Hurry. Her mind silently screamed the warning. Quickly, she grabbed the rolled sleeping bag from one of the packhorses and spread it on the dirt floor. Lacey looked around the cave, swallowed hard and felt her insides quiver. Terror pinched every nerve in her body. She had to get him off the horse.
The man weighed a ton. Just struggling to get him off Diablo was a monumental task. She grunted under the impact of his weight as he slid free of the saddle and leaned heavily against her. She staggered beneath him as she guided him to the sleeping bag and got him settled on it. His teeth clicked together and she knew he was hanging on to consciousness by a thread.
“Fire—so cold.”
“All right. I’ll get a fire going.” She tugged the sleeping bag over his shoulders. “Don’t move.”
“Sweetheart, cou—couldn’t mo—move if I wan—wanted to.”
Clearly, he’d gone as far as he could. It was up to her to get him through what was ahead of them.
Lacey had a small fire blazing in seconds. She filled a pot with water and set it on to heat. Next, she fished out the First Aid kit she’d seen stuffed in one of the saddlebags and flipped open the lid. Not a lot in it, but there were some sterile packages of gauze dressings, tape, a new tube of antibiotic cream, scissors, a suture kit and a small bottle of peroxide. It would have to do.
Her finger’s shook as she pushed back the cover from Danger’s torso and helped him out of his shirt.
“Always stri—stripping me.” He gave her a faint grin.
“And I always will every chance I get. Don’t talk.”
“Bo—bossy.”
Lacey tore one his shirts in strips and used another to wash the blood off his chest. She quickly folded one of the strips into a pad and pressed it against the wound on his chest. A stricken look flashed across her face as blood immediately seeped through. Her eyes lifted to his, wide with distress.
“Bad?” he asked roughly.
Her eyes welled with tears. “Oh, Danger.”
His gaze locked with hers. “You have to remove the bullet.”
“No.” Digging out a bullet she knew was deep in the muscle, no way. What if she caused him further injury? If he passed out, she wouldn’t know if she was hurting him or not, causing him more injury or not.
What if she killed him digging around for a bullet?
“I can’t dig a bullet out of you.”
“Yes—you can. You said—you did it—before.”
“From a shoulder and the bullet wasn’t deep. A chest is a lot different. It has,” she shrugged, “maybe a network of arteries or something I could cut that would kill you. I can’t take a bullet out of your chest. No. Don’t ask me to do that. I can’t.”
“Listen to—me, Lacey, you—have to. If you don’t, I’ll keep—bleed—fever, we won’t be able to ‘scape. Slow—you down.”
She wanted to refuse, wanted to scream she couldn’t do it, but he was so pale. His speech was garbled and he was growing weaker by the minute. The makeshift bandage she’d pressed against his wound was already soaked with his blood. She saw him look around, a puzzled look on his face. He blinked. “Whe—where are— we?”
“A cave.”
“Cave? Why—cave?”
Lacey stared at him overwhelmed by the sudden feeling of total helplessness and terror. He’d been the one who insisted on locating a cave. Not only was he becoming weaker, but he was growing disoriented from blood loss. The only good thing about the situation was the fact the bullet hadn’t passed through him. There was only the entrance wound to deal with, and she thanked God for small favors, for the exit wound would have been larger, more traumatic to his body.
Motionless, Lacey chewed on her bottom lip.
“Lacey—”
“All right. I’m thinking.”
She rubbed her forehead. A knife. She’d need a knife to dig out the bullet. More hot water. More bandages, clean ones. Oh God, nothing was sterile except for a few gauze bandages. Infection might set up in the wound. He could die and she would be to blame. Nausea ripped through her belly. She clenched her teeth. She was going to hurl.
“Lacey?”
She looked up at the calmness in his voice.
“I trust you.”
He trusted her? Was he crazy?
She’d practically accused him of murder. She, who’d held him at gunpoint, stuffed his clothes in the toilet, let his Jeep float away, shot in the air when a cougar was about to attack him, thrown the gun at the rattler and then she’d destroyed Danger’s chances for a cup of coffee.
She fought against breaking down and bawling.
How could he trust her? She sniffed and dabbed her eyes with her shirttail. “I’m sorry I threw your coffee at you—”
“Lacey—”
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice broke and tears spilled down her face. “I know you love coffee. You’re a caffeine addict. I shouldn’t have thrown the baggie at you—”
“Lacey—”
“I—I forgot I’d unzipped the damned thing. It was mean of me to throw it at you. Honestly, I’m not a mean-hearted person. It all spilled out. You should hate me but I swear I’m sorry. I—”
“Lacey—”
“What?”
“I love you. I’ll live—without coffee, but I really—need you—to take the— bullet outta me.”
