The sound of breaking glass behind him jerked John’s attention from the sheriff’s retreating figure.
“Can he do that?” Eve stood on the concrete walkway, her blue eyes wide with fear. At her feet lay what looked to be the shattered remnants of a drinking glass amid a puddle of water.
John’s heart, which had stopped beating, convulsed. “I won’t let that happen, Eve. I promise.” Praying he could keep that promise, he stepped to her. The urge to protect her, to cradle her head against his chest, became overwhelming. He reached out to gather her into his arms, but she knelt and began picking up the larger pieces of the broken glass.
“I’ve made a mess.” The quaver in her voice broke his heart. “I was trying to find my way back to Elmer, but I got lost.” A brave smile wobbled on her lips—lips that looked as soft and pink as a rose petal. “It seems I’m always getting lost.”
How John wished he could fix her broken memory, but he couldn’t. Instead, he did what he could for her. He knelt and cupped her hand holding the shards of glass. “I’ll take care of this.” He wanted to add “I’ll take care of you,” but the words caught in his throat. She didn’t need more disappointments, and he’d already promised more than he knew he could deliver. “Go get Elmer another glass of water, and I’ll meet you inside in a few minutes.”
She nodded, relinquishing the shards of glass to his waiting hand. “Thank you, John.” The gratitude in her blue eyes, brimming with unshed tears, told him that her thanks encompassed more than his cleaning up this little pile of glass.
Watching Eve disappear into the school building, John’s resolve to keep her out of the state hospital solidified. Despite Sid’s suspicions, John’s gut, or perhaps his heart, told him she was neither criminal nor insane, and he wouldn’t leave this place without a promise from Doc Callahan not to commit her to the Indiana Hospital for the Insane.
Later, with that promise secured and his mind easier, John helped Eve onto the wagon for their trip home.
A ways down the road, he turned to her. “Dr. Callahan’s not inclined to have you committed to the state hospital.” He regretted blurting it out the moment the words left his mouth.
For a long moment, Eve didn’t respond. Fearing she might faint, he pulled the wagon to a stop. She expelled a ragged breath. A visible battle to control her emotions played across her pale features, and he marveled at her strength. At length she looked up at him, her blue eyes, which always reminded him of an October sky, clear. She covered his handholding the reins with hers, sending pleasant tingles up his arm. “Thank you. Thank you, John.”
John’s heart bucked, and he cleared the emotion from his throat. In another moment he would gather her into his arms, so he flicked the reins against the horse’s back, and the wagon began rolling down the road again. “It’s Doc Callahan you should thank.”
“But you fought for me, and I appreciate that.” Her lighter tone turned serious. “Why did Sheriff McCord say he can’t trust you?”
John stiffened at the unexpected question, then winced at the painful memory it evoked. He recoiled at the thought of recounting the distasteful event, especially to Eve. But better she learn it from him than from casual gossip she might hear around the community. He blew out a fortifying breath. “Two years ago I worked as a sergeant on the Indianapolis police force. One day some patrolmen brought three members of a pickpocket ring into the station, and I was assigned to guard them while they waited to be processed.” He swallowed to moisten his drying throat as the awful memories played through his mind.
“What happened?” Her gentle prompting gave him courage to continue sharing the experience.
“One of the suspects, a woman, complained that her handcuffs were cutting into her wrists.” John squeezed his eyes shut, but the events of two years ago refused to go away. Opening them again, he focused on the horse’s glossy dark rump. “The police manual’s rules of arrest state, ‘Officers are enjoined, in making arrests, to act with kindness, to use no more force than is necessary.’ So I did as she asked, and loosened them. If only I hadn’t. If only…” He shook his head, but the motion wouldn’t dislodge the memory of what happened next. Another deep breath. He might as well finish it. “While I was taking the statement of one of her cohorts, the woman prisoner maneuvered her hands out of the shackles, ran and grabbed a patrolman’s sidearm and shot him to death, then ran from the station.”
Eve emitted a tiny gasp. “Oh John, I am so sorry.”
John shrugged and unclenched his aching jaws. “They caught the woman and tried and convicted her of murder. The review board exonerated me of misconduct, citing the rule I quoted, but a man died because of my actions. I have to live with that.” He forced another swallow past his tightening throat. “I was charged with poor judgment and drummed out of the force. I don’t blame Sid for not trusting me.” An involuntary snort huffed from his nose. “I can see how your case must seem to him like history repeating itself.”
Eve’s tone turned defensive. “I’m not going anywhere, and I certainly don’t plan to shoot anyone.” Her posture stiffened. “I don’t know if I had anything to do with robbing that bank in New York, but I’m fairly certain I know nothing of guns, or even how to shoot one.”
The wagon stopped, and John realized they were home. He shouldn’t have told her. Of course it would sound to her like he was equating her with the woman who’d duped him two years ago. “I wasn’t accusing you, Eve.”
Before he could make another move, she scrambled down from the wagon and strode to the house.
Watching her poker-straight back disappear through the kitchen door, John’s heartsagged with his shoulders, and he blew out a frustrated breath. When would he ever learn to think before he spoke?
But later, while unhitching the horse from the wagon, the memory of Eve’s abrupt attitude shift began to scratch at his suspicious cop nerve. The quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet sprang to mind: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
As much as John hated to admit it, he could no more prove Eve’s innocence than Sid could prove her guilt. While he no longer wore the badge, he still possessed his police training and instincts. He must resolve to follow the evidence wherever it led and not allow Eve’s considerable charms to blind him to clues that might point to her guilt.
Over the next two weeks, despite John’s best intentions, Eve daily destroyed his resolve with a look, a laugh, a touch, or a smile like the one she was sending him this very moment.
“How is the cow?” She looked up from helping Clara fill jelly jars with steaming dark liquid and trained those devastating blue eyes on him, turning his mind to mush.
John stepped into the kitchen and forced his mind from the tantalizing lock of red-gold hair curling against Eve’s creamy temple and back to his best milk cow that had gone into labor. “She seems to be progressing normally.” His heart hammering like a woodpecker’s beak against a dead tree, he leaned a shoulder against the wall and managed a tepid smile. Why did the woman have to be so beautiful? “We should have a new calf today.” Dismay at his own weak will curdled in John’s belly. Did he have no defense against her charms? How could he ever assess her with a critical eye?
Aunt Clara wiped her berry-stained hands on a kitchen towel. “Well, I’m praying for a heifer. We could use another milk cow to add to the herd.”
That moment the back door burst open, and Matt stumbled in, his eyes wild.
“John, come quick! I think Ginger is dying!”