by Elle James
Tristan felt like a coward and a failure, leaving Boudreau to fight alone. But at the same time, his primary goal was to keep Sandy and the baby safe. So he guided her toward the path as quickly as he could, cringing every time he heard a gunshot.
Sandy had finally quit coughing, but fighting the smoke in her lungs had exhausted her. She had more trouble navigating the path than he did. He tried letting go of her, but they were more stable together than apart.
Before they’d been on the path one minute, he heard rifle fire, followed by two shotgun blasts. He stopped, so suddenly that Sandy stumbled. He couldn’t bear the thought that he’d left Boudreau back there by himself, fighting men who were probably trained soldiers and who likely had some of the best weaponry available.
But getting Sandy to safety was the most important thing. Wincing at the gunfire, Tristan pulled Sandy close again and headed up the path to Boudreau’s house.
“Just a little farther, San.”
She nodded doggedly, obviously concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other for long enough to get to the cabin.
He turned her face to his and studied it. Were her lips turning blue, or was he seeing the combination of soot and the dancing reflections of the fire and smoke? He ran his thumb across her lips, then looked at it. Sure enough, his thumb came away stained with soot.
But the blue tint was still there. Was she that oxygen-deprived? There was no doubt that she was struggling to breathe. If he didn’t get some clean air into her lungs and some fresh water for her to drink to wash out the toxins, her lack of oxygen could not only hurt her, it could harm the baby.
He cursed his leg. They should have gotten to the cabin by now. He set his jaw against the pain and tried to increase his speed, hoping Sandy could keep up.
He heard a rustling of the vines and leaves lining the path behind them. He immediately dropped to the ground behind a tree and pulled Sandy down beside him. Retrieving his gun, he waited.
Beside him, Sandy made a small, distressed sound. “Tris, I’m tired—” A strangled cough erupted from her throat. She covered her mouth with both hands, but it didn’t help. The coughs kept coming.
“Hang in there, hon,” Tristan muttered, wincing at the noise she was making and wondering who—or what—he’d heard moving through the underbrush. “We’ll be at Boudreau’s in no time. Can you try not to cough?”
She made a guttural sound, a laugh or a groan.
At that instant, the leaves and vines started shaking and someone stepped into the path. Tristan stiffened and tightened his hand on the gun’s trigger, but it was Boudreau.
He breathed a sigh of relief and stood. Boudreau looked startled to see them.
“I’m sorry. We’re going as fast as we can.”
Boudreau’s mouth tightened. “Just keep going. I’ll stay here, hold ’em back.”
“We’ll make it. Come on, Sandy.” He helped her to her feet and put his arm around her again. He turned them toward Boudreau’s house and started walking.
Just then a loud crack followed by a whizzing sound split the air.
“Down!” Boudreau whispered. He remained standing and held the double-barreled shotgun at hip height and fired two shots.
Another rifle shot split the air.
“Mon Dieu,” he heard Boudreau mutter. “I let them get too close.”
Tristan pushed Sandy down behind a bush. He crouched beside her, listening. From what he could tell from the direction of the gunfire, the men were below his friend on the path, so any shot he took might hit Boudreau.
Within a minute, the men pursuing them loosed a barrage of gunfire. Boudreau threw himself to the ground.
“Boudreau,” he called out quietly between rifle shots. “You okay?”
The Cajun waved his hand. His message was I’m fine. The fact that he used their sign language sent its own message. Quiet! They’re very close.
More gunfire erupted from below them. Tristan ducked.
“Sandy?” He looked down at her, but she had her eyes closed. The corners of her mouth were white and pinched.
At that instant Boudreau rose, fired two thunderous rounds, ducked to reload in record time, then rose and fired two more rounds. He half turned and gestured to Tristan to head on to the cabin.
Tristan rose carefully. His leg was practically useless now. He felt as though he were dragging it. “San? Can you stand?”
She nodded. As they rose, two more shots rang out and Boudreau fired back.
He held out his hand for Sandy. She jerked and uttered a small, strangled moan as she straightened.
“I’m sorry, hon. I swear it won’t be much longer. Just keep going for me. Can you?” He had no idea where his determination was coming from.
If he were alone, he was sure he’d have collapsed long ago and done the best he could until a bullet took him out. But he wasn’t alone, so he couldn’t give up. He wouldn’t do that. Not to Boudreau, who’d saved his life at least twice already, and certainly not to Sandy and their baby. He had to keep going for them.
“Okay,” she said breathlessly.
They set out again for the cabin, trusting Boudreau to fend off their attackers.
Chapter Twelve
By the time they saw Boudreau’s cabin, every step for Tristan was a separate, blazing agony and a fool’s bet on a losing hand. Odds were that his next step could send him sprawling.
The only reason he hadn’t collapsed already was because he’d known Sandy couldn’t make it on her own. Her breathing was so shallow that she was panting. For some reason, she wasn’t recovering from the smoke as quickly as he was. His cough was almost gone and he was breathing more easily.
He stumbled through the cabin door and finally let go of Sandy. She flopped down onto the bed Boudreau had made for him. “Breathe deeply,” he said. “Sandy. Listen to me.”
