No sports jacket this time, she noted. He was wearing a white oxford cloth Polo shirt tucked into his jeans, and brown cowboy boots, which he’d been wearing the other two times she’d seen him. He was carrying a small white paper sack.She closed the door and joined him in the living area just as he was taking off his sunglasses. She managed to keep from gasping but just barely. His face, particularly around his eyes and along his jaw, was bruised.Gauging by the sickly color of the bruises, they were a week or so old. They must have looked much worse when fresh. The cut above his eyebrow was new. The one on his cheekbone was fainter than it had been a month ago.Either he was accident prone or…She didn’t want to speculate on the or. None of the possibilities that came immediately to mind were good.He noticed her staring, but since he neither acknowledged nor explained his battered appearance, she didn’t ask about it. He set his sunglasses and the sack on the coffee table, then stood looking at the closed doors of the armoire for several moments before turning back to her.
