by Linda Conrad
Gray set about making cuts at every juncture where he found a gap. He had to concentrate only on the wire itself, because each time he glanced at Abby's bloody skin where the barbs still clung to her, his heart ached and he was afraid his hand would slip.
He freed her from most of the prison easily enough, but some of the barbs had latched agonizingly onto her skin. They'd dug themselves deeply into Abby's flesh, as terribly as they'd done to her gelding.
Finally there was nothing for Gray to do but begin the slow process of extracting what was left. "Abby. I'm about to start removing the barbs. It'll hurt much more than it has already, I'm afraid."
He heard a tiny groan for her answer, and he knew her muscles must ache from remaining still for so long. From his own experience, he knew her muscles might also start cramping up anytime now.
"I'm going as fast as I can," he told her. "Stay with me. Don't give up yet. If you'll just be strong and quiet for a little while longer, it will all be over."
Gray began with the ugly laceration on her cheek. The barb had gashed its way across her face and buried itself deep, right under her eye. Another half an inch and she might've been forever blind in that eye.
Oh, so carefully, he worked the barb free of her flesh. But then he had to do something to stop the blood from flowing back out of the gash. He jerked his cotton chambray shirt off and ripped it into strips. His shirt might not be the cleanest right now, but it was the fastest way to keep her life's force from spilling to the ground.
He worked on the rest of the attached barbs with both hands, using the wire cutters and some needle-nosed pliers he'd found in Abby's tool kit. Every time he pulled a barb free, blood spouted from the wound. Gray wanted to wince with each nasty removal, but he remained stone-faced and concentrated on his work. This was for Abby. He owed it to her.
By the time he'd worked down and around her body, and all that remained encased in barbs were her legs, the sweat was pouring from his brow and down his back like rivers of angry lava exploding from a volcano.
"You have to keep your body still for a while longer yet," he said, with a lot more assurance than he felt. "But you can open your eyes now and talk to me a little. I have to know how you're doing."
Abby opened her eyelids, squinting at her surroundings. He saw the great pain reflected in her gaze, and knew the tremendous strength she'd brought to bear in order to maintain her calm. His heart wrenched at how she'd managed to stand all this pain without crying out.
Gray felt pride and admiration for her control begin to swell in his chest. At the same time, though, her pain started to seep into his own body, making every inch of him burn with sympathy.
Instantly Gray remembered who she was. Damn strong-willed white woman. How irritating it was that she'd gotten to him like this. It was fine for him to honor his debt to repay her in all possible ways. But this strong attraction was simply out of order.
"Wait. Get the first-aid kit from my pack," she mumbled hoarsely.
"Shut up, Abby," he told her. "Stop giving orders and let me help you."
He turned away from her and carefully stood, needing a minute to get ahold of himself.
An agonizing twenty minutes later, Abby was free, and Gray had slathered her body with a whole tube of antiseptic ointment, wrapping as much gauze around her arms and legs as he'd dared. Most of the wounds had stopped bleeding profusely, but continued seeping through the bandages in a few places.
"Can you reach my cell phone?" she mumbled through gritted teeth.
He glanced over at her inert body, and kicked himself for not having thought of the phone a long time ago. Abby's clothes were in shreds. Even the heavy jeans she'd worn had ripped with the outrageous onslaught of the pressurized barbs. He remembered that the phone had been in her shirt pocket, but when he looked, her practical white bra, soaked in dried blood, was all that was left to cover her chest on that side.
Looking quickly around the ground nearby, he found her phone a few feet away. "Who should I call?" he whispered with as much control in his voice as possible.
"Just hand it over," she demanded in a weak voice.
"There you go again," he winced. "Giving orders. You can't hold a phone. Look at your hands."
She moved her head and groaned.
Damn it. Damn her. Why did he let her push him like this?
"Tell me how to reach the ranch," he pleaded, "I know it's one-button dialing. But which one?"
"Number three."
