Page 35 of Save Me

Chuck and Brenda were silent.

None of them knew Lainie was being airlifted, or that it would be Hunt who reached the trailhead alone. They kept glancing at each other and then looking away. They’d come to this place because of guilt and duty, but everything about this day felt wrong. They’d gate-crashed a reunion to which they no longer belonged.

IT HAD TAKEN the recovery team a little over an hour to hike out of the woods and back onto the trail. They’d been walking it for a while when Hunt began hearing the familiar blade slap of rotors. His pulse quickened, and then he heard Scott talking to Lainie.

“The chopper’s inbound. We’re almost there, Miss Mayes. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Where’s Hunt?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Behind us. He took the flank position, but you will see him before you leave. He’ll help load you up.”

Her throat tightened with yet another overwhelming urge to cry, but she wouldn’t. She didn’t want his last sight of her here to be in tears.

A small clearing on the south side of the trail became visible as they came out of the trees. A Classic Air medical copter was already down, rotors still spinning, with the doors open, waiting to hot load. The recovery crew immediately left the trail with Lainie and headed toward it.

Hunt dropped his pack on the trail and ran to catch up. She reached for his hand the moment she saw him, and then he ran the rest of the way with her. One quick kiss, and then he helped lift her up into the chopper. He got one last look at her face before the doors shut between them, and then he was running to get away from the downdraft as it lifted off.

Scott and the recovery crew were already heading down the trail when he grabbed his backpack and caught up.

“Where are they taking her?” he asked.

“Where she works—Denver Health Hospital,” Scott said. “They will be waiting for her.”

“I’ll find it. A big thanks to all of you, but here’s where we part company,” he said, and started down the trail at a lope.

“Damn, does he think he’s going to run the whole way down?” one man asked.

“He’s Army, man. He can probably run circles around us and then some,” Scott said. “Besides, I think he’s got a woman to see about the rest of his life.”

CHAPTER SIX

Lainie felt the chopper lift off, and then an EMT began taking vitals, while the nurse on board started an IV. They were talking to each other on their headsets, but the noise inside the chopper made hearing them impossible, so she laid still and closed her eyes. The end of this journey was where her healing began.

The trip was brief. The landing, little more than a bump, and they were down. The doors opened then they were pulling her out on the gurney and pushing her toward the hospital on the run.

The spinning rotors whipped the air into a frenzy, while the heat coming off the roof washed over her in a wave. She closed her eyes against the glare, and only knew they were inside the building by the sudden waft of cool air and people saying her name. Then they were on the move again, pushing her to the dedicated elevator that would take her down to ER.

IT WAS CHARIS’S day off, but she’d heard the new update early this morning that Lainie had been found alive, and the rescuers would be bringing her down the mountain today.

Charis had cried buckets when Lainie went missing, and now, knowing she had been found by the man she’d loved and lost, was like something out of a fairy tale. She was guessing they were using a chopper to pick her up somewhere along the trail, but without knowing the schedule or the ETA, she just went straight to the emergency room to wait for her arrival.

A couple of hours passed before they got word the chopper had landed. At that point, the ER erupted in a scurry of doctors and nurses readying for her arrival, along with a detective from the Denver PD, and a crime scene investigator.

Suddenly the paramedics appeared with their patient and rolled her into an exam room then transferred her to the bed as they were debriefing the waiting staff on her stats and condition.

Between the pain and fever, the trip down the mountain and then the chopper noise, Lainie arrived in the ER with a pounding headache and was on the verge of nausea. The room was spinning, and she was afraid she’d pass out when she suddenly spotted Charis at the door.

“Charis. I need to talk to Charis.”

Charis hurried into the room. “I’m here, honey... I’m here.”

“Hunt will be coming. Can you watch for him, and tell him what’s happening and where I am so he doesn’t tear up the hospital looking for me?”

“Of course, but how will I know him?” Charis asked.

“Look for tall, dark and handsome, ice-blue eyes, devil-black hair and stubble to match, and if you hear Louisiana coming out of his mouth, that’s him.”

“Consider it done,” Charis said, and left on the run, while one of the other nurses looked at Lainie and groaned. “Dang, girl. Does he have a brother?”

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