“Shit,” she said, in response to her own thought.
“Damn it!” She’d just done it again. “Will someone please put a gag on me?”
Jesse joined the squat club. He looked a little worse for wear himself, with his shirt torn and his nose dripping blood. Emily handed him a napkin and he made an effort to clean it away, then simply clamped the napkin over his nose. “The medics will be here soon,” he said, his tone nasal but comforting. “And half the county, I expect.”
Bo began cautiously moving her arms and legs, checking herself out. She didn’t think there was anything broken, but she was kind of addled and couldn’t be certain. “Why?”
The three squatters looked at each other in alarm.
“I’m not concussed,” she said a bit irritably. “I don’t think so, anyway.”
“You did hit your head kind of hard on the floor.”
Yeah, she remembered that. “Okay, okay. I see your point.” Nevertheless, she got her left elbow under her and levered herself to a sitting position. If the medics and half the county were on their way, she at least wanted to be sitting up, preferably in a chair.
“Take it easy,” Emily said, her soft voice worried. She was a pretty, gentle young woman, very much like her grandmother both in sweetness and in her master’s touch with baking.
“That was wild,” Brandwyn said, awe in her tone. “You jumped on his back like a monkey on an elephant.”
That was kind of how she’d felt, too, and not in a good way. The elephant had definitely been in control. Groaning a little, she hauled her butt into a chair just as Miss Doris hurried back with not two but three bags of ice. One went on Emily’s eye, the second one on Bo’s cheekbone, and the third on Jesse’s nose.
She felt strange, kind of disconnected from everything, even the throbbing of her cheekbone and shoulder. This was the first violence she’d ever encountered, and she hoped it was the last. The altercation felt as if it had lasted for half an hour at least, but it had to have been—what?—a minute, tops? She patted her coat pocket for her cell phone but came up empty.
“I’ve lost my cell.”
Brandwyn looked around and said, “Here it is,” as she stooped to pick up the phone from where it had skidded under another table. Bo took it and pressed the home button to bring up the time. Yes, less than five minutes had passed since she’d spoken to Evan in front of the bank. And what the hell difference did it make anyway?
It didn’t. Checking the time was just more of that sense of disconnection, trying to find something solid, something normal.
Maybe the best way was in conversation. As soon as she had the thought, she realized the rest of them were talking, Jesse asking questions, Brandwyn and Miss Doris talking over each other, Emily starting to cry.
Bo said, “Who is that?” and pointed at the handcuffed man on the floor, because she didn’t recognize him.
The four of them stared at her. “That’s Kyle,” Emily said, sniffling. “My husband.”
“What? Kyle? What happened to his hair?” She’d met Kyle once or twice; she’d always thought Emily had married the pick of the Gooding family, but maybe not. When she’d seen him before, he’d worn his hair buzzed, been clean shaven; now his light brown hair was long, almost touching his shoulders, and he had the scruffy three-day beard a lot of guys were wearing to show how cool they were.
“He’s been growing it out,” Emily replied unnecessarily.
Kyle began shifting and making sounds that were a combination of grunts and groans. Following hard on that were some slurred curses, including “Stupid bitch, you’ll pay for this.”
“Are you threatening your wife?” Jesse asked in his cop voice, setting the ice bag aside and gripping the front of Kyle’s jacket with both hands to haul him to a sitting position. As he did so, the first of the sirens became audible, coming in stereo from both ends of town.
Kyle wasn’t stupid; his father had always paid to make trouble go away whenever any of his kids misbehaved, but Miss Doris and Emily were both well liked, and some trouble trumped money. Not only that, he was beginning to realize he’d been in a fight with two law officers, and that wasn’t good. “No,” he said sullenly. “I’m talking about a divorce.”
“Praise the lord,” said Miss Doris, glaring at him. “You’re so low-down, you’d have to grow ten feet taller before you could lick the soles of Emily’s shoes.”
“Miss Doris, how about you and Emily, and Brandwyn, move to the other side of the room, please.” Jesse cast an encompassing look at both Kyle and Bo, decided one wasn’t going anywhere and the other was doing okay, and he began herding the ladies along.
Kyle slanted Bo one of those sullen looks.
“I didn’t know it was you,” she said, though it wouldn’t have made any difference if she had. “I haven’t seen you since you grew your hair out.”
He didn’t look apologetic, but again, he wasn’t stupid. “I didn’t know it was you either,” he mumbled, and that was likely true given that she’d jumped him from behind. “Sorry.” After a pause, “You okay?”
She didn’t answer because the medic truck screeched to a stop outside the shop, followed by a county car coming from the opposite direction. They parked nose to nose, and two medics and a deputy bailed out. Other sirens were wailing as more patrol cars descended on them.
The medics came first to her, for reasons unknown. The attention was overwhelming, swamping her with the sense of being out of control as well as disconnected. She wasn’t hurt all that much, a little bruised and sore, while Jesse was actually bleeding, but then she realized all the others were on their feet while she was sitting down—well, except for Kyle, but considering he was handcuffed, evidently sympathy for him was running low. One of the medics finally peeled off to check out Jesse and Emily, while the other checked her pupils, which appeared to be normal.