  “Angela, look at me.”

  She lifted her gaze, stared into his, expecting to find annoyance or maybe even a return of the coldness that had been there when he’d walked away from her earlier that evening at the country club. What she hadn’t expected to find was concern.

  “That bullet wasn’t meant for me. I’m not the one the gunman was after.”

  “But I don’t understand,” she said. She looked at his shoulder, then back up at him. “I saw what happened. I saw you get hit.”

  “Because I tried to stop him. Angela, it wasn’t me he intended to kill. I wasn’t his target. You were.”

  Ten

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Angela. You. You were the gunman’s target, not me,” Justin told her. His stomach constricted again, just as it had constricted each time he realized that had he gone inside the clubhouse instead of lingering when he’d seen her come out onto the terrace, Angela would be dead now.

  “Oh, my God. You were nearly killed because of me.”

  Her face, already pale, turned to the color of chalk. “Hey, you better sit down,” he said, and caught her by the arm even though the movement sent a twinge of pain shooting through his shoulder. For once the woman didn’t argue. She si
mply sank down onto the chair beside the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, and covered her face with her hands.

  The doors to the hospital room burst open and in walked O’Day. “It’s all right, we haven’t lost our patient,” he said to the Attila-the-Hun nurse who was hot on his heels. “It seems the sheriff simply decided to disconnect himself from the monitor without telling anyone. You can go back to your station.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” the nurse told him, but not before she’d tossed a glare in Justin’s direction.

  O’Day walked over to the machine, punched in some codes and all the lights went out. “You owe me, Wainwright,” he said as he turned to face him. “If it weren’t for me, she would have wrestled you down to the floor and hooked you back up to that monitor whether you wanted her to or not.”

  Justin didn’t doubt for a moment that it was true. “I’ll buy you a beer,” Justin offered.

  “Think again. I want a split of champagne. Cristal or Dom Pérignon will do nicely.”

  “Take this thing out of my hand and lend me a shirt to wear out of here, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

  After retrieving a wad of cotton and a bandage from the supply cupboard, O’Day took Justin’s hand and expertly removed the shunt. As he pressed a cotton ball over the puncture, he said, “I suppose I’d be wasting my time if I were to tell you that you really should consider spending the night here and letting the staff monitor you.”

  “You’re right. You’d be wasting your time,” Justin told him.

  O’Day finished off by applying the bandage. “Then I’ll tell you that that hole in your shoulder is going to need to be cleaned twice a day and watched closely for infection.”