at the door, supported against the iron railing that wrapped a wide veranda on all sides of his home, she’d urged Brodie to go back to the Nightwing and search for Blu. Of course he hadn’t wanted to leave her, but they both knew Blu needed him at that moment more than she did.
Left alone Margo had taken a deep breath and knocked on Ry’s back door. When he didn’t answer, desperation had forced her to try the door. Relief had rushed through her veins on finding it unlocked, and she’d crept inside like Goldilocks, all wide-eyed and cautious. And then surprised and impressed shortly thereafter—Ry’s home was any woman’s dream come true.
“Why the hell didn’t you say you’d been shot?”
Margo expected a reaction of some kind. She hadn’t been so foolish as to think she could pass a gunshot wound off for anything else but what it was. “That’s very good detective work, Ry. You certainly know your job.”
Her sarcasm wasn’t appreciated. He swore, offered her a black look, then turned his attention back to her arm. She felt him probe the wound, and she sucked in her breath and held it. She wouldn’t moan, she promised herself, and she wouldn’t cry out, either.
“You’re lucky,” he sighed a moment later. “The bullet missed the bone. The excessive bleeding is caused by a flap of skin that needs to be stitched.”
Margo had already gotten a damage report from Brodie. She would have let him patch her up before she got to Ry’s, only, for a big, tough fisherman, Brodie had as weak a stomach as she did when it came to blood.
Ry leaned closer, eyeing the scratch on her cheek. To Margo’s surprise she realized he still used the same unpretentious cologne she had associated with him years ago. Everything was familiar. He still wore his hair short and carefree for ease’s sake. Even his day-old scruffy jaw was typical. She remembered how he used to complain about how much time it took to scrape off his healthy growth of whiskers.
She should hate him, and most days that’s what kept her going—the outrage and the humiliation and the determination to rise above it. Ry had not only crushed her spirit and scarred her heart, but he’d done it in such a manner that she had looked like a naive little fool. Of course he hadn’t wanted a permanent relationship. What had she expected two years ago, marriage? He was older than her by twelve years. What man at age thirty-one would want to marry a nineteen-year-old, starry-eyed girl?
Oh, she hadn’t wanted to believe that she’d been used, or that she’d been that much of a fool. But it was the truth—Ryland Archard had enjoyed the chase and the victory prize in the end, but he had had no intentions of sticking around for anything more—least of all a permanent relationship. She should have recognized the type—after all he was now thirty-three and still single.
Margo wanted to tell him he looked old and haggard. She would like to make a snide comment in reference to a soft belly or a sudden receding hair-line. Only there were no visible signs that he had aged. In fact, Ry Archard, much to Margo’s annoyance, had improved over the past two years much like a superior bottle of Chardonnay.
Then, too, she supposed needling him right now wouldn’t be very smart. She was in his home, asking for his help. If she’d learned anything in her twenty-one years it was when to run, when to stand and fight, and, most important, when to keep her private thoughts private and her mouth shut. Tonight, the third applied without question.
“Come on, I’ll help you up.”
“Up? Why would I want to get up?”
“Because I’m taking you to Charity Hospital.”
Margo’s eyes widened. She had no intention of going to the hospital. Gunshot wounds had to be reported. There would be a dozen questions to answer; a report would be filed. And what if the men chasing Blu were checking out the hospitals?
“No doctor. I won’t go!”
The quicksilver change in his eyes told Margo her hasty words had triggered his suspicion. “Why no doctor, Margo?”
She didn’t answer.
“Come on, baby. Why no doctor?”
Margo cleared her throat, and this time she was careful with her tone, as well as her choice of words. “I hate men in white coats, that’s why. They smell too clean and smile too much when there’s nothing to smile about. I don’t feel like playing twenty questions, either. The man who shot me is long gone by now.”
“Tell me about him.” It wasn’t a request, but a solid demand.
Margo raised her chin. “I didn’t get a good look at him. He wore an oversize hat that hid his face. I shouldn’t have fought with him. I know that now, but when I saw the gun I just reacted. I’ve been walking home every night since I started working at the Toucan. I guess a year without a confrontation made me careless.”
“So you were attacked? Mugged?”
“Yes.” Margo slipped into the lie easily. As often as Blu had schooled her in the art of swimming and fishing, he had lectured her on the value of a failsafe lie. That didn’t mean she enjoyed lying, or that she did it on a regular basis. But she was confident that, in the right situation, she could keep her eyes from blinking and her voice rock steady while she attempted to cheat the truth. “He wanted my purse. Ah…my money.”
“Where did this happen?”
“Near my apartment.”
“One block? Two?”
“Does it matter?”
He raised his thick brows. “You worked tonight, right?”
Margo hesitated. Ry hung out at the Toucan on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. This was Wednesday. Feeling confident, she said, “Yes, I just said so, didn’t I?”
He stared at her a long minute. “So this happened walking home from work around ten?”
“Are you losing your hearing? I just told you that.”
He ignored her smart remark. “So it was ten o’clock when you left work?”
Margo glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Quickly calculating the hours, she said, “I guess so.”
“And you were shot within fifteen minutes of leaving the Toucan? Or was it more like twenty-five? Could it have been forty minutes? Fifty?”
Annoyed by his relentless questions, Margo said, “I didn’t get up, look at my watch and say, oh my, I’ve been mugged at 10:20.”
“Was it 10:20?”
Margo rolled her eyes. “No, I think it was 10:23.”
“Dammit, Margo, this is important!”
“I don’t know the time, all right!” Margo’s voice wasn’t as loud as his, but just as angry.
“Well, then, what the hell do you know?”
“That I’m going to have a headache if you keep badgering me like I’m the criminal here.”
He stood and buried his hands deep in the hip pockets of his jeans.
