Lost & Found Love. Laura Browning

on her door to see if she was okay, but no one answered. All I saw was the cat.”

      Joe squeezed Tyler’s shoulder comfortingly even though another frisson of unease went down his spine. “I’ll check on her when I get everything wrapped up here. Will that suit you?”

      Tyler grinned. “Sure. Thanks, Pastor.”

      The boy dashed down the steps and ran along the sidewalk. Joe shut the door and headed back to his office. The church treasurer and secretary had totaled the offering and were preparing the deposit. They acknowledged him with a smile as he waved to them before entering his office and shutting the door. Joe looked out the window toward the back of his house and Tabitha’s. Nothing stirred in the thick heat of early September, but he saw the window on the third floor was open to whatever breeze there might be.

      Was she working in her studio and hadn’t heard the boy? He’d like to think that, but he couldn’t get his mind off the fact something made her flee Evan and Jenny’s house last night. Thinking of the slam of the screen door he’d heard, Joe realized it must have been Tabby. But she hadn’t been working. There hadn’t been a light on in the house all evening. Unease changed to worry, and he couldn’t explain even to himself why this woman had touched him more than any other.

      He tossed his coat and tie over the veranda railing near her back door and rolled back the sleeves on his dress shirt before unbuttoning the collar. He had already banged on the door, but the only thing stirring was the cat. The black feline took one look at him with her golden eyes and disappeared into the bushes around the front of the house. He shook his head. It was downright spooky how much that cat’s eyes looked like Tabby’s.

      Joe waited a few minutes more and knocked again. When there was still no response, he swallowed and pushed open the unlocked door, knowing he might well destroy any headway he’d made with her on a personal level by intruding on her privacy now. The kitchen was dark and cool.

      “Tabby?” he called. He tried again at the bottom of the stairs, pausing for a moment as he went over things in his mind. Her bicycle was on the porch, and her car was in the drive. He supposed it was possible she’d gone for a walk, but deep in his gut, he didn’t think that was the case. After taking the stairs two at a time, he checked the second floor where he found what was obviously her room from the personal touches: a skirt tossed over a chair back, a brush, and hair bands scattered on a vanity. The bed was neat as a pin, like it hadn’t been slept in.

      He ran up to the third floor and slowly pushed open the door of the studio. He hadn’t felt quite this much trepidation since he’d served as a medic in the military. There’d been plenty of times they’d had to enter situations where they had no idea what they might find on the opposite side of a door.

      The studio was a mess. A handful of canvases were ripped, their frames broken, and her easel lay on its side. However, the painting of him she had started was carefully propped on the window seat, above the huddled, sleeping form of Tabitha MacVie. She was still dressed in what she’d left the house in last night. Hair that had once been neatly braided now cascaded in tangled strands around a face almost deathly pale in comparison.

      “Tabby!” he whispered urgently, rushing over to her side. Calling on his past military training, he put his fingers to the side of her neck. Her pulse was normal. Breathing appeared fine. He felt her forehead only to find it cool to the touch. Relief coursed through him. It appeared she was doing nothing more than sleeping. “Come on, darling,” he coaxed, barely wondering at how easily the endearment slipped off his tongue. “Wake up.”

      Her lids fluttered. “Joseph?” her voice was hoarse and her eyes unfocused. “You sound worried. You shouldn’t worry about me. You should always be joyful.”

      His gaze skittered around the room again. “What happened, Tabby? Are you all right? Did… Did someone break in? Did anyone bother you?”

      At his words she finally struggled to sit up and focus. As her eyes took in the canvases, they widened, panic reflected in them until she assessed what was actually destroyed. “Oh thank God,” she whispered. “It’s only those. Not the ones that matter.”

      A trio of canvases lay torn and splintered, and they didn’t matter? Joe looked around again. He spied the one he’d seen yesterday, the one he’d commented looked like Dante’s vision of hell. Its frame was broken and the canvas slashed. Yes, it was a dark painting, but it was brilliant—and it didn’t matter?

      He looked into her pale face, into tawny eyes that burned so brightly, and gently stroked the hair from her face. “Tabby, shall I call Doc?”

      She shook her head, then did something that shook him to the core. Her hand covered his where it rested against her cheek and she closed her eyes, as if she were trying to absorb his touch into her skin. For a moment, he would swear she purred like a cat. “No. No. I’m fine, Joseph.”

      “The police? Jake can get an investigation rolling. We don’t normally have a lot of crime around here.”

      “No. There’s no need.”

      Confused, he looked around the mess in the studio. Had she done this? But she’d talked almost as if it were a surprise. If she did do it, wouldn’t she know what was destroyed? And why would she destroy her own work? He swallowed, sensing he hovered on sensitive ground. He helped her to her feet, his hands on her arms to steady her as she swayed. His brow furrowed.

      “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” he asked quietly, sure she hadn’t had supper or anything since then.

      “I don’t know. What day is it?”

      “It’s Sunday, Tabby.”

      “Oh. Good.”

      He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her so she wouldn’t see the shock on his face. She didn’t know what day it was? As his hands stroked her back, he rested his cheek against the side of her head. “I think we should call Doc.”

      She shook her head again. “I—I don’t want to see her, Joseph. Not Jenny. It will hurt her.”

      He continued to hold her and rub her back. It felt right. “Why will it hurt her, Tabby?” he probed gently.

      “It hurt her to see me last night. It makes her remember things that hurt her. I get that.”

      His eyes narrowed in confusion and concern. She wasn’t making sense. “Did you already know Evan and Jenny?”

      She leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “No. I knew of Jenny, but she didn’t know about me. She’s—she’s my sister, Joseph, but she didn’t know. She doesn’t want to know.”

      A sob shook her, and his arms tightened. “Ah, Tabby,” he murmured and rocked her. He didn’t probe, didn’t ask questions. He had figured out long ago that silence often elicited more information. But in this, Tabby surprised him once again because she volunteered nothing else. Instead, her arms crept around his waist, and he wondered again at how right it felt to hold her. Her body curved into his as if it had been made to do exactly that. He leaned his cheek against her silky hair. He wanted to do so much more than simply comfort her that it scared him. He’d managed to stay clear of getting entangled into any kind of relationship, and a relationship with this woman wouldn’t be easy or simple.

      “You’re so peaceful, Joseph,” Tabby whispered. “I heard it in your voice the first night here. But you sounded lonely too. You don’t seem that way now. You must have found what you were looking for.”

      His fingers stroked through her dark hair and tilted her face to his. “You heard all that in my voice?”

      She withdrew from him and grimaced. “Don’t mind me. I’m tired, I guess.” She looked around the studio. “Don’t worry about this. I was exorcising some demons I guess you might say.”

      Whatever the moment, he realized it was gone. He turned her loose, shoved his hands into his pockets, and swallowed. “Those must be some pretty powerful demons. I’ll help you clean