Читать книгу Westin Legacy - Alice Sharpe, Alice Sharpe - Страница 13

She moved her hands over his prone body and felt blood and torn clothes.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she leaned over him and whispered his name, feeling his throat, searching for a pulse, cursing herself for becoming a television producer when she could have done something useful with her life like going to medical school. She felt no reassuring pulse, just the shaking of her own hands.

The moon bathed his face in silver light, glancing off the planes of his cheeks, stressing his bone structure. His hat was long gone and his hair now brushed his forehead above his eyebrows. He looked young and vulnerable, more like the child she’d known a lifetime before, the one she’d worked hard to impress or infuriate, anything but be ignored…?.

Smoothing a few dark locks away and leaning down, she carefully kissed his lips. “I’m so sorry—”

A hand clutched her wrist and she gasped.

“What are you sorry about now?” Adam mumbled.

She threw herself down on him, tasting the salt from her own tears as she kissed his face a half dozen times.

“Easy, easy,” he said, his voice soft. “I’m fine. Just a little bullet hole. Where’s the gunman?”

She sat back up, wiping tears away from her cheeks, gathering her aplomb. “I heard an engine start,” she said at last.

“And you’re not hurt?”

“No, I’m fine. Just scared. I thought you were dead and I thought it was my fault, that my bullets had hit you. Damn it, Adam, I thought I killed you!”

“I’m sure you tried your best,” he said, releasing his hold on one of her hands. “The other guy just got me first. Help me sit.”

She smiled at his snarky remark, feeling better at once. The world was whole again. “Do you think sitting is a good idea?”

“Yeah. Come on, help me.”

She gave him a hand to steady himself as he slowly sat up. She’d brought along a flashlight and she used it now to study his wound, poking with her finger a little. He shrank away from her.

“You’re kind of delicate for a cowboy, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Watch it!”

“I don’t think the bullet is still in there. I think it went right on through.”

“This is your expert opinion?”

“Yes. I gave my cat a distemper shot once. I know all about this stuff. I’ll stop the bleeding and you’ll feel better.”

Within a few minutes, she’d stripped off her jacket. She was about to tell him to close his eyes but that was silly. Without a flashlight pointing at an object—in this case her—it was darn near invisible. She pulled the sweatshirt over her head, then put the jacket back on over her bra.

The sweatshirt got cut into a dozen strips and patches with his pocketknife. “It’s not bleeding too much anymore,” she finally said as she tied the last soft strip of cotton around his shoulder. “Did you ride your horse?”

“Yeah. How about you?”

“I brought Bagels.”

“After what you went through today, you saddled Bagels and rode him all the way out here?”

“Yes. All by myself.” She didn’t mention getting lost once or twice. No need for details.

“I doubt he’s still around.”

“I don’t know. I tied him up pretty good.”

“Judging from the way he reacted to your tension earlier today, the gunfire must have terrified him. Don’t worry, he’ll find his way home, but it means you’re stuck here with me because I’m not leaving this cave. Will you dig my phone out of my left pocket?”

“You can’t stay here!”

“I’m not leaving.”

“I’ll stay, you go home.”

He laughed—oblivious in the dark of her narrowing eyes—but his voice, when he spoke, was soft. “Please, Echo, just help me get the phone.”

She did as he asked, squeezing her hand into his front left pocket. It was a tight fit and she could tell her hand fishing around down there had a predictable effect on his libido, which was pretty amazing given his current condition. She tried to make the search as impersonal as possible. Still, his arousal intrigued her—perhaps he wasn’t indifferent to her, after all. Hooking his phone, she dragged it out of his pocket and handed it to him. “Who are you calling?”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Cody. He can come help us so we can go back to the ranch. I need to make arrangements to have this site protected.”

“But your father—”

“To hell with my father. You could have been killed tonight.”

She diplomatically chose not to point out that she wasn’t the one with a bullet in the shoulder. Instead, she cleaned up the makeshift medical supplies while Adam called his brother. As he talked, she went downhill in search of Bagels and found he’d bolted just as Adam had predicted, all but breaking off the limb to which he’d been secured. Then she marched uphill and found Adam’s horse quietly munching weeds and staring into the dark as though this was just a night like any other.

But it wasn’t.

She leaned her forehead against the big horse and wrapped an arm around his neck. He produced a soft sigh and nuzzled her hair.

Eventually she wandered back to Adam’s side and found he’d scooted up sideways to lean against a tree. A quick once-over with the flashlight revealed he was ashen beneath his tan and his teeth were clenched.

“Cody is on his way,” he said.

