Page 77 of If I Didn’t Have You

“Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to get a paramedic over here?”

She shook her head, her eyes still glazed over in a daze. “No, I’m…I’m alright.”

“Ben!” Maverick called out, stepping over the wreckage to get to me.

I hesitantly walked away, making sure I was out of earshot for this conversation.

“Mav, good of you to come.”

“Well, it’s sort of my job. Care to explain what happened?”

I didn’t like the tone in his voice, the accusation that lingered underneath the concern. “Just what are you saying?”

“I’m asking what happened.”

I still wasn’t sure, but since Clara was involved, I’d lie my ass off to protect her. “Gas pedal must have stuck.”

“Gas pedal, huh?” He tipped his hat up, eyeing me like I was a suspect.

“Just what are you implying?”

He glanced around, then lowered his voice so only I could hear. “Bud said Clara was causing a commotion on the street. Said she was real upset about something after she left the gym. She was parked across from him. He saw the whole thing.”

“Upset about what? That’s ridiculous!”

He shrugged, the look of confusion and speculation just as infuriating as the fact that he was standing here questioning me.

“He said she left with Georgia, and when she came back, she was driving fast and erratically, then turned right into the gym.”

“Bud’s all the way down the street,” I pointed out. “He wouldn’t have been able to see a damn thing!”

“Even so, it does paint a picture that some may see as…questionable.”

I had to admit, though it pained me to do so, that my wife wasn’t coming out looking so hot right now. But I would never admit that to a lawman.

“Right now, she needs to get to the hospital. You know it wasn’t that long ago that she was poisoned.”

“That was over six months ago,” he pointed out.

“Still, we have no idea what the lasting effects were. Plus, she’s been pushing herself like crazy with her workouts. What if that somehow affected something?”

“Right,” he nodded, his pen dancing in the air over his notebook as he tried to figure out what to write. “The workouts did it.”

“I’m not saying they did,” I snapped. “I’m telling you we don’t know what happened.”

“And I’m telling you to make sure you get Ryder Lawson on speed dial, because right now, this doesn’t look too good.”

I refused to believe that Clara in any way caused this accident on purpose. It just wasn’t in her nature. “Sure, I’ll get him on speed dial, but you’d better do a thorough investigation to clear her name.”

“You know, you might not want me to be too thorough, if you catch my drift.”

I caught his drift, alright, and I didn’t like what he was implying. “You’re making a lot of assumptions without even talking to my wife,” I bit out.

“Ben, talk to her and find out what the hell happened. Figure this out before she ends up in jail for attempted murder.”

As he walked away, I glanced back at River, trying to figure out why my wife would want to kill the young woman who had been teaching her yoga for the last few weeks. But then another thought crossed my mind. Just a few minutes prior, I had been talking with River. Maybe my wife wasn’t targeting River.

Maybe the target was me.