She giggled to herself as the weight in her chest lightened. The horrible suffocating sensation that had followed her onto the trail dissipated.
“I thought you meant don’t get married, but that wasn’t the point at all, was it? You meant, figure out what you want and go for it.”
A winter hawk soared overhead. No kite string attached.
“It always helped talking to you, Mom. I miss you so much.”
She ducked under another branch, but not quite low enough. A handful of snow fell onto the back of her neck. The cold shock of it made her yelp, then laugh out loud.
“Mom, are you throwing snowballs at me from beyond the grave? I wouldn’t put it past you.”
Melting snow trickled down her back. She stopped to brush it away, and just then another loud retort shattered the quiet.
She stumbled backwards, nearly falling on her skis. Holy shit. That gunshot was close. Why was the hunter coming toward the lodge? There were regulations about that. She pulled out her phone to call Jake, who’d know the best person to report this to, then realized she had no cell service.
Another crack.
Jesus. What was going on?
The shots seemed to be coming from up ahead, closer to the lodge—which was crazy. The end of the trail was in sight. It opened onto the edge of a clearing, very close to the parking lot. Should she keep going toward the lodge—and the very open, very exposed clearing?
Maybe she should get off the trail and ski around to the parking lot. But the thought of leaving the shelter of the woods gave her the shivers.
“Isabelle!”
Lyle’s voice, calling to her from the direction of the clearing. She heard footsteps too. Was he running through the snow?
“Isabelle!” Panic rang in his voice.
“Lyle! Be careful, someone’s being stupid and reckless with a gun,” she called back. “You should stay where you are and call the manager, or 911. Both.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, but I have no cell service.”
“I already called. Security’s on it.”
“Oh okay, good.” She saw him now, charging onto the trail in his thick sweater and boots, no skis. Running in the snow; not the most graceful way to travel across a snowfield, especially for a big guy like Lyle. She smiled at the sight of him—amused by his clunky boots and heaving chest, but also just so happy to see him. “Lyle, I’m really sorry about—”
Another gunshot, and holy shit, this one was close. A bullet sank into a tree trunk not three feet from her. She gasped and froze in place, like a deer in the headlights. That phrase finally made sense to her, because there was no way she could get any of her limbs to move. She simply had no idea which direction to go. Maybe if she stayed absolutely still no one would know she was there. A defenseless sitting duck. A deer-duck. In the headlights.
Lyle ignored the danger and kept coming, a moving target for whatever maniac was shooting. She wanted to ski toward him, to throw her arms around him and tell him that she loved him, but that bullet had frozen her brain. A bullet. Right near her. A few feet closer and she would be dead right now. Dead.
And in that moment, everything crystallized inside her. Love. Love mattered. It was the only thing that mattered. She’d become a doctor out of love, she’d tried to make her mother proud out of love, she treated refugee victims out of love, and she’d fallen for Lyle out of love. Love was everything and everywhere and it was so much bigger than all her fears and worries.
Another crack broke her trance. She cried out in fear, cringing with the absolute certainty that she was going to get shot. A bullet was headed her way right this minute and it was going to tear through her flesh—
But something else was flying through the air—Lyle.
31
With an inarticulate roar, he dove on top of her, knocking her to the ground. The wind whooshed out of her. His big body shielded her completely, except for her boots, which had snapped out of the bindings on her skis. She felt as if Dorothy’s house had landed on her in the land of Oz.
She lay there, catching her breath, listening for more gunshots. But none came.
“You okay?” Lyle’s voice rumbled over her head. Her face was smushed against his shoulder and all she could see was his sweater and a bit of sky overhead.
“Uh…I think?” She did a quick mental scan of her body and found no unusual pain or injury. Her puffy parka and snow-pants had cushioned her fall to the ground. “You?”
He didn’t answer. She squirmed against his body, trying to claim some space for herself.
“Lyle? Are you okay?”
“Felt something…” His words were slurred, as if his lips and tongue had gone numb.
All her instincts went into overdrive.
“Lyle. Are you hurt? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you. You’re talking right in my ear.” There, that was better. He sounded more alert now. “Can’t move my arm.”
“Shit. Can you get off me? I think you might have been hit. I need to look at you.”
With a grunt, he rolled off her and onto his back in the snow right next to her. She kicked away her skis and scrambled on her knees to his side. A neat little hole pierced his sweater, the cut fibers bristling. Blood welled from the wound underneath.
Her heart clenched. Her big, strong, beautiful, still-waters-run-deep Lyle had been shot.
But she couldn’t let her emotions take over. She needed to be a doctor right now, nothing else.
“Lyle, you have a bullet wound in your upper arm. There’s a good chance it broke your humerus as well. This is a traumatic injury that might send you into shock, so you can’t stay out here in the cold. We need to get you to an operating room.”
“I’m fine,” he wheezed. “Just need a little rest.”
“No. No rest. Time is not our friend here. I need to stop the bleeding and we need to get help.”
