by Ashlee Price
He bent down to get a good look at it and she backed up on her good leg. “Let me see it. I will see if there is anything I can do before I take you back to the ranch. There aren’t many doctors out here, but if I knew how bad it was, I could maybe help you Miss or get you a ride into the city to the hospital.”
“It’s going to need something for sure. I finally got my foot out of it, but I haven’t even looked at it yet.”
“Can I?”
She nodded, but she looked down with him and already there were tears in the flesh of her ankle. Grimacing and looking away, Katie started to get a little woozy from looking at it and tried to hold her composure.
“Are you okay?”
Katie didn’t feel okay suddenly, feeling blackness filling in her peripheral vision and then she closed her eyes, swaying on her feet. She would have fallen over if he hadn’t been there to catch her. As Paul looked down at her dirt-smudged face, he wondered where she had come from. He hadn’t gotten much out of her before she passed out, though he did remember the way she had drank from his canteen. It was clear to him that whoever she was, she had had quite an ordeal and he needed to get her looked at. From what he had seen, she was going to need some medical attention and though doctors were on short supply, there was a vet or two in town that had stitched him up on more than one occasion.
Carefully setting her over the saddle until he got on and held her against him, Paul made his way slowly back towards the ranch. He hoped that she would wake up, but by the deep sound of her breathing, she wasn’t going to be waking up anytime soon. Whoever she was, it was just pure luck that he was out there when he was. Paul was never usually out that far and so close to the woods, but he was suddenly glad that his horse had had a mind of his own that morning.
***
Scott looked at his brother as if he had lost his mind. “What is going on Paul? Who is that?”
“You are already back from getting the feed?”
He shrugged and started towards the brother with a woman hauled over his shoulder. “No I haven’t even left yet. Are we not going to talk about the woman that you are carrying? Are we just forgetting about that part of this all?”
Paul was not in the mood to have the conversation. She was hurt and he barked out some orders for supplies and some help instead of answering his barrage of questions. Paul didn’t even know what was going on, but he did know that he wanted to help her.
“Just get what I need Scott.”
Scott took off towards the bathroom and the first aid kit. He called Carol from in town and told her the situations. Carol would be over soon and as Paul laid her down and got her shoe off, it was actually worse than he had thought. He wasn’t sure how she had even been standing on it, let alone walking. It also meant that Carol may not be able to help her. He would know definitely when she got there and as he looked back up worried at her face, hoped that she was going to be okay.
Carol pushed him aside as she came in, taking over like she did everything. The older woman was sure of herself and even men like Paul and Scott moved out of her way when she told them to. There was no denying her natural lead and that day was no different. Paul felt more upset then he should have. He didn’t know her, but he knew that he didn’t like to see her hurt.
“Paul, why are you still standing around? I asked you to bring me some more towels.”
He met her light eyes finally and Carol looked like she wanted to ask more, but she didn’t. Instead she waited for him to go before looking back down at the hurt woman. She had her own questions to ask, but first she had to get the mysterious woman taken care of. The Callahans always made the best gossip and she didn’t think that this one was going to disappoint her.
When Paul came back in, she sent him out for something else to fetch for her. She could see in his eyes that he was too worried to be of much use and though it piqued her interest and made her wonder who she was. But for the time being, Carol just needed him out of her hair with that worried expressions on his face.
Paul finally wasn’t going to be put off anymore. “Carol dammit, is she going to be okay or does she need to go to the hospital? You have to tell me something.”
“She is going to be fine. Looks like she is a little dehydrated and lost a little blood, but she is going to be okay. Just a little rest and she will be up soon. Who is she Paul? I don’t think I have ever seen her before.”
Paul was relieved to hear that she was okay, but he didn’t know how to answer her questions. He didn’t know who she was, not even her name. He told her what he knew, which was the very little that she had told him about stepping on the trap while she was hunting. Carol had the same look he had had, though neither one of them were really hunters.
“Where did you find her?”
“Over by the Miller’s and that creek, right before you get to the woods. I don’t usually go over that way, but the damn horse went over there straight like a shot.”
“Well she is lucky that you found her when you did. She had lost a lot of blood and I don’t know how long she was out there, but if I had to guess, I would say over night.”
It was just more to add to the mysterious woman and he still didn’t know what to think about it. “Thanks for coming Carol. Just send me a bill for it.”
“Don’t worry about it Paul. Just promise me that you will tell me her story when you find out. We don’t get many strangers out in these parts and certainly not one like her.”
“What do you mean?” Paul’s mind went to how beautiful she was, but he didn’t think that Carol would be commenting on that, so he really was confused. All he could see was the refined features of her face and the strange color of her eyes that he hadn’t seen before. He wanted her to wake up, just so he could see her eyes again.
“Look at her clothes, the jewelry, this woman is quite well off. I haven’t seen any shoes like that, unless I was in the city.”