Gray managed to contact the ranch foreman but all the while his hands shook almost uncontrollably and the metallic smell of blood filled his nostrils, nearly choking off his words. When he'd relayed their position, Jake told Gray that the paramedics' helicopter would be there shortly.
After he'd put away the phone, Gray didn't know what else to do for her. He was half-afraid to touch her, Afraid he'd make the bleeding worse.
But she looked so pitiful lying there on her side, trying not to breathe too hard for fear of the pain. She seemed so … alone.
As gently as he could, Gray lifted her head into his lap and took the least of her injured hands into both of his. "Abby it's going to be okay. The paramedics will fix you up and take away the pain while they fly you to the hospital. You'll see. They'll treat you like royalty, I promise."
She blinked and moaned. He wished he could do something more for her comfort.
"Did you finish tending my gelding?" she whimpered.
"Not yet."
"Do it now. I want to know that he's okay," Abby told him.
"Damn it, woman," he began, but thought better about finishing the sentence. He'd wanted to tell her to stop ordering him around. To be quiet and let the blood clot. "Just relax," he mumbled instead.
He was angry and not being rational, he knew. No rational person would expect her to be civil while she was still in all that pain. He'd always prided himself on being reasonable and logical even in times of great stress. But every time he looked at her wounds, he couldn't seem to help himself. He wanted to strike out at something, at someone—not at all the kind of attitude a Comanche chief should have.
He took a deep breath, and when he was finally able to assemble his words into a more rational statement, he said, "Your horse will be fine. As soon as the paramedics get here, I'll medicate and wrap his leg wounds. Now lie still."
Abby closed her eyes … breathed softly. Gray did the same, all the while praying for guidance from the ancient ones.
Abby opened her eyes and tried to focus on her hospital room. Her gaze finally landed on her brother, Cinco, sitting in a chair next to her bed. His eyes were closed and he looked tired.
She swallowed hard and suddenly realized how really dry her throat was. Turning her head to look for water, her glance landed on a dark object in the far corner of the room. Then she saw clearly that it was Gray, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded over his chest and his eyes closed, too.
Didn't these two men have anything better to do than doze off in her room? She figured she'd been in this bed for a day or two since being brought here by the paramedics, and though the doctors had given her enough medication to make her sleep through the bulk of the pain, she did remember that both Gray and Cinco had been in her room for much of the time.
She tried to clear her throat to ask for water, but all that came out was a tiny squeak. It was enough for both men to open their eyes and come to attention in a hurry.
"Abby Jo," Cinco declared. "You're awake. How're you feeling?"
"Thirsty," she mumbled over her swollen tongue. "Could I have some water, please?"
Cinco picked up a plastic cup and straw and put it to her lips. "Sure, sugar. Here ya go."
She managed a few good swallows, feeling a whole lot better right away. "How's the gelding? Did he make it okay?"
Gray piped up from his position next to her bed. "Your horse got through in much better shape than you did. His bandages will be off tomorrow, and then he'll forget the whole ordeal.
You'll be on his back again as soon as you're able."
Well, at least that was good news, she thought. She tried to shift her position and quickly found that she was indeed in much worse shape than the gelding. Both of the men in the room moved to help her sit up.
When her pillows had been fluffed and the bed raised so she could see, she noticed that Gray's expression seemed rather stark. Or perhaps wary would be a better word. She turned to Cinco and found the same look in his eyes right before he softened them to smile at her.
"What's been going on while I was out of it?" she asked.
Gray and Cinco exchanged dark, darting glances, making her curiosity jump to attention.
"Honey girl," her brother began. "How much of your 'accident' do you remember?"
Abby didn't much care for the emphasis he'd put on the word accident, but decided she'd find out what was going on in due time. "I'd rather not remember any of it—especially not the part about those two hundred stitches I was forced to endure. But I guess most of it is in my memory banks somewhere. Why do you ask?"
"Well…" Cinco sat forward in his chair and leaned his elbows on his knees. "Something didn't sit right with me about that loose wire on the ground. None of our hands would be so careless."
