Chapter Twenty
It was starting to get dark.
Kensie peered up at the sky for a split second and lost her balance. Her arms darted out, seeking something to grip, and found a tree branch on the left. It slowed her, but then the branch snapped and her feet slid again, her boots not getting enough traction in the snow.
It had been falling faster since they’d taken shelter briefly under the fir tree where Colter had wrapped her leg. She’d suggested waiting to see if it slowed, but Colter had insisted they keep moving.
He’d looked worried then. He looked even more worried now as his arm shot out in front of her, giving her something to hold.
She grabbed on with both hands. He grunted as he stiffened his arm, stopping her downward slide.
“Sorry,” she wheezed. It hurt to talk. Colter had pulled her hood over her head earlier, knotting it tight, reducing her peripheral vision but helping her retain heat. Supposedly.
But since they’d left the shelter of the fir tree, the cold had seemed to invade her from the inside out, settling in her lungs and even her bones. Her left leg throbbed and the shirt Colter had wrapped around it was now bright red. She was unbearably tired and scared that the exhaustion was less from the trek and more from loss of blood.
She had no idea how long it had been since they’d run from the cabin, just that it was long enough for the sun to settle low in the sky. The three of them were still picking their way down the mountain. She and Colter were using the trees for support. Rebel was better at keeping her balance, but even she was sliding periodically and she’d started favoring her injured back leg.
She and Colter were both limping badly. She knew Colter hated himself for not being able to carry her, so she was doing her best not to show how much her leg hurt. But the truth was, the pain was more excruciating than anything she’d ever experienced.
With every step, no matter how gentle, a jolt went up her leg, all the way to her hip. More and more, she felt like she might throw up from it, so she clamped her jaw tight and tried to focus on each new goal. First the big fir tree fifty feet ahead of them, then the boulder twenty-five feet away. Now it was just getting from one tree to the next, simply taking each step without slipping and tumbling down the mountainside.
The warmer coat Colter had made her buy was back in her luggage, in his ruined truck. She was wearing the one she’d arrived in, which could handle Chicago’s tough wind chill, but not this. Not being stranded on the side of a mountain, only the trees blocking the sudden gusts of ice-cold wind. Not the dampness seeping into her bones as the snowflakes soaked through her jeans, slid into her gloves whenever she grabbed a tree branch for support.
“Hang on,” Colter said.
Kensie grabbed the nearest tree, sagging against it as Rebel pressed close to her side. Kensie suspected it was to lend her warmth, but even the dog was starting to look cold. Kensie’s eyes slid shut and she tipped her head, resting it, too, against the tree. It felt iced over and it soaked her hood even more, but right now, she didn’t care. More than anything, she craved sleep.
When she heard Colter swear, it was harder than it should have been to open her eyes again. “What ’sit?” she slurred. Her mind felt foggy, but not so foggy she didn’t realize that was a bad sign.
Hypothermia did that. Kensie focused on her fingers and toes, trying to decide if she could feel them. It was strange that she couldn’t tell. She tried to wiggle her toes and almost lost her balance. “What is it?” she asked again, enunciating carefully.
Lines raked Colter’s forehead and she wanted to smooth them away, wanted to make the worry in his sky-blue eyes disappear. But it was all she could do to stay on her feet.
“I thought we might have gone far enough to get service.”
For a long moment, his words made no sense. Then she glanced at his hands, which were stuffing his cell phone into his pocket. Despite having warm gloves, his hands were bright red, the fingertips an alarming white. As soon as he’d returned the cell phone to his pocket, he shoved his hands back into his gloves, rubbing them together.
“We walked that far?” she asked, happy she wasn’t slurring anymore. At least she didn’t think so.
“No. We’re headed sort of perpendicular to the path we took to the cabin, down the mountain. We’re not going toward Desparre, but there’s another town out this way. It looked like I might have a signal, but the call kept dropping. I tried texting 911 anyway.”
“How will they find us?” Her words ran together, barely comprehensible, and Kensie tried to focus, tried to get her sluggish mind to connect properly with her mouth. She tried it again, and this time he understood.
“We’ve got to keep moving.”
She whimpered, the idea of continuing on any farther seeming impossible.
In response, Colter slid closer, wrapped an arm around her waist, taking some of her weight even as his jaw clenched.
The sight gave her strength and she stiffened, took a deep, cold breath. If she gave up, she knew he’d carry her as far as he could. But what if her extra weight was the difference between his making it or dying on this mountain? “I’m okay,” she told him, surprised when her voice came out determined and clear.
She had to make it. For Colter and Rebel, who’d put their lives on hold to help her. And for Alanna, who might already be packed up in the Altiers’s car, on her way to some other out-of-the-way town, where she might stay hidden for another fourteen years. If Kensie died here, no one would know the truth about who had taken her sister.
That wasn’t going to happen.
She stiffened her shoulders and took a step forward. Her injured leg gave out on her and she hit the ground hard, her head smacking the dirt and snow. The world rotated in a dizzying swirl and then she was sliding, picking up speed as she went.
Reaching out, Kensie grappled for anything. Her hand snagged a low-lying branch and she held tight. Her back arched up off the ground, then came back down, but somehow she held on, the image of Colter’s worried face giving her strength. She couldn’t die like this. She couldn’t give him one more loss to grieve, one more reason to blame himself when it wasn’t his fault.
It took her a minute to realize she’d stopped moving, but she didn’t let go of the branch, because it was still steep. Then Colter came sliding down next to her, half out of control, Rebel right behind him.
