grazed her skin. “Are you okay?” he asked, his hazel eyes dark with concern. That same old question that no matter how she answered, everyone had already come up with their own conclusions.
“I’d like to say fine, but . . .” She tipped her hand side to side. “Let’s just say I’m better than I was an hour ago.”
She remembered falling in love with him, or at least she thought she had. They’d met in college . . . yes, that was right. At a small private school near Spokane. That had been nearly fifteen years earlier. He’d been handsome and athletic and sexy, and those attributes hadn’t changed over the years. Even now, with his light brown hair mussed from raking his fingers through it and a day’s worth of whiskers darkening his chin, he was a good-looking man. Strapping. Bold. A take-no-prisoners attorney who now looked rumpled, his suit jacket wrinkled, his white shirt open at the throat, his tie loosened. Yes, indeed, Wyatt Garrison was still a sexy, attractive male.
And she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.
“What happened?” Wyatt asked as he sat on the edge of the bed, on “his” side, the mattress sinking a bit under his weight. How many times had she lain in his arms in that very bed? How many nights had they made love . . . When had they stopped? “Ava?”
She snapped out of her reverie. “Oh. You know. The same thing.” She glanced to the window where she’d been certain she’d seen her son. “I thought I saw Noah. On the dock.”
“Oh, Ava.” He shook his head slowly. Sadly. “You’ve got to stop torturing yourself. He’s gone.”
“But—”
“No ‘buts.’ ” The mattress groaned as he climbed to his feet. “I thought you were getting better. When they released you from St. Brendan’s, the doctors were convinced you were on the road to recovery.”
“Maybe it’s just a bumpy one.”
“But it shouldn’t have U-turns.”
“I was getting better,” she said, preferring not to think of the hospital from which she’d been recently released. “I mean I am!” She swallowed hard, didn’t want to think about having to go back to the psych ward at the inland hospital. “It’s just the nightmares.”
“Have you seen Dr. McPherson lately?” Evelyn McPherson was the psychologist Wyatt had personally chosen upon Ava’s release from St. Brendan’s. He’d said it was because she practiced in Anchorville and was willing to visit Ava on the island, which made sense, but there was something about the woman that bothered Ava. It was as if she were listening too intently to her, was too damned concerned, as if Ava’s problems were hers. It was all too personal.
“Of course I’ve seen her. Didn’t she tell you?” When had it been? “Last week.”
His dark eyebrows lifted as if he didn’t believe her. “When last week?”
“Uh . . . Friday, I think. Yes, that was it.” Why was he doubting her? And why did he care? Ever since Noah’s disappearance, their marriage had been tenuous at best. Most of the time Wyatt was in Seattle on the mainland where he lived in a high-rise only a stone’s throw from the office where he was a junior partner in a prominent law firm. He specialized in tax law and investments.
She’d suspected that his interest in her had waned, that she was an embarrassment, a “crazy” woman and a wife best left concealed on a small island off the Washington coast.
“I was afraid I’d lost you.” He sounded sincere and her throat closed for a second.
“Sorry. Not this time.”
He looked as if she’d slapped him.
“Bad joke.”
“Very.”
She needed to change the subject and fast. “So, Austin Dern,” she said as she pulled the curtains shut. “You hired him?”
Wyatt nodded. “For the stock.” He threw Ava a glance. “Let’s face it. Ian’s really not cut out to be a ranch foreman, isn’t really a horseman and cattleman. I thought he could take over after Ned retired and moved to Arizona, but I was wrong.”
“I took care of the horses.”
“Once upon a time,” he said with a faint smile. “And even then you weren’t the best at keeping up the fence line or taking care of the brush or the barn roof or a frozen pump. Dern’s a handyman. You know, a jack-of-all-trades.”
“How did you find him?”
“He worked for a client of mine who sold his ranch.” One side of his mouth lifted. “I thought I’d give Ian a break.”