Paul looked down at her shoes and he didn’t know any difference than ever other pair of woman’s shoes. Carol came from money herself and she seemed to know what she was talking about. If she was wealthy as her clothing would suggest, he didn’t understand why she would be hunting in the first place. It didn’t seem like a very lady-like activity and the woman looked like she’d strayed too far.
Carol stayed for a while longer, having some coffee, but they both knew that she was there for when the woman woke up. Carol wanted the gossip, but as the time stretched on, she remembered the other places she still had to go. Her work was never done and she finally left, looking back once in hopes that she would get the story before she left.
“I will come back tomorrow and check on the foot, just to make sure that it hasn’t infected or anything, okay?”
“Okay Carol. Thanks again.”
She waved him off like it was nothing before she left, leaving Paul to look down at his guest and wonder when she was going to get up. He had his own work to do and as another half an hour went by, he decided that he had to go help Scott finish up. It wasn’t right for him to shirk his duties and he was once again feeling restless like he had been that morning.
He looked back one last time at the woman lying bandaged on his couch. There was something about her that made him wonder who she was and why she was there. Paul also had the strange feeling that he was supposed to have found her and that it was all supposed to happen. Was it fate or just luck? He didn’t know. What he did know though, was like Carol, he was waiting to find out more about the redheaded woman that had just been dropped into his lap.
Chapter 3
Katie woke up with a start and tried to sit up. She winced with the pain in her ankle and foot. She had not been expecting it, but as she closed her eyes again, she remembered why she was hurting so much. Looking down, she saw that her shoe was off and her pants were rolled up. Her ankle and foot were wrapped in bandages and she tested movement. She could move it, but it hurt. Tempted to look, she started to sit back up, but it hurt too much and she wasn’t that
bothered by how bad it was.
Hearing a noise in one of the rooms behind her, Katie tried to remember where she was. The surroundings were not one that she remembered and it made her worry about the sound she had heard. Who was it and where was she? Hearing the sound again, she started to panic, desperately trying to figure out where she was. When the tall, blonde man walked into the room and looked at her smiling, it was clear to her then. She had seen him right before she got light-headed. He must have taken her back to his place.
Katie sat up the best that she could and tried to smile back at him, but winced with the tug on her tender skin. The man moved forward to put a pillow behind her back for comfort when he saw her struggling. “How are you feeling?”
Katie shrugged, not really sure. Her head was hurting, but it was her foot that was really driving her crazy. It was covered in bandages with some red seeping through and she wanted to see how bad it was, at the same time not sure if she should. She could move it, but each time she did, she could see stars behind her eyes.
“Where am I?”
“You are at the Callahan Ranch. The hospital is a ways out and I had a friend of mine look at you.”
“Thank you, but I need to see it.”
Paul didn’t think it was a good idea. It was hard for him to look at it and he knew that there was the real danger of her going into shock or passing out again. “Why don’t we keep it covered for now? It’s not too bad.”
Katie was going to insist, but she saw something in his eyes that told her that maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe it was best that she waited. “Thank you. I think I will. Don’t want to be passing out again like some damsel in distress.”
He kind of chuckled, wondering how she could know what he had been thinking. It was what he had been afraid of and relaxed when he realized that she wasn’t going to make him show her. Paul had never been good with female reactions and he didn’t know what he would do if she started crying or something like that.
“How long was I out?”
He thought for a moment and then looked at the clock. It was already three in the afternoon and it had to have been about ten when he had first seen her. “About five hours or so I would imagine.”
She tried to sit up again and she made a face. She wanted to stand up, do something, but as she tried to swing her foot around and felt the throbbing in it, Katie knew that she wasn’t going anywhere. “Did your friend happen to give you anything for the pain?”
It hurt so much that she thought she was going to be sick. “Yes, let me go get them. Carol told me that you would want one when you got up.”
Katie nodded. It was the best thing that she had heard since she woke up in such a way. “Thank you. I will have to thank this Carol person as well. What city is this?”
It was an odd question, but he told her where she was and she didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. She had started out somewhere else and after walking half of the day and part of the night, it appeared that she had went further than she had thought, though it was becoming clear that she should have been somewhere else. Katie must have gotten turned around somewhere and ended up going the wrong direction.
“I don’t even know how I got here. I got dropped off in Elmer and I haven’t even heard of Crouse before.”
“Dropped off in Elmer? That is almost thirty miles away. Did you walk all that way?”
She nodded that she had and lay back on the couch. “Yes, it didn’t seem like that far, but it was the most desolate walk I had ever had. I kept hoping I would run into somebody, but it was just mile after mile of forest with no one around. I am so glad that you were there when I hit the clearing. I didn’t know how much further I could go. Tell me your name, so I can thank you properly.”
Paul.”
“Paul…?”
“It’s Paul Callahan.”
“So this is your ranch?”
“It is family owned and operated.”