"Come to think of it, you're right. Everyone who works on the Gentry knows what barbwire can do to horseflesh," she hesitated, swallowed again. "Or to human flesh."
"Exactly," Cinco said softly. "So I organized a little investigation. Jake and I double-checked all the new fencing the ranch has put up over the past month."
He stopped speaking, glanced over to Gray, then took a breath. "There were at least six places where we found loose wire on the ground … most of it looked as if it had been placed or … planted … there."
"Planted?" she blurted. "As in deliberately, you mean?"
Cinco nodded. "'Fraid so, sugar."
"But who would do such a thing?" She forced herself to maintain some calm. With every inch of her body still in pain, she tried hard not to jerk around too much.
"That's one of our biggest questions. But not the only one," Cinco told her. "Besides the loose wires, we also found some of the fence strands had been loosened at their posts. Many of them were only being held together by a tightly strung thread."
"But … but that sounds like someone deliberately wanted to cause an accident," she sputtered.
Cinco grinned at her then, but the expression in his eyes was still grave. "That's my guess, missy. But I'm not sure I'd call what happened to you an accident."
"What would you call it, then," she demanded.
"Attempted murder," Gray broke in with a voice sounding way too quiet, way too sober.
"Oh, my God." Abby sank back into her pillows and wished she could disappear. This couldn't be possible.
She reached for glass of water with her one good hand and took a couple of big swigs. "Then you two don't think my accident was just some prank gone wrong?" Turning, she questioned Cinco. "You're sure it wasn't vandalism like we had the last time when Meredith was in hiding?"
"No, sugar," her brother said gently. "Someone deliberately wanted to injure or kill one of the people working on Gentry Ranch."
"But why?" she cried.
Gray came closer to the bed. "Good question. We've all been asking the same thing. Jake and the sheriff have come up with a possibility." He stood straight and tall so she couldn't see his eyes from this angle. "They think it's more a question of who someone would want to hurt on Gentry Ranch."
"Who?"
Cinco took the cup of water from her and laid it on the table. "Jake suggested that one of the cowpokes who'd thought he deserved a chance at marrying you might be angry enough and jealous enough at the thought of losing out to … to want to see you dead." He looked at Gray, then turned back and picked up her hand. "He thinks it was you they were after. Or, if not you, then Gray."
Both Cinco and Gray stood, silently waiting for something. For her to become hysterical, she supposed. She could see them holding their breaths, probably waiting for her fear to show up in the form of tears. But she didn't feel like crying.
The only thing Abby felt at the moment was red-hot anger. She was downright furious.
She ripped her hand from Cinco's. "You mean to tell me that Jake and the sheriff think some lovesick cowboy would deliberately take a chance on maiming or killing an innocent horse in order to get back at me … for becoming engaged to Gray?" Her voice had gone up two octaves, but she couldn't help that. "I don't believe it."
Cinco and Gray looked at each other and then back at her. Each of them took a step away from her bed.
Cinco was the first to find his voice. "Now, Abby Jo. I know you won't want to accept this, but we've gone through every motive we can think of. Your engagement caused so much consternation in the county that it seems to be the only reasonable answer."
"Well, dang it all to hell" was the only remark she could think to make. She'd be throwing something, too, if her pitching arm wasn't so sore at the moment.
Her brother chanced a little more of her ire. "That's not all of it, sugar," Cinco said warily. "The sheriff is afraid you're still in danger. He's had a deputy sitting outside your door while you sleep. He wants to assign a man as your bodyguard permanently … or at least until we figure out who did this."
"No chance, bubba," she said through gritted teeth. She wanted to scream … shout … find the idiot who hurt her horse and wring his neck, but she didn't want to be saddled with a sheriff's deputy. "You tell the sheriff that I said to shove—"
"I'll stick with you, Abby," Gray said.
He turned to Cinco. "It might be me they're after, right?"
