Page 69 of All Autumn
“Quiet.” I grabbed his arm. “He’s under there, but we have a big problem.” I pulled him down with me. “When I shine my light, look right behind his knees.”
“Fuck,” Adam whispered.
We quietly backed away. The boy was curled up, asleep, or I prayed he was only sleeping. Coiled behind his legs, as if seeking the boy’s warmth, was a rattlesnake. The snake’s head was tucked under his body, so at least he was also sleeping. For the moment.
“We need to wait until the others arrive,” Adam said. “Maybe one of them has a gun on him.”
“And we shoot the snake, the bullet goes through his body, then ricochets off the rock into the boy? Too dangerous.”
“Well, a fucking rattlesnake ain’t exactly a tea party, Connor.”
“Tell me about it.” I knelt again and peered under the overhang, hissing a breath at what I saw. Staying on my knees, I leaned away. “The snake’s awake.” The bastard had his head up, flicking his tongue in the air. We had to get the boy out of there before he woke up and moved.
I pulled off my backpack, handing it to Adam, and then gave him my flashlight. “I’m going to jerk the kid away.”
“You be damn careful, brother. You get bit, I swear, I’m going to leave you out here to rot.”
“Yeah, yeah.” In an effort to stay out of the snake’s line of sight, I fell onto my belly, then inched my arms along the ground toward the boy. I prayed he didn’t wake up and make any kind of movement.
When I got to Rusty, I slipped my fingers into the waistband of his jeans. A warning rattle, like rice being shaken in a paper cup, sounded. Closing my eyes, I said a little prayer, and then I yanked with every bit of strength I owned, pulling the boy with me as I rolled. He screamed and started kicking me.
“Easy, Rusty,” was all I had time to say before I hit a small tree. It gave way, and then the ground under me crumbled.
“Adam!” Unable to find purchase, I tossed the boy to him, then fell, tumbling head over heels for what seemed like a hundred years. At one point my foot hit a rock, and pain sliced up my leg. Glad that wasn’t my head, I managed to think. I don’t know how far I fell, like my very own avalanche, but I finally came to a stop on my back, unable to breathe.
Rain filled my mouth as I struggled to inhale. I squeezed my eyes shut, grimacing against the pain in my leg and in my chest. At least I was alive. I thought. I hoped. Dead, I wouldn’t be hurting this bad, right? Hopefully I didn’t have a collapsed lung.
It took a few minutes, but breathing finally became a little easier. The agony in my leg, though, was increasing by the second. I’d lost my helmet, and without the headlamp or my flashlight, it was damn dark. The good news, my GPS tracker was in one of the pockets of my cargo pants.
My satellite radio? I patted my left side where it had been clipped to my belt. Gone. Once I’d ascertained that I was alive and breathing, my heartbeat calmed. Adam wouldn’t leave this mountain until they found me. All I had to do was wait.
Something dripped into my eyes, something heavier than rain, blurring my vision, and a dull ache began to throb in my head. I swiped my hand over my forehead, then licked one of my fingers, the metallic taste of blood exploding on my tongue. The pain in my head grew, and between that and my aching leg, my stomach churned.
My vision grayed. “Damn,” I muttered, then gave in to the blackness.
37
~ Autumn ~
“Sleepy?” I asked Jenn.
“No. I can’t sleep until I know Dylan and the guys are okay and that they found the boy.”
“Yeah, me either,” I said although we were both nodding off at each end of Connor’s sofa. I blinked my eyes open and looked around. I couldn’t wait to start redecorating his house. It had so much potential. Unfortunately I hadn’t had a chance to show him my ideas before the guys had been called out to the search. I was a little nervous about him liking my design, but I thought it was pretty spectacular.
To pass the time and keep my mind off Connor, I went to my car and retrieved my briefcase. “Connor asked me to redecorate his house. I’m curious what you think of what I came up with,” I said when I came back in. Opening my laptop, I pulled up my design.
I’d only finished the living room so far, wanting to make sure he liked where I was going before I started on the rest of his house. It had a definite masculine feel, but if, someday, Connor married, all it needed were a few feminine touches—some pretty throw pillows, a few plants, things like that—to welcome a woman into his home. I narrowed my eyes at my design for his living room, suddenly hating it. This was my idea for his home, and some other woman shouldn’t love living here.
“Wow,” Jenn said, leaning against my arm as she looked at my laptop screen. “He’s going to love it.”
“So is she,” I muttered. I’d gone eclectic, combining modern with a touch of rustic that perfectly fit Connor’s log home, and what woman wouldn’t love this design?
Jenn glanced at me. “Who’s she?”
I closed my laptop lid. “Whoever he falls in love with.”
“Ah, her,” Jenn said, looking way too amused. “That could be you, you know.”