Katie waited for more, but Paul was staring at her with those dark eyes again and he didn’t seem to know what else to say. “Well my name is Katie Reynolds and I owe you big time Paul. I would kiss you if I could get up to you.”
He smiled at her in a way that made her heart patter a little harder in her chest. “I can always come to you if you want.”
Katie was tempted to pull him down for a quick one, but he was walking away towards the back of the house. He finally remembered the pills he was supposed to be getting and came back in there with a bottled water to wash it down. She thanked him again, something she seemed to be doing a lot of lately.
Paul was on edge, both emotionally and literally. He wanted to ask more questions, but as the woman started to nod off, he knew it wasn’t the time. Katie had apparently gotten enough information that she felt safe enough to go back to sleep, so Paul was going to take it as a good sign. Scott was still not back and he went back out to do his own duties.
He spent special attention on his mare that had led him to her. Paul was feeling something that he hadn’t felt before and he knew it was because of the mystery woman. He knew that she could be married, though he saw no ring, she could be anyone and it was the possibilities that made him want to go back home and talk to her some more.
When Paul did get back to the house later that evening Katie was up and talking to Scott at the kitchen table as he walked in. There was a moment, a second that Paul felt jealousy well up inside of him. But then she looked at him and smiled and Paul could no longer feel anything but sheer pleasure. It didn’t matter who was there with them, it felt like they were alone and there was nothing else. It was just her.
“Hi.”
She grinned a bit bigger and said ‘hi’ back. Scott looked between the two of them and it suddenly dawned on him why his brother’s vocabulary had suddenly gone juvenile. Scott hadn’t seen his brother look at a girl like that before and he found himself smiling. While he found Katie pretty, they had spent the last thirty minutes talking and she was far more interested in his brother and asking about Paul. Scott knew that he didn’t have a chance, but his brother was a whole other situation.
Paul looked to Scott with a question in his eyes. “You are just in time Paul. Katie was just about to tell me why she was trouncing around in the woods all alone today.”
Katie looked at Scott. They were not talking about that at all, though she was thankful that he did not say what they were talking about. She had been shamelessly asking questions about the man that was now sitting down with them at the table. He had a coffee cup in his hand when he finally did and she felt her face growing red as he looked up at her over the rim of the cup.
“Yes, please tell us Katie. Your doctor just wants the scoop for her services. While I will admit that Carol is into gossip, I can’t help but wonder as well.” Paul remembered the woman’s comment about her assumed status from her clothing. He wasn’t going to say something like that out loud, but what was a rich woman like her doing out in the middle of the woods with no gear, hunting?
She took a deep breath and then a drink from the cup, trying to figure it all out in her head. How did she explain the last twenty-four hours? Parts of it were still a little fuzzy to her and she wasn’t sure how to verbalize it all. But she had to try and had to start somewhere.
“Well I have always liked to hunt since I was a little girl and me and my father used to go when he was off from work.” Katie paused, wondering if she had started back too far. She decided that it tied in and started again, without looking up at the two men sitting on either side of her.
“Anyways, we always went hunting around here when I was younger. I was raised not far from here until I moved up north. So when dad died, I decided to come back, you know to the first place and it was in that stretch of woods where you found me.”
Paul was dying to ask questions, there was so much left out. That explained why she was there, but there had to be a story of what had happened next to make her look the way she was. She had been in quite a state whe
n he found her and from what Carol had told him, she had went through more than what initially met the eye.
“So what happened when you got there?”
Scott felt more close to the woman after talking with her for some time and he knew that his brother was grateful for him asking. Scott knew Paul and though he didn’t usually seem shy around women, he could see him struggling with Katie. Something was different about her.
Katie smiled at Scott and then sat back a little in her chair. “Well, the helicopter dropped me off around Hannold’s Creek on the map and it was okay at first. But there is someone or something in that stretch of woods and before I knew it, I was the one being hunted, instead of the other way around. I lost my pack almost immediately and then I heard something coming towards me in the woods and I ran. I left it all behind. I had set it down to get a drink.”
She stopped for a moment and it was like she could feel the fear all over again. Paul wanted to comfort her, but didn’t know her well enough to do so. Scott was on the edge of his seat, silently urging her to go on. Katie seemed to pull herself together and after a moment, finished her story.
“I don’t know, it could have been anything and I just got spooked out of the door. It hadn’t been long, but I don’t know, it had just been awhile since I had gone out alone and it just freaked me out.” Scott nodded as if he understood and urged her on, still wondering how she ended up in a trap and covered in dirt.
“So then I am a mile or so away from where I started, no map, no drink, no anything. My gun was laid down on the tree next to my pack and I really had lost my bearings. It’s kind of embarrassing really. I tried to judge which was I was going, to go back to my pack and a night and half a day later, I come out the other side where you and your horse were Paul. I stepped on the trap the night before and got it off, but it was hard to walk, so it really slowed me down.”