He brushed his fingers softly through her hair. “Yeah. I’m here.”
“Don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“Me either. You and me, we’re going to stick together. Okay. You promise me that.”
“K.”
“I need to hear you promise.”
Her eyes opened for the first time.
He leaned in close, staring into the blue pools. “There you are. I got home yesterday and saw that you hadn’t been there and…” He went for it. “I missed you.”
She blinked back tears. A good sign the IV fluids were working. “Scared. So tired.
“I know. I won’t leave your side. Now promise me you won’t give up.”
“Should have asked you out. I wanted to. So many times. Too late…now.”
“No it’s not. You just need to fight.” He hoped she understood what he was asking for because he was having trouble finding the words. “You want a date. Done. Dinners. Movies. Sitting on the couch reading books together. Anything you want.”
“Time. With. You.”
“I want that, too. I have for a long time and I was stupid for thinking I didn’t deserve someone like you. And look. I almost lost you, before I ever got the nerve to ask you out. Do you know how many times I wanted to come home early and find you in my house just so I could see you there?”
“Every time…I wished you were there.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “Thought I was silly to dream you’d like me.”
“I more than like you. You’ve been a really good friend.”
“You. Too.” She was having trouble staying awake.
He needed to put their personal stuff on hold and tend to her. First thing he did was take off his boots and socks. He slid the socks on her feet, hoping to help warm her up some more. He pulled on his boots, then tended to some of the deeper scrapes on her backside. He took a chance and gently shifted her left leg so he could see the long gash running down it in addition to a lot more of those scars. “This is going to need stitches. It’s really deep. Right now, I’m going to clean and bandage it.”
She didn’t answer him, but he let her know he was there by giving her leg a soft squeeze, then he cleaned the wound, put a thick pad to staunch the new flow of blood, then wrapped her thigh in gauze to add pressure.
He didn’t tell her about the maggots he’d brushed out of the wound.
“Panties wet. Couldn’t hold it,” she mumbled, shifting her hips like she was uncomfortable. With the wind blowing down the hill, he bet those wet panties were cold against her skin.
He grabbed a pair of scissors and cut them on both sides, then pulled them off and stuffed them into a plastic bag for evidence. Just in case. He didn’t let his mind go there and took some comfort in the fact that she didn’t seem afraid of him, or opposed to him touching her. Not that she could move all that much.
A new sound joined the whispering wind and he looked up. “I hear a truck coming. It’s probably my guys.” A few seconds later, a chopper hovered high above them, too. “Down here,” he shouted up the hill, then grabbed the whistle out of his pack and blew it three times.
“Hawk?” Randy called over the ledge. “You down there?”
“What’s up there?”
“Fire road.”
That explained how she got here. Someone drove her and dumped her.
The rage that incited in him didn’t bode well for the person who hurt her. He’d make them pay. One way or another.
But first he needed to get her out of here. Alive.
Chapter Three
Hawk wanted to breathe a sigh of relief that reinforcements were here, but Lucky was in too bad shape to think that she was out of the woods. He’d barely tended to her multiple wounds. She’d lost a lot of blood.
