She probably should’ve calmed down some more before she went to the door. How could she expect a doctor not to notice her nerves?
“I’m alright. It’s just… I had a run-in with the sheriff a few seconds ago.”
Lucas let her words sink in. Because Hamlet was Hamlet, it was inevitable that their breakfast at the coffeehouse would get back to Caity eventually. He’d been prepared for her reaction. It never occurred to him that he should probably warn Tessa what she was getting into by speaking to him in plain sight.
He closed his eyes, shook his head. That woman would be the death of him. Resigned, he asked, “She say something out of line?”
Tessa’s shrug was an answer in itself. “What was she doing here?”
“She’s working tirelessly on your husband’s case,” Lucas said, and it was the truth. Well, a truth. “She had some more follow-up on it for me.”
“She’s looking at me. She thinks I'm responsible. I know it.”
His hand was still on her shoulder. He gave her a reassuring squeeze. “You have nothing to worry about.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that he was wrong, then closed her jaw with a snap. No worries? Yeah, right. Jack was dead and his murderer was still at large.
Whatever their intentions, someone took the time to create a threatening note and leave it under her door.
The sheriff thought she was guilty.
The doctor’s ex wouldn't let him go.
And the formerly sweet deputy had left bruises on her skin.
Pulling on her sleeve, hiding the marks from Lucas, Tess wondered if she should warn him about Mason’s strange visit. She ultimately decided against it. She could handle him. She could handle the sheriff, too. So long as she held onto the fact that she didn’t strangle her husband, no one could accuse her of anything.
They would never to be able to prove otherwise for the simple fact that she didn’t do it.
“Look, let’s not talk about Caity. Let’s talk about you. What are you doing here?”
Left unsaid was how he had dropped her off outside of Ophelia less than six hours ago. What could she have to say to him that couldn’t have been said earlier? Especially now that Caity had caught on to the fact that was some sort of… relationship budding between the two of them, the doctor and the outsider.
First brunch, now Tessa was visiting him at his office. It was like waving a red flag before a bull. It was dangerous to antagonize the sheriff. Even Lucas had to admit that.
Tessa already believed Caitlin had it out for her. If she wasn’t careful, that might turn out to be truer than she expected.
“It’s been three days,” she said imploringly. “After last night… I just want to know what’s going on. When will I be able to leave? Is she any closer to finding out what happened to Jack? No one will tell me anything.”
Lucas didn’t blame her for using any method she could to get information. If he were in her shoes, he’d be doing the same thing. Still, he found it interesting that, rather than Deputy Walsh, she was coming to see him.
He tried not to sound too pleased as he noted, “So you thought you’d track me down here and I would?”
He would. He definitely would. There was something about Tessa Sullivan. Whether it was her beautiful face, her sweet outlook or the innocence he sensed deep within her that made him feel so protective toward her, he'd had the urge to look out for Tessa since the instant their eyes first locked. Caitlin never needed him to protect her, not really, and he found that it felt good to be so important to another person.
The jut of Tessa’s chin dared him to refuse her. “I thought— wait.” She spun around, took a step away from the building. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“I thought I heard a cat in the woods before,” she explained as she started down his driveway. She pointed at the trees. “The sheriff told me there aren’t any strays, but I know what I heard. That sounded different.”
Lucas started to go after her. “What did it sound like?”
“I don’t know. I thought I heard a click or something. Like maybe—”
At first, he thought it was a firework going off. A loud pop, the whizzing sound of the bullet streaking through the air, the slam when it struck the facade, chips of brick flying everywhere. But no one aimed fireworks at other people, and there wasn’t an impact if they did, more of a contained explosion. Lucas understood all of this in the split second after the shot rang out.
An instant later, he realized that someone in the woods had just fired a gun at them.
Like a deer caught in a hunter’s crosshairs, Tessa froze at the end of the driveway. She threw her hands up in the air, as if that would do something to ward off the gunshots.
Lucas was already moving. Before his brain fully grasped what the hell was going on, his arms were pumping, his legs flying as he ran to her, shouting, “Tessa, no!”
He grabbed her, tucking her under his chin as he wrapped his arms around her. He covered her entire body with his, making it impossible for her to be hit. The first shot was wild, striking the front of his office building. If the erratic shooter fired again, odds were that neither one of them would be struck. Lucas wasn’t a gambler. Zero odds were the best odds. He wouldn’t let her get hurt.
And that’s when the second shot went off.
Aim was better that time. The bullet came within centimeters of burying itself in Lucas’s upper arm. Heat flared across the skin where the bullet tagged him, followed by the warm rain of blood as it started to spill. He wasn’t shot, but he was definitely hit. Cursing under his breath, he tightened his hold on Tessa in case the gunman fired a third time.
Seconds turned to minutes without another pop. Lucas’s labored breathing filled the air, mingled with Tessa’s panicked mews. She clawed at his arms, trying desperately to escape the cage they made.
The tinny buzz in his ears cleared enough for him to begin to make out her words. She was talking to him, saying something. His arm stung like hell. It took everything he had to ignore the sudden excruciating pain and focus on Tessa instead.
