Page 47 of Guilty as Sin
The next morning, she felt better. Not great, but better. Able to keep walking for one more day. She’d made a mistake, and she’d hurt Jace. She’d do her best to make it better when she could. Meanwhile, she’d keep walking.
She stored the “sleep-helps” memory away so she could draw on it next time, picked up her phone to call Lily, and remembered she couldn’t. Normally, they talked every day and texted in between, and the silence from her twin left a hole.
Instead, she drew the curtains, stretched her leg some more, switched the laundry, which involved a lot more hanging-of-delicates and a lot less tossing-into-the-dryer than her normal routine, and called her lieutenant.
She stood and looked out the wall of windows in the bedroom to see evergreen limbs doing a swaying dance. Windy on the mountain, then.
“Lieutenant Iverson,” she heard.
“Morning, Lieutenant,” she said, relaxing her shoulders and switching back to professional mode. Which was a relief. “Paige Hollander here. I’m checking in.” The fourth Monday she’d done it. She’d never imagined it would take more than three weeks. She tried not to think that was a bad sign.
“This a new number for you?”
“For a while.”
“All right, then. Not much to tell you. The investigation’s still grinding on, but I’m getting rumblings it may be over soon. Are you still in Montana?”
Her heart leaped, her breath shortened, and she had to do some of that shoulder-relaxation again. “Yes, but I can come back any time, if it’s really almost over.” She’d solve Lily’s problem somehow, fix it for her, even if it meant taking Jace into her confidence after all.
Hailey? No. Hailey would talk. Jace wouldn’t. He’d hate her, but he’d help her. Or he’d help Lily.
She hoped.
“We wouldn’t schedule you again for a few days,” the lieutenant said, “even if you were cleared today. You’d have time.”
Cleared.If she were cleared, she’d go back onto light duty until she was a hundred percent. If she weren’t cleared, she wouldn’t go back at all. If she weren’t cleared, she could face charges. The word always hit her hard.
He said, with that sixth sense that was the reason he was where he was, “Worrying about it isn’t going to help you, Hollander. What kind of treatment are you getting up there?”
Calm. Strong. Dialed down.“Keeping on with rehabbing the leg. Working on my fitness. I’m maybe sixty percent, a little better than the last report said, and the direction’s positive. The leg’s coming back.”
“Uh-huh. And what else?”
Mental health,he meant. “I’m good with what I’ve had. Doing the rural cure now, I guess you’d say. I’m in the mountains. Taking care of farm animals. Being Heidi.” She wouldn’t mention the lingerie. The shop couldn’t have been better cop-style practical-joke material, the kind that exasperated her to boiling point at times. The bonding exercises that so often veered across the line into inappropriate, that could even feel hostile. Especially if you were a woman.
She shouldn’t want to go back. But she did.
“If you need help finding resources up there,” the lieutenant said, going straight past her attempt at humor, “get on the horn with HR. Don’t mess around with that, or it’ll mess around with you. Getting help isn’t weakness. Getting help is going to the gym for your mind.”
She rolled her eyes. She’d been to that talk, too. “I know. I’m good. Got a full bottle of pain pills on the shelf and a full bottle of Scotch in the cupboard, and they’re staying full.”
“Right, then. If anything comes in, I’ll call you. Take care.”
It would be all right, she thought as she hung up. Coffee next, then the goats and the chickens. By herself this time.
The weather had turned overnight, and when she opened the door, she retreated to tug on a fleece vest before going out to take care of the animals. The sky over the mountain was covered by a fluffy sheet of white, looking like the lint filter after you washed your towels. If she’d known about weather, she’d probably be able to interpret that better, but she could guess it didn’t mean, “Let’s have a picnic!”
Tinkerbelle and Edelweiss didn’t seem to mind the nip in the air, and the babies were as bouncy as ever. The mamas jumped up to get milked with no fuss, and if there wasn’t nearly as much fun in it without a dark-bearded, secretly amused stranger to view her improved technique, or to bring up to the house for coffee afterwards? Well, life was tough all over.
She waited until nine, then called the security company whose name she’d seen on the store’s burglar alarm and explained about needing the cameras.
“We can get somebody out next week,” the woman said. “I’ve got Wednesday afternoon.”
“Nothing before then?”
“Sorry. It’s a busy time, everybody getting ready for the summer season, and you’re two hours away. We do the outlying calls one day a week so we can schedule them together.”
“What about this Wednesday?”
