GINA WILKINS - The Stranger in Room 205

“I’m not surprised. I don’t think they were from around here. Probably just passing through the area, looking for trouble.”

“Like you?” she asked in a murmur.

He met her eyes without blinking. “I wasn’t looking for trouble. Unfortunately, it found me, anyway.”

She knew that feeling. She hadn’t been looking for trouble when she’d found Sam Wallace in that ditch, either. But she had found him—well, her sister’s dog did—and now, for some stupid reason, she felt rather responsible for him.

The sounds of the hospital drifted in through the door she’d left partially open. Nurses talked, equipment beeped, someone coughed, someone else cried. Illness seemed to creep through the hallways like a malicious spirit, constantly trying to outsmart the few overworked doctors in this small, outdated and under-funded institution. The staff did the best they could with what they had, but most folks in these parts went elsewhere for serious medical attention, into bigger towns with more financial advantages. Serena hoped her stranger was getting the care he needed here. Head injuries were so unpredictable.

LuWanda, the heavyset nurse who’d taken care of Sam when he’d arrived, marched in. “Time to take your vitals, Mr. Wallace.”

He scowled. “You can just damned well leave my vitals alone.”

LuWanda laughed as though he’d made a lighthearted jest. “Don’t worry, I won’t touch anything I haven’t touched before. Oh, and I want to get a pulse ox reading. The doc’s still concerned about those blows you took to the chest. Have to make sure you’re getting plenty of oxygen.”

He gave Serena a look as the nurse clipped something around his right index finger. “Pulse ox,” he murmured.

She stood. “Whatever that is, I hope yours is good.”

“Ninety-nine percent,” the nurse announced when something chirped. “Better than mine—I smoked for twenty years. Guess you’re not a smoker, huh, Mr. Wallace?”

“Guess not,” he answered vaguely.

Serena took a step closer to the bed. “I have to go. Is there anything I can get for you, Sam? Books, magazines, personal items?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

Definitely the independent sort, she thought. He had nothing to his name but a backless hospital gown and he still didn’t ask for anything. A very intriguing man, this Sam Wallace—whoever he was.

“Well, then—I’ll see you later.” She moved toward the door. She had no doubt that she would be back. Something about the lonely, slightly confused expression in his bright blue eyes kept pulling her here.

Was she being a complete fool to let herself get involved with him, even on this temporary and casual basis?

“Well? What did you find out about him?” Petite, red-haired, green-eyed Lindsey Gray pounced the moment Serena walked into the Evening Star offices. “You went to see him at the hospital again, didn’t you? Did you talk to him? Did you learn more details about what happened to him?”

“Lindsey, take a breath or something,” Serena ordered, shaking her head in exasperation. “Geez, you’d think we’d never seen a stranger in this town before.”

“We haven’t very often. And never quite like this—so what did you find out?”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Serena gave a little shrug. “You’ve heard as much as I have. He said he was hitching through this area looking for temporary work when two men in a patched-together pickup truck gave him a ride, robbed him, beat him up and left him for dead in that ditch. He can’t describe the men very well because he has very little memory of the beating—a slight memory loss due to the concussion, which the doctor said is normal.”

“Where’s he from? What’s his story?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask many questions. He’s in a lot of discomfort, Lindsey. He isn’t up to being interviewed.”

Lindsey pouted. She was the only twenty-five-year-old woman Serena knew who could actually pout and get away with it.

To her disgust, Lindsey was destined to be thought of as cute, when what she really wanted to be was sharp and sophisticated. After obtaining a degree in journalism, she had gone to work for a newspaper in Little Rock for a couple of years before moving back to her little hometown to be close to her father, who was in ill health. She’d taken a significant pay cut to work for the Evening Star, but she took the job very seriously, attacking it with the same dedication she’d have given a position with the Washington Post or New York Times.

Sometimes Serena thought Lindsey took her job too seriously. She was constantly on the lookout for the “big story”—and the truth was, there just weren’t that many big stories in Edstown. With the exception of a recent rash of burglaries, not much happened around these parts. She mercilessly hounded the mayor and poor Chief Meadows, both of whom held a deep distrust of reporters and an ingrained aversion to any bad press about their town. But there was no doubt that the newspaper had been better since Lindsey arrived.

Speaking of which, Serena glanced around the unarguably shabby offices, which were quiet and deserted now that the evening edition had been printed and delivered. She knew some people were born with ink in their veins, that the smell of newsprint and the sounds of press machines gave them an almost sexual thrill. Serena looked around and saw only clutter and chaos.

She had never wanted to own her great-grandfather’s newspaper. That had been the destiny of her older sister, Kara. Serena was a lawyer, not a newshound, and she would just as soon have kept it that way. Unfortunately, there’d been no one else to take over after their father died last year, and three months later Kara left town with a wanna-be country music star, leaving Serena with Kara’s stupid dog and full responsibility for Great-granddad’s newspaper. Her first impulse had been to sell, but the very idea had distressed her mother so much that Serena had reluctantly agreed to give it a shot.

“Where’s Marvin?” she asked, glancing at the managing editor’s empty office. “He and I were supposed to discuss last month’s ad revenues this evening.”

Lindsey rolled her eyes. “Where do you think he is? He decided to pop over to Gaylord’s for a ‘quick nip’ before your meeting. That was two hours ago.”

There would be no discussing anything with Marvin tonight, Serena thought with a grimace. The aging editor—a longtime crony of her late grandfather’s—had been spending more and more time at Gaylord’s since his wife died two years ago. Marvin was tired and lonely and burned out, resistant to modern technology, nostalgic for the old days, but he didn’t want to retire. He’d said he would have no reason at all to get out of bed if he didn’t have a job to go to. As much as she truly hated the very thought, Serena was beginning to believe that she was going to have to pressure Marvin into retirement. It broke her heart, but it was rapidly becoming necessary.

Damn it, Kara, this should be your job.

Pushing a hand through her hair, she sighed heavily. “I’ll try to catch him tomorrow, I guess. Are you finished for the night?”

Lindsey shook her head and hoisted her oversize macramé bag onto her shoulder. “I’m going to the town council meeting. I’d better get moving, it starts in ten minutes.”

“I thought Riley was covering the council meeting tonight.”

“He is. I’m just going out of curiosity. Maybe I’ll have a chance to corner Dan after the meeting to ask what he’s found out about the men who mugged your stranger.”

“He isn’t my stranger,” Serena protested, though she was uncomfortably aware she’d fallen into the habit of thinking of him that way.