Page 26 of To Love a Beast

"The desk chair in my office," Everett ground out as he leaned to the left, using his few inches of greater height to lift Lightfoot's feet from the ground. "Has wheels. Bring it."

She whirled and dashed back into the house, leaving Everett to scale the steps without an audience. The woman was quick, though, arriving back with the chair before he cleared the last step. She wheeled the chair into position at the top of the stairs and held it steady while Everett lowered Lightfoot into the seat.

"Mrs. Potter said to bring him into the kitchen." Miss Rosenfeld led the way into the house as if ready to clear the path should an obstacle jump from a closet to block their path. "She has water boiling and the medicine box prepared."

Everett pushed Lightfoot down the hall, careful not to move too fast and run over the man's no-longer-light feet. When they reached the kitchen, Mrs. Potter took over like an army general. She immediately took scissors to Lightfoot's shirt, earning a more distressed moan for her disregard of fine tailoring than any complaint related to his actual wound. Everett looked up and shared a grin with Miss Rosenfeld, taking comfort from the relief he saw mirrored in her eyes. She seemed to share his assessment. Lightfoot would be fine.

The deep reverberations of Spartacus's barking drew Everett to the back door. Miss Rosenfeld followed.

"He took off the moment we heard the shot," she said, placing her hand high on his back as she tried to peer over his shoulder. "He might have found the shooter."

The feel of her hand made him ache to close his eyes and savor the rare treasure of a woman's touch, but her words had his jaw tightening.

The shooter could simply be an inept hunter whose shot had missed its intended target, but Everett's gut rejected that theory. They'd never had hunters in this area before. And who would be foolish enough to aim toward a person's home? It's not like they couldn't see it. It was the largest house in the county, for crying out loud. Could've been kids taking a potshot at the Monster of Manticore Manor. Everett's stomach cramped at the thought of Lightfoot taking a bullet meant for him. If kids were to blame, they'd likely be too scared to cover their tracks. If he could trail them home, they'd get to see the monster up close when he knocked on their door and had words with their parents.

And if it hadn't been kids?

Everett frowned. If someone was targeting his home, his staff, he needed to know. He took a step backward and reached for the rifle kept on a rack above the kitchen door.

"Wait," a quiet voice said near his ear.

He turned and found her pulling a string from her apron pocket.

"I grabbed this from upstairs. In case you had need of it." She opened her hand to reveal his eye patch.

Two truths pounded in his head with the force of a migraine. One, she'd been looking at his half-dead eye all this time and had not been repulsed enough to turn away from the sight. Two, he'd left his patch looped over the easel supporting his current painting. If she'd found the patch, she'd seen his artwork as well. The one piece he never wanted her to see. The unfinished portrait of a sweetly beautiful book binder.

Another bark from Spartacus shook him from his humiliating ruminations. With a mechanical movement he accepted the patch from her hand. He moved too slowly, though, for she clasped his arm before he could make an escape.

Her earnest eyes found his without a single flinch. "Be careful."

Careful? He'd left careful behind the moment he'd let Callista Rosenfeld into his house. And it seemed he'd soon be paying the price for his reckless folly.

Chapter 12

Everett hunkered down next to an area of flattened prairie grass about five hundred yards northwest of the manor. His jaw clenched as he recognized the pattern. He'd seen it before. When he and Alex had attended shooting competitions at the Creedmoor Rifle Range on Long Island. The thick rectangle where the prone shooter's body pressed into the earth. The two off-set circles where his elbows rested as he aimed his rifle for a long-distance shot.

The bullet that took Lightfoot down hadn't come from a reckless kid or an incompetent sportsman. It had come from a sharpshooter. Which meant the shot had been deliberate and targeted. Targeted at whom, though? Lightfoot or him?

Everett stood and squinted across the distance to the manor. He could make out the front door, but with his poor depth perception, he struggled to bring it into focus. He and Lightfoot were of similar height and size. Lightfoot was perhaps more slender and definitely better dressed, but could someone differentiate those details from so far away?

The question ate at him all the way home.

After praising Spartacus for his good work in chasing off their invader, Everett stepped through the back door and into the kitchen. He glanced around the room, taking stock of who was there.

"I shooed Miss Rosenfeld back to the library."

Apparently, a hole in the arm hadn't hampered Lightfoot's ability to discern Everett's thoughts.

"After letting her spoil me a little first."

Sitting at the table nearby while she snapped string beans into a pot, Mrs. Potter huffed out a breath full of skepticism. "A little? That girl fetched you a pile of pillows, a footstool, and a clean pair of trousers then sat at your side and mopped your brow while you just sat there drinking in all the attention."

"Well, I am injured, you know." He glanced pointedly at his bandaged arm. "And as much as I adore your starchy bedside manner, Mrs. Potter, Miss Rosenfeld is a tad more solicitous."

"The girl's too young to know better."

And too kind to change even if she did learn such a lesson, Everett thought.