She had her eyes closed, but she obediently tried to pull in a deep lungful of air, but it set off a coughing fit.
Boudreau came in on their heels.
“Miss Sandy,” he said. “You got to breathe deep. Got to get all that smoke out of your lungs. Drink water, too. Get rid of the toxins the smoke make.”
He pressed his fist into the middle of his chest. “Tristan, press on her diaphragm, gently, like this. Not hard. Just enough to make her blow as much air out of her lungs as possible. Then let go. She’ll have to breathe.” As he talked, Boudreau grabbed a hunting vest from a nail behind the door.
Tristan nodded. “Got it,” he said, pulling the handgun from the vest. “Wait. Are you headed back out? Can’t you rest?”
But Boudreau shook his head as he stuffed the pockets of the vest with shotgun shells. “Got to keep an eye out for them. Can’t let them get any closer. Long as we can hold them off, we’re okay. They got the path from here to the dock blocked. We can’t get down and anybody that comes up this way’s got to go through them.”
“What about the north side, by the artesian spring? Zach and I climbed up that way when we were kids.”
Boudreau nodded. “When you weighed less than half what you weigh now. Remember all that rain back a couple months ago, right before you were shoved off the rig? It washed a gully across down below the spring. Weren’t really possible to go that way before, the spring had eroded it so much. Now there ain’t no way anybody can get through there. It’s like a gumbo mud moat around my house.”
“So they can’t get to us without us seeing them on the path, but we can’t get out, either,” Tristan said.
Boudreau sighed. “Let me get out there. I got to do some thinking about what we need to do.”
“Boudreau,” Tristan said as his friend headed back outside. “Be careful.”
He was barely out the door when Sandy started coughing again and Tristan kept pressing on he
r chest.
“Oh,” she said, gasping. “You’re pushing all...the air out. I can’t...breathe.”
“I’ve got to. You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke. I’ll get you some water.” He didn’t like how she looked at all. She was pale and her hands were trembling, as were her lips. She sat, limp, with her eyes closed.
From a bucket that sat on a wooden table, Tristan filled a cup with water and brought it to her. “Here. It’s water. Take it.” He lifted her right hand and pressed the cup into it.
She curled her fingers around it and lifted it to her lips.
He went back to the table and washed his hands, then brought a bowl of clean water over to the bed.
She had drunk about half the water. “That’s good, hon, but you need to drink it all.”
“I’m fine,” she said, but talking made her cough again. She took another sip from the cup.
“Good. Now see if you can breathe deep on your own. You’re doing better. We’re going to get those lungs cleaned out.”
He wrung out a wet cloth and started cleaning her face as she sipped water from the cup.
Then by the time he got her face clean, she started coughing again. She gasped and grimaced.
“Your throat hurting?”
She shook her head. “My tummy.”
Tristan emptied the bowl and wrung out the cloth. “Like a stomach cramp?”
She shook her head and looked at him without blinking. “No. It hurts. I think something’s wrong.”
Tristan stopped wiping at a smudge on her cheek and studied her. “What do you mean? With the baby?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She lifted her shirt above the waist of her jeans and placed her hand on the top of her baby bump. Beneath her fingers, the denim was dark and damp. Too dark.
Blood? His heart thudded against his chest as a sick fear overtook him. Dear God, was she losing the baby?
“Ugh. My jeans are wet.” She looked at her hand, which was streaked with blood. “Tristan? Is that blood?” she said, her face turning pale.
“Yeah, there’s a little blood,” he said matter-of-factly, doing his best to mask his fear. “Do you remember running into anything?”
“I—I’m not sure. Tristan? What is it?”
“Don’t worry, San, it’s okay,” he said, hoping it was. But what could have happened to make her bleed, except... “Lie back. I need to take a look.”
Sandy took hold of his hand and pulled herself around so she could lie down. He pushed her shirt up again and immediately saw why she was bleeding.
There was a small hole in the jeans, about two inches to the right of the zipper.
“Oh, God,” he whispered. He touched the ragged hole. There was no doubt what it was. It was a bullet hole. She’d been shot.
“Tris? What’s wrong?” Sandy asked.
He tried to speak, but his throat had closed up and nothing, not even a squeak of air, could get through. He swallowed and tried again. “Damn jeans are tight!” he muttered.
“The little bean is getting bigger,” Sandy murmured.
By the time Tristan got her jeans down and off over her feet there was a lot of blood. The tight jeans had apparently served as a compress, keeping the bleeding to a minimum.
Without their pressure, she was bleeding freely—too freely from the small entrance wound. He used a clean cloth to wipe the blood away from her rounded tummy so he could see the wound. It was no bigger than the hole in her jeans, but that was no comfort. She’d been shot—in her tummy—where she was carrying their baby.
He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. She was watching him with wide, frightened eyes, waiting for him to assure her that everything was all right. He had to hold it together for her, because for some reason she still thought he was strong.
“Okay,” he said, doing his damnedest to keep his voice steady. “Looks like one of those bullets that were flying around hit you in the tummy, but it’s not nearly as bad as all the blood makes it look.”