“You love me?” She sniffed pitifully. “How can you love me when I’m so mean?”
“Sweetheart, there isn’t—a mean bone—in your body. Re—member? You set mice free.”
Lacey swiped the tears from her face. “That’s beside the point.”
“You have to do it, little cat. Need—your help.”
She sniffed. “Don’t even think about dying. No matter how much I hurt you digging around for that damnable bullet, you don’t die.”
“Won’t die. Promise. Knife—in bag. Filet knife.”
Filet knife? Oh, hell, no.
She’d run the sharp tip through him like a sword point. She’d puncture a lung. If her hand slipped, she’d jab out his eye or slice off his ear. She imagined all sorts of horrible things happening. If it slipped, she might even stab his jugular.
“Do—it.”
Lacey’s heart hammered so hard she thought it would explode any minute. Her chest ached and her throat felt as dry as sand. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and prepared everything she’d need. She fished out tape and what sterile gauze pads there were in the First Aid and folded strips of a second shirt into pads. She laid everything out on top of a blanket within easy reach, as meticulous as a surgeon.
“Lacey.”
“I know, I know, give me a minute.”
She inhaled deeply, removed the folded pad from his chest and swallowed hard. She didn’t know how she kept her hand steady as she brought the tip of the knife to the bullet hole. Probing for the bullet was more difficult than she expected. Blood flowed freely over her fingers making her grip on the knife handle slip.
Danger gave a low grunt of pain. Lacey bit her tongue to keep from crying aloud at the pain she knew she caused him.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
The knife tip scraped across the bullet.
“Christ,” Danger groaned.
She probed, swiped at tears with the back of her hand, worked the tip of the blade beneath the bullet and pushed upward. The bullet refused to budge. The tip of the knife wobbled, too fragile to use for leverage. It wasn’t going to work. She removed the knife.
“Get it?” He sounded exhausted.
“No.”
“I have to use my fingers. The knife’s too weak at the tip. I’m afraid it will snap off.”
Danger nodded. “Do it.”
Lacey bit her lip and eased a fingertip inside the bullet hole. Ah God, she knew she was going to hurl sure as God created little harps for angels. She worked her finger beneath the bullet and felt it move. She pushed upward, knew it slid through torn muscle.
Danger moaned louder. “Jesus.”
His body trembled. Stricken, she knew the exact moment he passed out. Hot tears scalded her eyes. She ignored them. She saw the tip of the bullet, worked her finger harder under it and pushed it out the rest of the way.
Lacey wept silently as she cleansed the wound the best she could and taped a bandage over it.
Don’t die. Please, don’t die.
Minutes passed. Then hours.
She unsaddled Diablo, shared one of the canteens of water with the horses and opened a can of vegetable soup she found in the bottom of a cloth sack Danger had tied to one of the packhorses.
She waited for him to wake up, but he wasn’t showing any signs of coming to. She wondered if she’d done some kind of internal injury to him, something that could cost him his life.
Boom.
Lacey stifled a squeak, but couldn’t stop herself from jumping at the loud crash of thunder. She heard the hammering of rain hitting the ground. Cold air and a bone aching dampness bombarded the cave entrance. Goosebumps rose on her flesh. She added more leaves to the fire and thick twigs to keep it going. She made sure Danger was warm.
Time crawled by. She paced, added twigs. Checked on Danger. Paced some more.
“No. Don’t go!”
Lacey whipped around at Danger’s words. She rushed over to him. His face was dry and flushed. She touched his forehead. God, he was burning up. His sudden fever caught her by surprise.
He locked his fingers around her wrist, dragged her closer. She knew from the feverish glaze heating his eyes he didn’t recognize her.
“You can’t go away again.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” When she tried to get free, he tightened his grip. “There’s another man, isn’t there? You’re leaving us, leaving Dad for another man.” He shoved her away. “I never want to see you again. This time when you go, don’t come back. You’ve hurt us all enough.”
Lacey swallowed hard and rubbed her wrists where he’d held them so tight. His wild rambling scared her. He thrashed about on the sleeping bag, restless.
The hard chills that ravaged his body scared her worse. One minute he was burning up, the next his body shook so hard with cold, she was afraid he’d injure himself and all the while he pleaded for his mother not to go away.
She poked two aspirin down him with sips of water, but still his fever returned and climbed. Shadows crept inside the cave. Night closed in. She cradled the rifle in her hands and eased down beside Danger on the sleeping bag.
The tiny fire was the only light she had and she knew she dared not make it any bigger. They were warm. Safe.
But a killer waited to make his next move.
And she was all that stood between him and the man she loved.
