Inside, Reba nodded at the receptionist and turned down a hall. “My office is near the back.”
The ornate oak door was closed. “Are you ready?” Reba looked at Jewel.
Throat tight, Jewel nodded.
Reba opened the door. “Here we are. This is Bettina. Bettina, meet Jewel.”
From behind, the other woman appeared normal. Thick, sable-colored hair fell past her shoulders. She had a trim figure, and olive-toned skin. But when she turned to face them, Jewel couldn’t stifle her gasp.
Bettina looked as though she’d come out of a losing bout in the boxing ring.
“I know,” Bettina said, trying to chuckle and merely making an odd, clucking sound. Her lip was split open and the dark bruise around her swollen-shut left eye could only have been caused by a fist. “I’m lucky, I guess.”
“Lucky?” Outraged and horrified, Jewel tried to keep her voice down. “How can you say such a thing?”
“No broken bones.” Bettina shrugged, wincing. “Or, at least I don’t think I have any.”
Looking at Bettina was like looking into a mirror of her former life. “Have you been checked out by a doctor?”
“No.”
“Not yet,” Reba interjected. “I’m trying to convince her to let me run her over to Athens to the hospital.”
“We’ll see.” Bettina sounded noncommittal. “So you’re the one Reba told me about.”
“What did Reba tell you?”
“That you’re living with Colton.”
“Staying with him. There’s a difference. We’re not involved.”
Bettina’s huge brown eyes went from Jewel to Reba, then back again. “If that’s true, that’s good.”
“It is.” Voice firm, Jewel squelched her instinctive horror and sympathy for the other woman. “And let me ask you one more time, so I’m clear on this. You’re telling me Colton Reynolds did this to you?”
“Yes.”
One simple word, but enough to shatter everything Jewel had believed she knew.
“When?”
“Last night.”
After he’d refused her attempt to seduce him and driven away, fast and furious.
Still, despite all the evidence to the contrary, fool that she was, Jewel couldn’t make herself believe. “Did you go to the police?”
For the first time, Bettina looked away. Instead of answering, she hung her head.
Again, the skin on the back of Jewel’s neck prickled. “Bettina, did you?”
Reba made a sound of distress, but Jewel ignored her. “Answer me, please.”
“No. No police. I…couldn’t.” Her voice faint, she sounded about to weep.
“Why not?” Though she herself had done the same thing, too many times to count over the course of her marriage to Leo, this woman didn’t even live in the same town. Any repercussions she might suffer seemed far outweighed by bringing her abuser to justice.
“I just couldn’t. I love…loved him.”
