carried the phone, charger and bag containing the Levi’s back to the sheriff.
While she was gone from the room, he had pulled the tray close and was working on the dinner roll in a desultory way.
She plugged the charger into the same outlet as the lamp next to the sofa and inserted the other end into his phone. “Here you are. I’ll let you turn it on. Now you’ll have no excuse not to talk to your family when they call.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
Andie held out the bag containing the jeans. “Do you mind if I take these? I’d like to see if I can get the stains out and do a little repair work.”
“It’s not worth the effort. I don’t even know why they sent them home. The paramedics had to cut them away to get to my leg.”
“You never know. I might be able to fix them.”
He shrugged, his eyes wearing that distant look again. He was in pain, she realized, and trying very hard not to show it.
“If you power on your phone and unlock it, I can put my cell number in there so you can reach me in an emergency.”
“I won’t—” he started to say, but the sentence ended with a sigh as he reached for the phone.
As soon as he turned it on, the phone gave a cacophony of beeps, alerting him to missed texts and messages, but he paid them no attention.
“What’s your number?”
She gave it to him and in turn entered his into her own phone.
“Please don’t be stubborn. If you need help, call me. I’m just a few houses away and can be here in under two minutes—and that’s even if I have to take time to put on boots and a winter coat.”
He likely wouldn’t call and both of them knew it.
“Are we almost done?” Will asked from the doorway, clearly tired of having only his sister to talk to in the other room.
“In a moment,” she said, then turned back to Marshall. “Do you know Herm and Louise Jacobs, next door?”
Oddly, he gaped at her for a long, drawn-out moment. “Why do you ask?” His voice was tight with suspicion.
“If I’m not around and you need help for some reason, they or their grandson Christopher can be here even faster. I’ll put their number in your phone, too, just in case.”
“I doubt I’ll need it, but...thanks.”
“Christopher has a skateboard, a big one,” Will offered gleefully. “He rides it without even a helmet!”
Her son had a bad case of hero worship when it came to the Jacobses’ troubled grandson, who had come to live with Herm and Louise shortly after Andie and her children arrived in Haven Point. It worried her a little to see how fascinated Will was with the clearly rebellious teenager, but so far Christopher had been patient and even kind to her son.
“That’s not very safe, is it?” the sheriff said gruffly. “You should always wear a helmet when you’re riding a bike or skateboard to protect your head.”
“I don’t even have a skateboard,” Will said.
“If you get one,” Marshall answered. This time she couldn’t miss the clear strain in his voice. The man was at the end of his endurance and probably wanted nothing more than to be alone with his pain.
“We really do need to leave,” Andie said quickly. “Is there anything else I can do to help you before we leave?”
He shook his head, then winced a little as if the motion hurt. “You’ve done more than enough already.”
“Try to get some rest, if you can. I’ll check in with you tomorrow and also bring something for your lunch.”
He didn’t exactly look overjoyed at the prospect. “I don’t suppose I can say anything to persuade you otherwise, can I?”
“You’re a wise man, Sheriff Bailey.”
Will giggled. “Where’s your gold and Frankenstein?”
Marshall blinked, obviously as baffled as she was, which only made Will giggle more.
“Like in the Baby Jesus story, you know. The wise men brought the gold, Frankenstein and mirth.”
She did her best to hide a smile. This year Will had become fascinated with the small carved Nativity set she bought at a thrift store the first year she moved out of her grandfather’s cheerless house.
“Oh. Frankincense and myrrh. They were perfumes and oils, I think. When I said Sheriff Bailey was a wise man, I just meant he was smart.”
She was a little biased, yes, but she couldn’t believe even the most hardened of hearts wouldn’t find her son adorable. The sheriff only studied them both with that dour expression.
He was in pain, she reminded herself. If she were in his position, she wouldn’t find a four-year-old’s chatter amusing, either.
“We’ll see you tomorrow,” she said again. “Call me, even if it’s the middle of the night.”
“I will,” he said, which she knew was a blatant fib. He would never call her.
She had done all she could, short of moving into his house—kids, pets and all.
She gathered the children part of that equation and ushered them out of the house. Darkness came early this close to the winter solstice, but the Jacobs family’s Christmas lights next door gleamed through the snow.
In the short time she’d been inside his house, Andie had forgotten most of her nervousness around Marshall. Perhaps it was his injury that made him feel a little less threatening to her—though she had a feeling that even if he’d suffered two broken legs in that accident, the sheriff of Lake Haven County would never be anything less than dangerous.
MARSH WAITED UNTIL he heard the door close behind Andrea Montgomery and her children before he allowed himself to grimace and release the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
His entire body hurt like a mother trucker, as if somebody had been pummeling him for the last, oh, twenty-two hours. He couldn’t pinpoint a single portion of his anatomy that wasn’t throbbing right about now.
Though the surgery to set and pin the multiple fractures in his foot and ankle had taken place in the early hours of the morning, his head still felt foggy from the anesthesia and the pain meds they had thrust upon him afterward.
Oddly, the leg wasn’t as painful as the abrasions on his face and hands where he had scraped pavement on the way down. Some of his pain was probably the inevitable adrenaline crash that always hit after a critical incident.
He drew in a deep breath of air that still smelled like his neighbor, sweet as spring wildflowers on a rain-washed meadow.
He hated that he was now her pity project, thanks to her sense of obligation to his sister. He knew that was the only reason she had come by. Wyn must have blackmailed her into helping him. What other reason could she have for doing it?
Andrea Montgomery didn’t like him. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to her, but in their few previous interactions she had always seemed cold and unfriendly to him. He would have figured her for the last person to come to his rescue. Few people were strong enough to withstand pressure from Wyn when she was at her most persuasive, though.
He didn’t want his neighbor and her kids to come back the next day. Short of locking the door, how could he prevent it?
Less than a day ago, he had been under the wholly misguided impression that he had most facets of his life under control.
He had