In The Arms Of Danger
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fate is not quite as strange as it appears.
Sayings and Quotes
Montana Backcountry Mon. 11:00 p.m.
Lacey jerked awake. Her hearted pounded.
The fire had nearly gone out.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She looked around, angry at herself for giving
into the heaviness of her eyes and pure exhaustion.
How could she be so careless?
What had awakened her?
A slight snuffling sound outside the cave sent chills down her spine. What if the murderer had found them?
What if this was the cougar’s den and the animal wanted to reclaim her
home?
The soft clamor grew louder. Lacey whipped around as the horses nickered and pawed the ground in agitation.
“It’s all right,” she called softly and hurried over to the horses. She patted Diablo, talked soothingly in the stallion’s ears. “Sssh. It’s okay. What is it boy? Whadda ya hear?”
Snuffling again.
Lacey grabbed the rifle from where she’d propped it against the stone wall. Her hands shook as she leveled the business end of the gun toward the front of the cave and waited for what seemed like eons.
Nothing. No sign of animal or man, just that strange, cough-like grunt.
She released a long, shaky breath and lowered the rifle. The sudden quiet was as unbearable and nerve racking as the unexplained racket had been. The muscles in the back of her neck eased. She cast a worried glance at Danger and felt her stomach clench. He hadn’t stirred in hours. That scared her more than his ragged breaths and feverish ramblings.
He was always so alert to his surroundings and he hadn’t responded at all to the disturbance of the horses or the noise outside the cave. To see him felled like this tore at her. She couldn’t bear to think of him dying but knew it was a real possibility with no antibiotics.
His complexion looked dull and dry as a withered husk. An unhealthy rosiness stained his cheeks. Lacey felt his forehead with the back of her hand, jerked back. Dear God, he was hotter than before.
Quickly, she removed the bandage and swallowed hard at the sight of the redness and swelling around the wound. Thick, yellow pus oozed from the site. She hadn’t expected infection to set in so fast, but under the conditions she’d had to remove the bullet and with the dirt and bits of material she’d dug out of the wound earlier, signs of infection was bound to appear.
He needed antibiotics. He needed a doctor. She was all he had.
Lacey cleansed the site, pressed on the wound and watched in dismay as bits of material she’d missed oozed from the site. She poured some of the peroxide directly onto the wound. Tiny pieces of material slid out again in the bubbling liquid. She cleansed the wound and applied a fresh dressing and prayed all the scraps had been removed.
Danger didn’t stir or flinch through the entire procedure but she thought his breathing sounded less ragged.
Frantic, Lacey soaked one of his shirts and sponged his face and body.
He stirred and opened his eyes. The gray orbs were unnaturally glassy. He sat straight up, stared at the cave walls. “We need to get outta here.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know, Coe. Dad will skin us alive if he catches us drinking his home brew. We gotta go.”
Lacey blinked. “It’s okay,” she soothed suddenly realizing he was delirious.
“Why’d she leave us, Dad? What did I do to make her go away?” He moaned, his body shaking with the fever. “Doesn’t she love me? Why doesn’t she love me?”
Lacey swallowed hard, tried to press him back onto the sleeping bag. “Sssh, it’s all right, Danger. It’s all right. She’ll come back.”
“No, Anna. She’ll never come back. ” He tore free of Lacey’s grasp. “She left us alone. Alone. We have no one, just Grandma and Papa Joe and they’re old.”
Lacey listened to him ramble on and on and in his ramblings learned the sad uncertainty of his childhood. How his mother had constantly deserted her children, his father hiding his pain with alcohol.
His grandparents had been the only stability in his life. Lacey had a suspicion Danger had been the stability for his brother and sister.
Danger moved restlessly, kicking off the cover. “Water,” he croaked. “Please.”
Lacey grabbed the canteen and pressed it to his mouth, then watched in consternation as the water dribbled down his chin and throat. Stricken, she soaked another shirt and pressed it to his mouth, gently squeezing drops of water past his dry lips.
The small amount of liquid seemed to satisfy him and he fell back and closed his eyes. Lacey took the opportunity to stoke the fire and take care of her personal needs.
She sat down beside him and with rifle in hand, prepared to guard him through out the remainder of the long night ahead.
In The Arms Of Danger
Chapter Twenty-Five
The best way out of a difficulty is through it.
Will Rogers
Montana Backcountry Tues.6:00 a.m.
The first fingers of light crept across the floor of the cave to illuminate the stone walls. Lacey
gave a long sigh of relief and rose to check on Danger. She placed her hand on his brow and found his temperature normal. His chest rose and fell in long swells, the raspy sound that had frightened her through the night replaced with gentle snores.
In The Arms Of Danger Page 30