Cinco nodded. "Yes, but…"
"Then Abby and I will stay together and protect each other. I don't trust anyone else to watch my back the way I trust her."
Abby's heart twitched at Gray's words. No one had ever before said they'd trust her with their life. She looked up to see him gazing at her so sincerely she thought she might die from the swelling of her heart.
"Yes, and I trust Gray to protect my back, too," she told her brother. "He already took care of me once. We don't need bodyguards. We have each other."
Cinco shook his head but didn't argue. "I'll talk to the sheriff. See what I can do. In the meantime—" he picked up his hat and headed toward the door "—you look like you need to rest, missy.
"The doctor said that even though the bulk of the sutures won't be taken out until next week, if you feel strong enough, there's no reason you can't go home tomorrow. Meredith can bring you some clothes for the trip to the ranch. She'll be in to visit you later this afternoon. Tell her what you'll be needing then."
Cinco opened the door and turned back to her. "I'm doing everything I can to find out who did this to you, honey. No one on the ranch will rest until we find him. But you have to help us by not taking any chances with your own safety. Listen to what Gray and I tell you, will you?"
Abby nodded to her brother, but she was already wondering how soon she could get back to work on the range.
"Uh, walk me down to the truck, will you, Gray?" Cinco asked. "I need a word."
"Sure. Meet you at the elevator in a minute."
Gray turned back to Abby when Cinco closed the door behind him. "I won't be gone long. The sheriff's deputy is still sitting outside." He picked up her good hand and tenderly placed his lips against her bruised knuckles. "Don't worry, sweetheart. We're going to be just fine. We have right and honor on our side … not to mention the ancient spirits of my vision."
The softness of his kiss and the tenderness in his eyes dazzled her. Woozy, she closed her eyes and sighed.
"I'm not worried, Gray."
He carefully set her hand back down on the bed and quietly left the room. Cinco wanted to give him some instructions on how best to protect his sister, Gray knew. But her brother shouldn't have any qualms in that department. Gray hadn't taken all those lessons in survival for nothing. No one
alive would be able to come at him with a sneak attack, now that he knew the threat was out there.
Once outside, Cinco did talk to him about protection, but Gray managed to convince him that he could take care of any strike that might come on the ranch. Then Cinco gave him a few instructions on where he thought Abby could go to be as safe as possible. Gray listened politely and made a few mental notes. When, finally, Cinco was in his truck with the motor running, Gray stood beside the window to hear his last-minute comments.
"One more thing, Parker," Cinco began. "I wanted to thank you for everything you did for my sister out on the range the other day. If you hadn't been there…" He coughed, clearing his throat. "Personally, I don't know how you remained so calm in the face of such disaster, managing to pull out all those barbs and waiting for the helicopter." Cinco shrugged a shoulder and continued. "If that had been me, looking down at the love of my life lying there bleeding and battered, I don't know that I could've been so rational and levelheaded."
A few minutes later Gray watched as Cinco pulled the truck away from the curb, then he turned to look up at the hospital where Abby lay sleeping. No, he thought, contemplating Cinco's words and remembering back to his own. If he were in love with Abby, he couldn't possibly have been so rational out there on the range in the face of all her pain. Ha! Rational had been his exact word, too.
The truth was … what he did or did not want made no difference. He couldn't love a white woman. Respect, yes. Friendship, yes. Sex … perhaps. But with real love came lifetime commitments. As far as Gray was concerned, his life was already committed to the nemene. When he did take a wife, it would be a squaw that was chosen by the elders of the tribe for his bride.
Over the next few hours, sitting by her hospital bed and watching her sleep, Gray had to remind himself several times that it was certainly a damn good thing that he was a rational man and didn't really love Abby. Yes, indeed. Love would only complicate everything.
* * *
Seven
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Abby gingerly climbed aboard the back of a mare and breathed in the mellow amber air of early spring. She was so grateful to feel the sunshine, nicely warming her insides after ten days of recuperating at home, that she didn't even mind the few minor aches still irritating various parts of her body.