of a crackling fire. He sat beside her, sliding her gloves from her half-numb fingers. “Sit right here. I’ll get my first-aid kit.”
She held her trembling hands out in front of the fire, soaking up the warmth. She heard a cabinet opening and closing, then footsteps as John returned to the front room holding a soft-sided first-aid kit.
“You holding up?” He sat beside her and unzipped the kit.
“No face-planting yet,” she answered with a lopsided grin that made her face hurt. “I need to call the station. I guess my phone’s probably somewhere on the cruiser’s floorboard.”
“Of course.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “What’s the number?”
She gave it to him, and he dialed the number while she looked through the first-aid kit for antiseptic wipes. She found a sealed packet and ripped it open.
“Who should I talk to?” John asked.
“Just talk to the desk sergeant,” she replied, touching the antiseptic pad to the sore spot just above her hairline. It stung, making her wince. “I’m not sure who’s on the desk.”
While John gave his address to whoever answered the phone, Miranda went through a handful of antiseptic wipes trying to mop up the blood from her head. It seemed to be bleeding still, though not as heavily as before. Blood stained the front of her jacket and the uniform pants she wore, enough that she no longer wondered why she felt so light-headed.
“The sergeant said backup is already headed this way, but the snow’s making it slow going.” John leaned forward, examining her first-aid work. “How’s your head feeling?”
“Like it just rammed into a brick wall.”
John’s lips curved slightly. “Noted.”
“I don’t remember exactly what happened,” she admitted, trying not to let the blank spaces in her memory freak her out. She’d probably sustained a concussion in the accident. The memories might never return. Or, conversely, they’d come seeping back bits at a time.
She wasn’t sure it mattered. It clearly hadn’t been a simple accident.
Not if someone had started taking potshots at her immediately afterward.
“Do you know why you were out there in a snowstorm?” John asked.
That much she could remember. “We’d gotten a call from someone who said he’d seen a woman on our missing person’s list out here on Route 7, hitchhiking. I came out to check on the report, but it didn’t pan out. I stopped by to talk to another constituent about a possible theft, then I headed back toward town. That’s the last thing I remember before I came to in the car just before you showed up.”
“The sergeant said you’d called for backup a few minutes ago. You reported a vehicle following you too closely for comfort. You seemed to think the other driver was up to something.”
“Did I give a description of the vehicle?” Surely she had.
“He didn’t say.”
She could remember nothing about another vehicle, but something had sent her rolling off the highway and she didn’t think it was the snowstorm. The visibility wasn’t great, but Route 7 was about as straight as a ruler all the way into town.
“You don’t remember anything about it, do you?” John asked.
“I don’t,” she admitted, reaching for another antiseptic wipe packet.
John covered his hand with hers, stilling her movement.
Heat rolled up her arm from where his fingers touched hers. It settled in her chest like a hot coal, warming her insides.
“Let me grab a washcloth and see if we can get that bleeding stopped for good.” He was back a minute later with a wet washcloth and pulled a chair up in front of her, gazing up at her hairline with a frown between his eyes. “This may hurt.”
Bracing herself, she smelled a hint of soap as the cloth passed her face, then felt the sting as John pressed the hot cloth to her head wound. She sucked in a quick breath.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “At least you’ve stopped shivering.”
So she had, she realized. She felt steadier also, her vision less off-kilter. The mental fog was starting to lift, as well.
“I don’t know if I’d have survived out there without you,” she admitted, the words strangely reluctant to pass her lips. She’d been self-sufficient since she was quite young, the result of losing her mother in childhood. Her father had worked long hours, keeping the hardware business running through good times and bad. She’d learned early how to take care of herself. Accepting help from others wasn’t something she’d ever done easily.
But she owed John Blake her life, even if she still had questions about what he might be doing in town. He certainly hadn’t been the person firing shots at her from the highway. He’d come perilously close to getting shot himself. She’d been looking right at him when the bullet hit the back door right beside him.
A few minutes later, he withdrew the bloody washcloth from her head.
She tried not to cringe at the thought of help arriving soon. Her practical side told her she needed medical attention, especially given her memory loss. She’d have told any other accident victim to let the paramedics do their job, wouldn’t she?
But she sure as hell wasn’t going to enjoy her colleagues poking and prodding her as if she was an ordinary civilian involved in an MVA. She was one of them, damn it.
And she wanted to be the one who investigated what had happened.
“They’re not going to let you investigate your own case, you know.” The knowing look in his eyes made her feel as if she’d been laid bare, all her secret thoughts on display.
How the hell could he do that? He didn’t know her.
She grimaced. “I know that.”
“And while I’m sharing unwanted news with you, you should do whatever the paramedics say you should do.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” He leaned closer. She couldn’t stop herself from meeting his gaze. “I spent time in the hospital not long ago. I felt like a specimen under glass. People wandering into my room all hours, poking this and drawing that. Hated every minute of it. So I know how you’re feeling.”
She nodded, then regretted the movement as her head spun for a couple of seconds. “They’re going to want to bus me to Plainview for observation.”
“Maybe you should let them do that.”
“No.”
“That’s a pretty good knock on your head.”
“I probably have a slight concussion. But I’m clearheaded now.”
“Closed head injuries can be unpredictable,” he warned. “You have