No cell service. Too far into the woods for anyone to hear. She couldn’t leave him alone here. Only one option made sense—walk out of here, so long as he had no spinal injury. And so long as the shooting was over. She hadn’t heard any more shots after the one that hit Lyle, but she kept listening even as she focused on Lyle.
“Any pain in your back?” She ripped her fleece headband off her head. She’d just washed it, so it would make the best pressure bandage she could manage on the fly.
“No. Just arm.”
“Can you move all your fingers and toes? Any tingling? Try it. Right now.”
“No. I mean, they move.” His voice sounded weak and thready, but at least he was alert enough to respond.
“Good. No spinal injury. That means you can try to walk. I need you to listen to me and do exactly what I say. You understand?”
“I will always listen to you.” It sounded like a vow, even though he said it in a voice she could barely hear. Damn, he was fading.
“That’s good. Because I know what I’m doing.”
“Because I love you,” he corrected. “I love you and I’ll always listen to you. And you’re a doctor. And I just got shot. And I love you.”
Oh shit, he was starting to ramble. That happened sometimes when a GSW victim went into shock. “I’m going to tear your sweater a little so I can see what’s going on. Ready? This might hurt.”
“Okay. Go.”
Ripping at the severed stitches, she expanded the hole in his sweater, then pushed up the t-shirt underneath to expose an area the size of a grapefruit. The skin around the wound was already swollen, blood gathering under the skin, spilling over. The bullet had torn into the thick muscle on the outside of his arm. If it hadn’t shattered the humerus or destroyed his shoulder joint, he’d be a very lucky billionaire.
Which made her think...
“Is there any chance that hunter was actually aiming for you?” she asked as she used snow to clean the area.
“Maybe. Couldn’t let him hurt you. That’s cold.” He shivered.
“Almost
done. I need to put pressure on this wound, and it’s going to hurt.” She folded her headband into a pad and pressed it over the wound. His muscles tensed, but he said nothing. The best thing would be to tape it but obviously she had nothing like that on hand. Nothing that she could wrap around the bandage…then she remembered.
In the pocket of her parka, she’d been carrying around her mother’s silk scarf, the one she’d found at the bottom of her box of journals.
She drew out the scarf, which spilled across her glove in a waterfall of purple and teal.
Sorry, Mom, your scarf might get a little bloody.
She tied it gently around the pressure bandage formed by the headband. “Move your hand,” she ordered him. “I don’t want to cut off your blood flow. Can you move it?”
He did so, and she nodded with satisfaction. “This wound is above the level of your heart, so it will be elevated once we stand up. I’m worried about your core temperature. Why did you run out here in nothing but a sweater?”
“Worried. About you. Heard a gunshot. Had to keep you safe.”
“Well, I appreciate that. And you probably saved my life. Now I intend to save yours, so do exactly what I say. Are you ready to stand up?”
“Don’t know…” He sounded as if he was drifting off.
“Doctor’s orders,” she said crisply. “I need you to stand so we can get you to a proper operating room.”
“You operate?”
“I don’t know. It will depend on several factors. But I promise that I’ll be there every step of the way, including in the operating room. I’ll be watching everything they do to make sure they do it right.”
“Bossy.”
“Yes. They have no idea what they’re in for.” With a shadow of a smile, she rose to her feet, then crouched back down to support him as he tried to do the same.
The process was probably excruciating for him. He slipped a few times in the snow, gritting his teeth against the pain. But he didn’t say a word of complaint.
Once he was standing, she took off her parka and draped it around him. It looked slightly ridiculous, too small on his big body, a jaunty brown puff, but it would have to do for now.
“Tell me if something hurts,” she told him as she took a position under his left arm, letting the right one dangle. She adjusted her parka so it covered more of his body. “Some pain is inevitable, but we can try to minimize it.”
“Don’t care. Used to pain. Boxer, remember?”
“Right. But a gunshot wound is a different kind of pain.”
“Only one kind I can’t handle.” He leaned on her as they took their first step down the trail.
“What’s that?”
“Losing you.”
Her heart exploded as if she were the one who’d just gotten shot. “Oh Lyle. You’re not going to lose me.”
“Because I never had you.”
“You had me, all right. You always did. You still do. Did you really say you love me?”
It was just now sinking in—as if she wasn’t entirely sure it was real.
“Yes. Have since the start. Love at first sight. Now even more. Every day more.”
“Lyle…” Emotion clogged her throat. “I was a jerk to you.”
“No. I was…the jerk. Listen—prenup.” The word was little more than a gasp.
If she hadn’t been such a dedicated doctor, she might have considered letting him try to walk on his own. “Excuse me? You know I don’t care about your money. And we haven’t even discussed—”
“Not for me. For you. For freedom. A…nomy.” That last word was swallowed into a gasp.
“Did you say ‘anatomy’?”
“No!” He brushed past a branch and staggered, wincing. “Autonomy. You need autonomy. Make…own choices.”
Wow. He really did know her. Because he was exactly right. For her to love completely, she did need autonomy. She needed to be an equal. Maybe that was what she’d feared most about getting involved with a billionaire.