She sat down beside him. “How are you doing?”

“Peachy.”

“How are you really doing?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Are you cold?”

“A little. You?”

“Yes,” she said although she wasn’t. All that running up and down the hill had warmed her up, but he looked like he could use a little TLC. She moved closer, snuggling against his right side and doing her best to remember she was there for warmth and comfort and nothing else.

“I have to hand it to you,” she said.

He’d sunk down a little. “Why?”

“Well, I thought life on a ranch would be kind of, I don’t know, predictable.”

“It is,” he murmured.

She didn’t respond. Nothing she’d experienced since getting here had seemed even remotely predictable.

In a halting voice, he added, “Normally it’s all about the ranch. The cows. The animals. Things happen in a pattern, seasons bring different challenges. Pulling calves—”

“What’s that mean?”

“Helping the mother give birth. Anyway, nothing that’s gone on today has anything to do with ranching.”

She leaned closer until their heads touched. He didn’t draw away. “So this isn’t another day at the office?”

“No,” he murmured.

They sat quietly until she noticed his breathing had grown deeper and his weight against her arm heavier than before. “Adam?” she whispered.

No response. For a second her heart froze—what if he’d gone unconscious or even died? Then he made a soft groaning noise. Just asleep. That meant it was up to her to keep watch. Sitting as still as she could, she concentrated on night noises and was astounded by how many of them there were.

What would she do if she suddenly heard the sound of a returning motor? There was no more ammunition. The concern had no sooner sprung to mind than it turned real.

“Adam,” she said again, this time more urgently.

He jerked awake. “What?”

“I hear an engine.”

He tilted his head and listened. “Relax, it’s coming from the lake trail and our thief comes around from the mountain. It must be Cody.”

She took a deep breath and got to her feet, hoping he was right.

By the time Cody appeared, his vehicle’s headlamp sweeping the clearing, she’d collected Solar Flare and helped Adam stand.

Cody was slightly taller and heavier than Adam, good-looking as all the Westin men were, in an outdoor tough-as-nails way. Where Cody differed the most from Adam were his eyes. It wasn’t only that they were darker. It was the No Trespassing sign that was impossible not to notice. She knew his marriage had fallen apart several months earlier, but really, in this day and age, besides Adam, who hadn’t suffered that fate? She herself had been in and out of different relationships for years, even tying the knot once for a whole eleven months.

“Hello, Echo,” Cody said as he got off the vehicle, produced an electric lantern and held it aloft. “I was hoping to see you again before you left, but not like this. Are you okay?”

It was like the Wyoming question of the day. “Fine,” she said. “It’s your brother who’s about to drop.”

Cody directed the light and looked at Adam closely. He whistled. “Man, you look like hell.”

“I feel like hell.”

“You want to carry that bullet back to the ranch or do you want me to dig it out here?”

“Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman here says the bullet isn’t in there.”

Echo rolled her eyes.

“You were lucky you weren’t up here alone when that happened,” Cody said.

Adam’s fingers grazed Echo’s arm. “I know.” His attention once again on Cody, he added, “Sorry I had to wake you.”

“You didn’t wake me. The two oldest Garvey brothers showed up at the house about an hour and a half ago, drunker than skunks. They swear Open Sky owes them two hundred bucks in Lucas’s back wages.”

“They were both there?”

“In the flesh.”

“Damn.”

“Are you sorry you missed them?” Cody asked with what Echo suspected was a rare flash of a smile.

“No, I just had my heart set on one or both of those losers being behind the thefts and this shooting. If they were at the ranch yelling at you, they weren’t out here shooting at us.”

“Back to square one.”

“So, despite the fact Lucas did his best to kill Analise and Pierce, his brothers want money.”

“That’s right. I’m about ready to pay them out of my own pocket and get rid of them for good.”

“I’ll go half with you.”

“Deal. You’d better get back to the ranch. I’ll take Solar Flare up to the cave and keep guard. I’ll come join the mowing as soon as Mike relieves me in the morning.”

“I can run a tractor,” Adam said.

“Maybe.”

During the ensuing pause, Echo had to keep her mouth clamped shut. It was second nature to offer help, but she’d never even ridden in a tractor; on the other hand she had mastered her stepfather’s truck—how hard could a tractor be?

However, that wasn’t the plan. Tomorrow she was figuring out how to get to the airport and return home just to pack her bags and fly to New York where she had a month to find an apartment and learn to navigate the city before she started work. Time to let go of the past, the mountains and Adam Westin.

“I’m calling the university in the morning,” Adam finally said. “If they can start processing the cave this summer, they can figure out how to guard it.”