Page 19 of Colton in the Wild
She couldn’t get to her feet, was afraid she’d scream again if she even tried, so instead she rolled over, biting her lip fiercely to keep from crying out as her wounded leg took her weight for a moment.
Shot. She’d actually been shot.
She kept rolling, knowing the sooner she got out of sight in the trees, the better. The bullet had gone from the front of her thigh through the back, and she knew enough to know the exit wound would be the worst. But as far as she could tell, it hadn’t hit the bone, so the big thing she had to worry about was the femoral artery. She kept as much pressure as she could on the wound while still getting herself under some kind of cover. She tried to blank the pain by concentrating on working out exactly what had happened.
She’d taken a grateful drink of the clear, cool water, straightened and… Had she started back down yet? Or had she been in his line of fire simply by being at the waterfall? Had he known where it was and that, needing water, they would end up there? Had he spotted her and followed? Or had it just been chance that they’d both wound up within sight of each other?
Within sight.
That’s what she should be thinking about. The fact that she’d seen him, although only a glimpse. Enough to tell he was indeed male, tall and with longish, wavy blond hair trailing down below the edge of what had looked like a knit cap. She thought she’d seen a mark on his face, a scar maybe, on his left cheek, but it could have just been a smear of something.
And he was wearing some sort of camouflage. The gray-and-black stuff. Which didn’t work so well. She felt a spark of disdain for the man who clearly had thought it was always snow and rock here, when in fact so much burst into greenery this time of year.
She wondered if the guy—
“Hetty!”
It was a low but powerful sound, a whisper, yet projected all the way to where she was now lying in the shelter of the trees.
“Here,” she answered, trying to get the same power into her voice as he had. She did, but only by letting some of the pain drive it. She thought she heard him swear, low and harsh, and knew he’d read the undertone.
It was probably less than a couple of minutes before he found her, although it seemed longer as she grasped at the bloody hole in her leg, still trying to stem the bleeding. He was on his knees beside her in an instant, edging her hands away from the wound.
“Spence, I found—”
“Shh. Let me check.”
She hushed. Her apology for bringing this down on them could wait. So could the reason for it, for the moment. She concentrated on not screaming as he examined her leg. It took her a moment to realize what he was doing when at first he simply held her leg and watched it bleed, front and back.
“The artery?” she asked, trying not to let her fear into her voice.
“I don’t think so. It’s not pulsing, just bleeding. But it’s bleeding a lot, and we’ve got to stop it.”
He yanked off his belt free and wrapped it around her leg as a makeshift tourniquet.
“But he’s out there—”
“I know.” He tightened the belt hard enough she nearly moaned. “So we’re moving right now.”
“But I don’t think I can—”
Before she could finish the sentence, Spence was picking her up. More easily than she would have thought possible given she was not a small woman at five-eight and she had a lot of muscle. She opened her mouth to protest but it died in her throat. If him carrying her hurt this much, it was obvious she couldn’t walk. He got to his feet as if she weighed no more than that stoat they’d seen. Cradling her carefully, he started toward the cave.
It was a strange feeling for her, this helplessness. She’d fought it all her life, vowing at an early age to never be that helpless sort of female. Or, for that matter, male, like the scared-of-his-own-shadow kid from her first computer class back in high school. She’d felt an odd sort of pride that she hadn’t been as nervous as he’d been, and never had been. Thanks to her mom and dad, she had more faith in herself than that boy’d had.
But now she didn’t seem to have the strength to fight that helpless feeling. Or maybe it was just because it was Spence and she knew that, in this, she could trust him with her life. Because when the chips were down, Spence Colton would come through. He always had, and he always would.
Hetty surrendered to the weakness she’d always fought. She didn’t ever want to be seen as weak, by anyone. She wanted to be like her mother, tough, strong, bending but never breaking no matter what life threw at her. But that was one more thing; Spence would never hold this against her, or throw it back at her the next time they fought over…well, the only thing they ever fought over.
She let her head rest against his shoulder, taking what comfort she could from his strength, his heat. The pain from her leg did not lessen, but it seemed to matter less at the moment. That was a marvelous knack he had. She’d seen him calm others when something happened on a trek. He always managed to take the edge off a situation, no matter what it was. He was especially good with kids, which she’d always found appealing.
Come on. You find everything about him appealing, except the fact that every other woman seems to feel the same way.
She’d never minded competition. In fact, she thrived on it in many arenas. Except this one. The one she couldn’t handle: competing for attention from the man who had once been the tangled-up teenager she’d tutored in high school. The kid who had had to fight so hard to do what other kids their age did easily. The kid who had lit up when she’d made that crucial suggestion one day years ago and it had worked.
And three days later, after he’d practiced the visualization idea with words and sounds over the weekend, he’d showed up at their session and given her a huge, fierce hug that had made her breath stop and her heart race. She had—
She snapped out of the hazy reverie when she realized they were at the cave entrance.
