Wrong Face in the Mirror: A Time Travel Romance (Medicine Stick Series) by Barbara Bartholomew

in marrying him. It had been so out-of-the-blue that he couldn’t take it in, but she had seemed so sad and terribly sincere that he hadn’t known how to persuade her otherwise.
    She’d packed up her little suitcase and left the house and he’d gone into town on a bender such as he’d not indulged since he was in his wild teens and, unfortunately, he’d told his buddies at the saloon about how Hart had left him for another man.
    He closed his eyes at the thought. In his right mind and sober, he’d never have bad-mouthed the woman he married and still loved.
    And the next thing he knew, the sheriff from a nearby county was telling him he was under arrest on suspicion of murdering his wife. That particular sheriff was freshly elected and new to his job and had no previous acquaintance with Alistair or the damn fool might have known better. His deputies locked him up in his own jail with deep apologies and he recovered from his bender, waiting to be transferred to a less friendly county lock-up and not much caring because he was so afraid for Hart.
    Maybe that fellow she’d said she loved had harmed her. She was inexperienced with bad men and probably had little idea of the reasons and rational of such.
    Somehow the transfer never came through and he suspected some of his local friends had gamed the system to keep him in Wichita County, though he heard that Hart’s brother was pushing hard against him. “It’s always the husband,” Tommy went around reminding everybody, wild in his grief. He talked about what he would do to Alistair if he could get his hands on him.
    It had been a nightmare lasting only a few days and he’d given up all hope of seeing Hart again when they came and let him out, telling him she’d been found in Oklahoma City, unconscious but with no apparent injuries. And they could hardly build a case against a man for a murder that hadn’t occurred.
    What had happened to Hart and why couldn’t she remember? With something like a mental jerk, he realized what he was thinking.
    He no longer believed she was faking amnesia and wasn’t sure he believed her claim of being in love with another man. Something was very wrong with his wife and he determined to do what he could to help her.
    DNA tests would be part of the examination of those bones found in the lake, but he couldn’t wait for those. Hart said a woman named Stacia had died that day and he’d found out that a person by that name had lived in Medicine Stick.
    If she was real, h e needed to learn what had happened to Stacia and her family. That would be the first step in investigating a murder that happened so long ago that explanations were unlikely, but his primary concern was Hart herself.
     
    Hart came home from work to find her sister-in-law waiting in her car outside the antique shop. Nikki got out when she saw Hart pull up and said without even bothering with a greeting, “We’ve got to talk.”
    Puzzled at this unexpected attention, Hart unlocked the door and led the way inside.
    Nikki shuddered dramatically. “It’s so dirty and creepy down here. I don’t know how you stand it.”
    “I don’t live here. I live upstairs.” Hart did feel faintly guilty that she hadn’t made some effort to at least dust and sweep the downstairs, but she had been so busy and concerned with other things that she hadn’t been up to facing the mess.
    Anyway, it was her place, not Nikki’s. She wasn’t going to let a person who so obviously didn’t like her make her feel bad.
    She didn’t offer to make tea or find a cold pop for her sister-in-law. She was just to o weary to do more than motion the other woman to a chair.
    She waited, thinking to judge from outward appearances that Nikki with her round face, dimpled cheeks and large blue eyes looked instantly lovable.
    And maybe she was. Perhaps all her friends adored her and she was kind to children and patient to the students she coached at Mountainside High. Whatever? If so her benevolence