Page 47

“Yes. I insist. Doctor’s orders.” A rare smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve been great, Fiona. But you need to rest.”

“Thanks.” She stood, swayed for a moment, then managed to head down the hallway under her own power to the main bedroom. Ridiculous tears pricked her eyes as she washed up and crawled into bed.

Wishing again that she wouldn’t have to give up Doc’s sweet kindness once this was over.

Kicking himself for being an idiot, Doc paced the length of the kitchen. What kind of medic was he? Why hadn’t he considered how exhausted she must have been after spending the night in the hospital and almost getting killed by a guy with a syringe?

If Fiona hadn’t swayed with fatigue, she’d have gone along with his plan to search the riverfront.

Their intense kiss had rattled him to the point he’d wanted to rush out to do something, anything to find answers. Even to Fiona’s detriment.

He was as bad as that Tristan idiot. Fiona should have slapped him too.

Stopping at the front window, he stared out at the driveway leading to the house. Rex could not get there fast enough. Too bad, his boss was almost three hours away.

Backing away from the window, he spun on his heel and returned to the kitchen. First, he’d wash the dishes. Then he’d get back to work on the computer. They needed more information to help them uncover the truth.

Unfortunately, Fiona’s memory had not come crashing back to the surface upon seeing the website images of her father’s farm. The only memory she’d had was related to caring for the horses.

Was she holding back? No, he didn’t believe that she’d lie about something so serious. Especially not after that poor woman wearing the same yellow dress as hers had been stabbed at the race.

Even without her memory, Fiona’s personality displayed her to be kind and caring. From the very beginning, she’d prayed before meals, her faith deeply ingrained enough to override her amnesia. She’d been upset to know someone else had been hurt because of her. And she had admitted more than once that her father was probably responsible for sending the gunmen after her.

If Fiona had remembered him doing that, he was confident she’d have told him. She wouldn’t keep running with bleeding blisters on her feet if she knew the truth.

Washing dishes didn’t take long. From there, he went back to the articles Fiona had found related to her father’s trainer, Larry Archer.

One article raved about Archer’s ability to connect with the horses he’d trained. As if he were a horse whisperer. As he read more about Archer, he could see why Liam Murphy had offered the trainer a substantial raise to come work with Fiona’s Folly.

Maybe they were on the wrong track to suspect Liam of cheating. Yet there was no denying the guy had won four million dollars in six months of racing. On a whim, he pulled up the picture of Fiona and her father standing in the winner’s circle at the Derby. Liam beamed proudly with his arm looped around his daughter. Would Fiona have stood so close, smiling up at the man if they didn’t have a good relationship? No way.

Doc wasn’t a father, but his own dad would have cut off his own arm before hurting him. There were abusive parents in the world, and maybe some of them could hide their true nature from those around them.

In this case, though, he couldn’t get over how happy Fiona looked standing beside her father.

He went back to looking up information on Tristan Crowley. When he’d dug into Crowley’s background earlier, he’d focused on his criminal background, which had turned out to be clean. This time, Doc tried to find a connection between Tristan and horse racing. At least, he thought that might be where he and Fiona had met.

Turned out he was half right. Tristan wasn’t connected to the horse-racing world of Liam Murphy, but he had participated in horse-jumping events like the Steeple Chase too. Apparently, Tristan was not as talented as Fiona, as he didn’t win any big awards. And further digging revealed the guy had not qualified to compete in the Olympics. Although his attempt to do so was four years earlier than the Olympics Fiona had participated in. They hadn’t been direct competitors.

Had it burned Tristan to watch Fiona win a gold medal in the event he’d missed out on by a mile? Some men could not tolerate being shown up by a woman. He’d watched Teagan, a.k.a. T-Bone, flatten a guy in Afghanistan for putting his hand on her. Di, too, had done something similar, proving more than capable of protecting herself.

It was only his acute dislike of the guy that made him want to connect Tristan to the nonstop threats against Fiona. No facts or even a reasonable theory as to why Tristan would want to hurt her. The only reason for Tristan to take the drastic step of drugging a horse and killing a trainer was if he was a gambler. And so far, Doc couldn’t find any evidence of that.

This was getting him nowhere. Frustrated, Doc stood and paced again. Dusk was falling faster now. Seeing the glow of the laptop screen reflected in the window, he reached over to close the computer.

Then he went from window to window, pulling the drapes closed or blinds down, leaving only a crack that he could see through. He felt oddly restless, despite the fact that they should be safe here.

On the heels of that thought came another. He didn’t know how they kept getting found, which meant staying there was nothing more than living under a false sense of security. He knew full well they had not been safe anywhere. Not his cabin, the church, the hotel, the hospital, or the racetrack.

If the bad guys had found his name through the cabin, it was not a stretch to think they’d connected him with Grayson’s Guardians. Rex did not advertise; his clients came through word of mouth and from knowing people in high places. Rex had Doc protecting a senator’s son, a former general’s daughter, and other high-profile clients.

But the team wasn’t exactly a secret either. Keeping all eleven of the team members and Rex’s name out of the press would have been impossible. His buddy Cam Walker had recently gotten shot and almost killed while helping to expose a serial killer who’d been hunting and killing young women over the span of fourteen years. His name had been the top story in the news for weeks.

Another glance at his watch confirmed Rex was easily still an hour away. Fiona had only been sleeping for two hours, so he was loath to wake her.

But his gut was telling him they needed to move. He turned toward the computer to see if he could find another rental property, then stopped as he realized that wouldn’t help the situation. Not unless he could get a rental property under a completely different name. One not associated with Rex or Grayson’s Guardians.

He was becoming too paranoid. There was no reason to think their rental property was compromised. Yet he couldn’t relax either.