“Let me go! Let go of me! You shouldn’t have shielded me. You’ve been hit, you moron!”
Not the thanks he’d been expecting, Lucas thought. Gingerly moving his sore arm, testing it, he kept her hidden in his embrace. “I know, but it’s better than you being shot. It was just a graze, I promise.”
“How do you know?” she demanded.
“Because I can feel it.” And it fucking hurt. “I won’t let you go until I’m sure there won’t be any more stray bullets coming at us.”
Tessa stomped on Lucas’s shoe. That didn’t hurt—she was barely more than a hundred pounds, his boots were reinforced, and, besides, the heat and pain radiating from his injured arm meant nothing less than a broken bone was going to distract him from it.
Still, the shock he felt at her attempt to disable him was enough for him to drop his arms in surprise. Taking advantage of his lapse, Tessa ducked out of his embrace.
“Where did you get hit? I want to make sure you’re okay.”
Leaving his bad arm hanging at his side, Lucas looped his good arm around Tessa. He hugged her close, tightening his grip when she struggled to get free. “I’ll show you,” he promised, “after we get inside. We’re sitting ducks out here. I don’t want either of us getting shot at again.”
Tessa wrapped her arm around his waist. Considering he was more than a head taller than her, he thought it was sweet that she was trying to help support him as they zig-zagged their way back inside the safety of his office. Once they were in, Tessa pushed the front door closed and locked it.
“The wound. Let me see.”
Lucas was already peeling off his lab coat. He had on a short-sleeved t-shirt underneath which meant that he only had one layer of fabric protecting him against the bullet. The graze burned through the white coat before taking a chunk out of his arm. He watched the blood drip down his skin with a profession
al eye. It felt a lot worse than the injury was.
He’d gotten very lucky.
Tessa didn’t think so. Reaching out, she stopped when there was a two-inch gap between her fingers and his bloody flesh. It was like she couldn't bring herself to actually touch him. That bothered him way more than the cut did.
“You’ve been shot,” she whispered.
“I know—”
“Shot shot,” she echoed. “The bullet hit you and everything. Oh my god.”
“It’s fine, I—”
“It’s not fine. There’s no reason for you to have been hit. It should’ve been me.”
Lucas’s fist tightened reflexively. A fresh spurt of blood bubbled and started to trickle. “Don’t say that, Tessa. Don’t.”
Ignoring him, she pulled away. She looked around the office, only just realizing that it was the front room, the place where patients waited to see the doctor. There wasn’t anything there to help her. “Where are your supplies? I’ve got to clean that out now.”
That caught him by surprise. “What? No. I’m the doctor. Even one-handed, I’m sure I can fix this myself.”
“Let me do it.”
“Tessa—”
“Listen to me. When I first started college, before I became a teacher, I took nursing classes. Let me take care of you.”
Her jaw was set. He can see she was feeling responsible for his injury. If it gave her some peace to play nurse, fine. It couldn’t hurt. Besides, as the only doctor in town, there was never anyone left to take care of him. It might be nice to be the patient for once.
“I’ll get the supplies,” he told her. “You can bandage me up when I get back.”
“No. Tell me where. I’ll go.”
Maybe it was the blood loss making him weak, but he decided not to continue arguing with her. Even though it would’ve been faster to get them himself, Lucas gave her instructions on how to find his examination room. Everything they would need to do a quick bandaging would be in there.
Tessa disappeared. He used the sleeve of his lab coat to try to staunch some of the blood. She returned a few minutes later with an armful of supplies that she dropped down on one of the waiting room chairs.
Her pale complexion had turned a sickly shade of green in the time she was gone. He expected her to hurl any second. To his surprise, she managed to keep it together. Gritting her teeth, she picked up the disinfectant first and tore the lid off.
Though he expected the sting, the disinfectant burned worse than actually getting shot had. Tessa chanted apologies under her breath as she dabbed the wound with a freshly soaked cotton ball.
It didn’t look so bad once all the blood was washed away. The cut was about three inches long, the length of the side of his bicep, and it was way shallower than she initially thought.
The bullet had taken off quite a few layers of skin, though, and while it was shallower, that didn’t mean it wasn’t just a little deep.
“Do you think we should stitch this up?”
He kept his voice mild. “You’re the one with the nursing classes. What do you think?”
“I think I should let you get sepsis,” she muttered, peering closely at the depth of his wound. Then, as if she just heard what she said, she gasped. Covering her face with her gloved hands, she hurriedly apologized. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Apology accepted,” Lucas said solemnly. He let a small, inappropriate grin tug at his lips only because her face was covered and she wouldn’t know he was teasing. To be honest, he liked that spark of temper she showed. It was way better than watching her take another headfirst dive into a pool of guilt. “So… stitches? Yay or nay?”
Scrunching her nose as she squinted, Tessa got a good look at the cut. She shook her head. “I think I should put on some antibiotic cream, then either gauze or some plaster.”
“And I think those nursing classes paid off.” When Tessa’s golden eyes widened in surprise, he let out a small chuckle. “If it was a flesh wound, I’d need stitches. I’m lucky it was just a graze. Sometimes they bleed too much, but nothing important was hit.”
