He tried to move the other one’s hands away from his chest. She was peeling off his shirt and pressing at the wound, which was higher than he’d thought, and farther left.
“Hit the front of your shoulder,” the redhead told him. “A few inches south it’d’ve been your heart. Looks like the bullet passed right through, which is good. Can you make a fist? Yeah, good.Raise your arm?” She nodded as he did so, though it hurt. “I don’t think it hit anything vital. I can patch you up.” Then, “This is gonna sting,” as she poured what he thought was alcohol over the hole in his body.
There were others, men, four of them, two his age but a lot bigger, two younger and closer to his size. All of them were looking at him with way more in their eyes thanWe found a wounded stranger in the woods.
“I have to go after her,” he said again. He was hurting bad.
“That’s what any one of us would say in the same situation,” said one of the bigger guys, the lighter one. “Go figure.”
“We passed some boats back a little ways,” the Native woman said. “Orrin, Trevor, go back and get them. Hurry.”
“Bring a boat for me,” Wolf called, but his voice wasn’t very loud.
The Native woman looked at the redheaded animal doctor. “Can he come with us to rescue his, uh…Camellia?”
“Camellia?” the little blonde asked. “Really? That’s a pretty unusual name.”
“She’s a…PI. Helping me.”
“You don’t say,” the little one said. “What’s her last name?”
“Rio,” he said. “I have to go after her.”
“We need to make sure you don’t bleed out when you do,” said the redhead, pressing bandages over the wound she’d cleaned and taped together. “You move too much, and that bleeding’ll start right back up.” She closed his shirt.
“I have to go after her.” God, it couldn’t end like this. Not like this.
Why hadn’t he just told her that he loved her? Why hadn’t he realized it sooner?
Willow said, “They’re coming with the boats.” She reached down a hand. He clasped her forearm and she pulled him to his feet. It hurt to move even that much.
He looked where she was looking and saw four canoes in the distance. The younger guys, Orrin and Trevor, were each paddling one and towing another behind.
Willow said, “I know you’re going through a lot right now, Wolf.” She swallowed hard after saying his name. “But I have to ask—where did you get that bracelet?”
Wolf looked at her again. There was something familiar about her face, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. Maybe it was just because she looked like him. He hadn’t been raised around many Natives.
He looked toward the boats. They were taking forever. “I was wearing it when my mother found me.”
She made a sound like she’d choked on a breath, then swallowed hard and whispered as around her, the others gathered closer, hanging on his words.
“Found you?” Willow asked.
For some reason, he didn’t feel like lying. “Yeah, right over there, as a matter of fact. Where the garbage washes up.” He just wanted to get the hell out of there and rescue Camellia.
The woman had stopped talking. The canoes were close. He glanced at her, then got stuck on her face, because there were tears sliding over her cheeks. She said, “It seems weird to you we’re all so emotional. You see, we’re family. Cousins. Close kin. We just found out that my brother was lost in a flash flood before I was born.” Her voice was unsteady, broken every now and then by soft breaths. “The river tore him from our mother’s arms. He was only two weeks old. And he was…wearing that bracelet.”
Everyone around them went silent. The two with the canoes had arrived, pulled their boats up onto the bank, and had come closer to listen in.
Wolf stared at Willow, then at the others, knowing they must be his blood. His family. “What was his name?” he asked, because he didn’t know.
“Jonathon Wolf Brand,” she said. “My brother.”
She slid her arms around his neck and hugged him very gently, and he whispered, “Mysister?”
And nearby, the littlest blonde muttered, “Camellia freakin’Rio.Well, ain’t that a kick in the ass!”
Camellia