Lyle was slowing down, starting to drag. She braced herself under him so he didn’t slump to the ground.
“You can do this, Lyle. But maybe you should stop talking. You’re injured, you shouldn’t be straining yourself with big words like autonomy.”
He laughed, then winced. “Laughing hurts.”
“Everything is going to hurt. Your body is going through a trauma. Just take it easy. Focus on your breathing. I got you. I’ll take care of you.”
“Bedside manner?” he managed.
“No, that’s never been my strong point, frankly. I get a little too impatient for that. I’m a field surgeon so I stick to the essentials.”
“Tell me. Come on, distract me.” He squinted at the clearing, which was still a good fifty yards away.
“Usually the essentials are things like ‘don’t move,’ or ‘roll onto your side’ or ‘hold this over that severed artery so you don’t bleed out.’ Oops. Was that too much?” He’d blanched when she mentioned the artery.
“Am I going to bleed out?”
“Of course you’re not going to bleed out. I’m here and I’m going to make sure you get through this with all your magnificent muscles still working properly.”
“Thank …you.”
Her heart twisted at the strain in his voice. This man had thrown himself between her and a bullet. What kind of person did that, other than the Secret Service? A very amazing, special, devoted person. The person she loved.
“I love you, Lyle,” she said softly. “I got all caught up in the things that might be difficult. And I still don’t know the answer about those things. But I love you with all my heart. And I trust you.”
He stopped walking and turned toward her. He held his injured arm close to his chest, his face pale, his gray eyes no longer cool. They blazed with intensity. “I promise…to live up to your trust. I believe in you. Your dreams. Your passions. I’ll put it on…paper. Sign in blood.” He waved his arm as he mentioned ‘blood,’ then flinched. “If I … have any left.”
“Don’t say that.” Tears in her eyes, she slipped her arm around him again and urged him to keep walking, but he wouldn’t move.
“Do we have a deal?”
“A deal? What do you mean? We have to get you to the hospital! I can’t make a deal with a dead person!”
“Do you love me?” The naked vulnerability on his pale face made her heart turn over.
“Yes. I love you. If I didn’t love you so much I wouldn’t be so furious at you right now. Come on! We have to keep going.”
He gave in and kept walking, leaning heavily on her, his body trembling from strain. “I love you too.”
“I know you do.” She looked up at him, this incredibly strong, rare human being she’d fallen so completely in love with.
He made a sound deep in his chest, apparently finally running out of breath for speech. Good. He needed to save his energy. She decided to keep talking so he wouldn’t be tempted to fill the silence.
“My mother told me when she fell in love with Max that it was like an earthquake. Like everything shifted and on one side of the rift was her old life and on the other side was Max and the mountains and all their plans. But she also said it was the most exciting thing that ever happened to her, and considering she grew up on a sailboat, that’s probably saying a lot. Mom loved excitement. She would have adored you.”
Lyle opened his mouth to say something, but she forestalled him—for his own sake. “Don’t talk. You need to rest. Want to know why Mom would have loved you? Because you love me and you listen to me. I really think that’s all she really wanted from Max. She wanted him to listen. Really listen. But that’s not his strong suit. You should have seen how hard I had to fight to go to med school. He really prepared me well for having to fight for what I wanted. And now—”
She squeezed her arm around him just a little bit tighter. “You’re what I want. Of course I’d prefer you not to have a hole in your arm.”
“Sorry,” he g
ritted. “Think it was Drew.”
“Really? He’d go that far to win your company?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Don’t know. Cops’ll find out. Hope.”
They reached the clearing. Up ahead, a security guard spotted them. Speaking into his earpiece, he ran toward them. “What happened?”
“Gunshot wound to the upper arm. Patient going into shock. You need to get a Medivac helicopter here immediately. He needs to be airlifted to the nearest hospital with an operating room. However, if that’s going to take too long, I need a cleared table and my medical bag, which is at Rocky Peak Lodge. Call Kai Rockwell, he can bring it.” She rattled off the phone number at the lodge.
“Ms. Rockwell, it’s okay. Help is already on the way. We have a paramedic van and police on their way.”
“Not enough. We need a Medivac.”
“The paramedics are well-trained and will get him where he needs to be.”
“No.” Her firm tone made him do a double-take. He was about her age, maybe a little older, but she didn’t recognize him.
“Excuse me?” He adjusted the earflaps on his hat, as if that had blocked his hearing.
“I said, no. He’s in pain, and he can’t be driven down that godawful bumpy road you guys don’t maintain properly. Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen to me.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Dr. Isabelle Rockwell, trauma surgeon, and if there isn’t a Medivac here in under fifteen minutes I’m going to raise holy hell.”
The fierceness in her voice made him flinch backwards. He eyed her cautiously, probably wondering if she was going to threaten him with a scalpel or something.
“And by the way, in case you didn’t realize, this is Lyle Guero. Lyle fucking Guero,” she emphasized. “The billionaire.”
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