“You were.”
“What?”
Tessa was dabbing the deep abrasion with some of the white ointment she found in his supplies. “You said nothing important was hit. You’re wrong. You were.”
Lucas didn’t know what to say in response to that so he didn’t say anything. He waited until she had finished applying the gauze pad and wrapping his arm with the bandage to speak up. Though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he also knew he had no choice. “We have to tell Caity.”
Tess cleaned up the wrappers before pulling off her bloody gloves and adding it the pile of blood-soaked cotton balls. She would get rid of the medical waste in a second. First, they had to have this conversation. “Do you really think we should?”
“She’s the sheriff. Last time I checked, shooting at someone was a crime. She has to know that I was hit.”
He had a point. “Let me ask you a question. Hamlet has a population of under two hundred, but it’s a rural area. It’s got a big mountain on one side, that deathtrap gulch at the entrance and tons of trees. Maybe guns are common here, maybe not, I don’t know. Do you?”
Lucas’s lips thinned. “We don’t hunt here. Not too many of us carry guns because there’s never any crime in Hamlet. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s just anyone who is—or was—in law enforcement.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Tessa, what are you saying?”
Clasping her hands in front of her, Tessa looked at the way her fingers interlocked. It was something to stare at that wasn’t the accusation in Lucas’s icy blue stare. She felt that chill all the way down to her bones.
When he continued to stare, waiting for her answer, she looked up at him with worry written in every premature line in her face. “What if she—”
“Caitlin would never take a shot at me.”
“No,” she agreed wholeheartedly. “But would she take a shot at me?”
And that, right there, was the elephant in the room she’d been trying to pretend didn’t exist. Lucas was the one who got hit.
Was he the target?
She thought of the note no one could find, the implied threat about what would happen to her if she didn’t go, and had her answer.
“Shit.”
Tessa had to agree with that sentiment, too.
19
“I hate that you got shot.” Leaning into Lucas, her fingers ghosted over the bandage, a feathered caress.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Tessa didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Her sad smile told him she disagreed. The guilt tugging on her lips made him wish that he had managed to dodge the bullet.
They were parked outside of Ophelia, sitting in his idling Mustang, both of them unwilling to leave the other after the scare they experienced together. Lucas was behind the wheel, running his palms anxiously along the leather rim.
Tessa had wanted to drive but, as she discovered, the man was stubborn to a fault—even after being shot. No matter how hard she tried to charm him, he refused to let anyone else get into the driver’s seat. Even with the dull ache throbbing his fresh wound, he insisted on it. And if his arm ached every time he made a left turn? Oh well. It wasn’t like they could stay at the office.
Lucas didn’t even bother taking out his communicator. After wrestling his keys away from Tess, he loaded her up in his car and headed straight over to his sister’s place instead. His office was in a more secluded part of Hamlet, tucked near the foot of the mountain that acted as one of its natural borders. No one was around for miles. He usually liked the solitude when he was at work. Now he couldn’t get away fast enough.
And if he wanted to make sure no one was coming near Maria, who could blame him for looking out for her? She was his precious younger sister, Tessa a vulnerable outsider. Ophelia’s security was the best money could buy. Knowing they were safe inside would ma
ke him feel a lot better when he had to leave them behind.
Using his good arm, he moved his hand to rest against the buckle of his seatbelt. “Do you want me to walk you in?”
“I’d rather go to see the sheriff with you,” she retorted.
They'd had the same argument the whole way back to Ophelia. Tessa couldn’t understand why he was going to see Sheriff De Angelis on his own when they were both there when the shots were fired. Just because Lucas was the one who was hit, it didn’t mean that Tessa didn’t have anything to add. She was the one who heard the fateful sound of something in the woods the second before the first shot rang out. She could help.
Besides, Tess hated the idea that he would be alone with Sheriff De Angelis when he told her about the shooting. She didn’t know how she’d pull it off, but the sheriff would probably find some way to blame her for Lucas getting shot.
Lucas was adamant. Though he didn’t come out and say it, it was obvious that he believed she was the one they were aiming at. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that, days after Jack Sullivan was murdered, someone fired a gun at the exact spot his wife was standing at.
No matter how much she tried to convince him otherwise, Lucas refused to budge and let her go with him. He wanted her back in Ophelia, secure behind locked doors.
“I need you to stay here. It’ll go a lot better if I talk to her on my own, trust me.”
Those were the magic words. Exhaling softly, it was like all the fight left her. Tessa nodded. Trust him. Okay. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already taken a bullet for her. It didn’t matter that it was a graze, or that she bandaged it up as best she could. If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have been hurt.
“I can make it on my own,” she said. She clicked her seatbelt open, let it whoosh behind her. “Good luck with the sheriff, Doctor.”
There was such defeat in her voice, he almost followed her out of the car. Only the fact that she glanced back at him as she reached the steps kept him in his seat. Lucas couldn’t let her see how much she affected him. She gave him a tiny wave that he returned with a nod, then entered Ophelia.
Don't Trust Me Page 18