“Bullet?” She lifted her head to try to see. “I was shot? Tristan?” She took one look at his face and started crying. “What about the baby?”
“Shh, everything’s going to be okay,” he said, hoping she would believe him. “Do you know when it happened?”
“No,” she said, her eyes closed and her arms limp at her sides again. “When we stood up from behind that second bush, I thought the jeans zipper pinched me. Maybe it wasn’t the zipper. Maybe it was a bullet.”
It had to be. There had been a couple of shots fired about the time Boudreau had yelled at them to run.
“Tristan,” she cried, grabbing his arm. “What about the baby!”
“Hey. I’m right here. I promise you, he’s going to be fine.” He mentally crossed himself and asked forgiveness for whatever kind of lie it was that spared a terrified, wounded young woman a horrible possibility.
“How can you know? You can’t know. Bean!” she shrieked, wrapping her hands around her baby bump. “Little bean?” Those two words were so low he barely heard them.
Boudreau appeared at the door. “Tristan, she’s got to stay quiet.” He looked at her belly. “Oh.” He muttered a French curse word and propped his shotgun against the door facing.
Tristan met his gaze and saw the worry on his face. “Is there an exit wound?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Tristan said. “I don’t think so.”
Boudreau’s brows drew down. “Move over,” he ordered.
Tristan moved.
Boudreau sat in his place. “Miss Sandy, I’ve got to look at your back for a minute. Okay? I’m going to lift you up. I hope it don’t hurt too much. But I’ve got to do it. Okay?”
Sandy’s eyes lifted to Tristan’s, and he nodded. So she nodded at Boudreau.
He lifted her with his big hands and turned her toward him, onto her side. She sucked in a quick breath when he lifted her, but then she was quiet.
Boudreau examined her from her buttocks all the way up to her hairline. Then he looked at Tristan and shook his head.
Tristan felt a combination of relief and dismay. Relief that the bullet hadn’t exited her body, leaving a much larger and more damaging wound than the entrance one.
But no exit wound could be worse. That meant that the bullet was still inside her. And if it had bounced off a bone, a bullet could do immeasurable damage to internal organs. The fog in Tristan’s brain turned to a sharp, sheer panic.
That bullet was in there, inside his wife. She could be hemorrhaging internally. If it had ripped into the womb, it could have hit the baby.
“Tris? What is it? Is it bad?” Sandy asked, her voice rising in pitch again. Tristan needed to say something comforting to her. He tried. But his voice wouldn’t work.
His gaze met Boudreau’s and he read the message in the old man’s eyes loud and clear. Do not upset your little wife.
Substituting determination for truth, he turned to his wife. “No. Luckily your back’s not bleeding, and that’s a good thing,” he said with a small smile.
Boudreau stood. “I got to go. I think they’re pretty close. Can’t give them a minute or they might be on top of us.”
Tristan could see that Boudreau was past exhaustion. In his tired eyes and in the droop of his sinewy shoulders, Tristan could count how many hours it had been since he’d slept.
He looked back at Sandy and found her watching him with that same wide-eyed, frightened expression on her face.
“Are you still hurting?” he asked.
She nodded without taking her eyes off him.
Boudreau pointed to a box sitting on the rough-hewn table under the window. “There’s salve and potion in there. The same potion I gave you. Don’t give her much. And look in that trunk at the end of my bed. You might find
a nightshirt she can wear. Tie a couple of cloths together to make a bandage to wrap around the wound. Miss Sandy, you hold pressure with your hand until he gets the cloth wrapped around. Okay?”
Her head moved infinitesimally.
Boudreau went back outside.
When Tristan brought the potion to Sandy with a chaser of water, she asked him, “Is it safe for the baby?” she asked.
Tristan nodded as he poured some of the milky liquid from the brown jug into a tin cup. “Boudreau wouldn’t give it to you if it wasn’t okay. But it’ll probably make you sleepy,” he said, brushing her hair back from her face again. “That’s okay. Just go ahead and take a nap. I’ll get you a nightshirt in a little while. Okay?”
“Tris?” she said softly. “I haven’t felt him kick.” Her eyes were shining with tears. “And I know that’s a bad sign.”
He smiled at her and touched her lips with his fingers. “No worries, okay? That baby’s fine. He’s tired, just like the rest of us.” He touched her chin and leaned down and gave her a quick kiss on the corner of her mouth, but she didn’t smile back at him. She closed her eyes and a lone tear slid down her cheek.
“I’m going to see what it looks like outside. I’ll be close by,” he said, then stood and stepped outside.
The first thing he saw in the dark sky was the fire. The yellow and orange flames licked at the sky. It was obviously out of control. The house had been his father’s and his grandfather’s before that. Now it and everything inside it was gone.
“Our friends do that?” he asked Boudreau.
“Yep,” Boudreau said, walking up to stand beside him. “I’m pretty sure they used gasoline.”
“It’s going to burn to the ground.”
“Yep.”
Tristan watched the fire for a moment, then realized that besides the flickering light of the fire he saw red blinking lights.
“Fire trucks,” he muttered. “They finally saw the smoke and fire from town. We didn’t call them and God knows we don’t have any neighbors out here.”