“You okay?” Colter’s voice was panicked.
She tipped her head back toward him and tried to smile. Tried to reassure him without words that she was all right, that she wasn’t giving up. That they’d make it.
But the truth was, she wasn’t sure. Because when she tried to push herself to her feet, no matter how much she gritted her teeth, her leg kept giving out on her.
“It’s okay,” Colter said, bending next to her.
Then she was up, dangling over his shoulder again. Tears spilled over, even as she tried to stop them, knowing the moisture was just going to freeze on her skin.
Colter grunted, using tree branches for leverage, his right leg dragging slightly behind him. Keeping pace beside him, Rebel pressed close against him and Kensie saw the dog’s back left leg was barely taking weight.
She didn’t need to be able to see down the mountain to know they were far from the bottom. Far from civilization or help.
Dread filled her, bone-deep and exhausting. They weren’t going to make it. And it didn’t matter if she begged. Colter would never leave her behind to save himself.
But if they were going to die out here, she wanted him to know how much his help meant to her. How much meeting him had changed her life. Had changed the way she thought about herself, the way she thought about what she wanted.
Meeting him had changed everything.
She’d been lying to herself, thinking she was halfway in love with him. When it came to Colter, there was no halfway. S
he was straight-up in love with the man. And after everything he’d been through—all the loss and guilt—she wanted him to know he was still worthy of love.
Yes, he was damaged, but so was she. And damaged was far different from broken.
Sucking in a breath full of frigid air, Kensie projected, wanting to be sure her words weren’t lost on the wind. “I love you, Colter.”
* * *
WAS HE STARTING to hallucinate?
Colter had wanted to give his coat—better suited for the freezing climate—to Kensie hours ago, but he’d known he wouldn’t survive without it. And with her injured leg, he wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it out on her own. Her makeshift bandage had been saturated with blood more than an hour ago, the wound bleeding freely again. He’d tightened it repeatedly, stemming the flow more than once. But it always started up again.
Even with his better gear, he knew they were both in serious danger of frostbite and hypothermia. Every breath hurt his lungs and his fingers had felt clumsy and uncoordinated on the too-tiny numbers of his phone. Maybe his mind was going, too. It was the only explanation for the auditory hallucination he’d just experienced, Kensie saying she loved him.
He snorted. Maybe in his wildest dreams.
But then he heard it again, and there was no denying it was her beautiful voice speaking the words, even though her voice was rough from the chill. Joy filled his heart so fast it actually hurt, but worry followed immediately.
She thought they were going to die. It was the only reason she’d admit something like that.
He wanted to say it right back to her. The thought shocked him, made him set his right leg down crooked, twisting it sideways. He slipped, but righted himself quickly, even as it registered that he hadn’t felt pain like he should have. His body was shutting down.
Or maybe the joy of her words was just overriding any pain.
He glanced at Rebel, sticking to his painfully slow pace beside him. She was struggling, too, whimpering every once in a while when she put weight on that back leg. “I’m sorry, girl,” he whispered.
Louder, to Kensie, he said, “You’re just scared. We’re going to be fine. Save your strength.”
But his mind was screaming at him to say it back. He loved her.
The very idea was shocking. He hadn’t thought he was capable of loving anyone new. Hadn’t thought his heart had any room left in it after the loss of his brothers.
He loved his family, loved Rebel. But that was all he could handle. A woman like Kensie deserved so much more than he could give her.
And yet...he wanted to give her the world. He wanted to stand beside her, not just when they made it off this mountain, but years beyond. Wanted to experience a life with her, have children with her.
The thought was a betrayal of the promise he’d made that day when he’d woken up in the hospital and the doctors had finally admitted to him what he already knew in his heart. They were gone, all of them. He was the only survivor.
He’d looked up at the ceiling and promised never to forget them, swore he’d bide his time until he joined them. He’d never felt suicidal and yet, for the past year, he hadn’t really wanted to live. Probably the only reason he’d come this far—pushed through the agony of his surgeries and the long recovery—was Rebel. His partner. His family.
But somehow, in the past four days, Kensie had become his family, too. He loved her.
He loved her.
It didn’t even seem possible in such a short time, but he couldn’t deny the emotion rising up in him. The protectiveness, the desperation to save her, no matter what it cost him.
“I love you.”
For a second, he thought he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. Then, he realized she was repeating herself.
“Kensie, we’re going to make it,” he told her. “I know you’re scared, but you have to believe.” When she tried to speak again, he cut her off, lungs burning as he kept pressing forward, one slow step at a time. “Tell you what. When we make it out of here safely, if you still want to, you can tell me. Okay?”
Getting so many words out made his lungs scream, but he had to do it. If she really did love him, maybe it would help her hold on. Even if his leg gave out, maybe he could get her far enough. He’d tell Rebel to lead her out. His dog wouldn’t want to leave him, but he knew she’d come to love Kensie as much as he had. And Rebel was tough, just like Kensie. With a break, with Rebel by her side, Kensie could push through. The two of them could make it. He just had to get them as far as he could.
But his leg was slowing him down more with every step. The pain was back now, the numbness from before gone, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. Because he could barely feel the rest of his body. He had no idea how he was keeping hold of Kensie, but he knew if he adjusted his grip at all, it would break.
He’d never felt this much agony in his life, not even when he’d woken on that airplane, with a piece of metal slicing straight through his thigh. His face burned, like he’d scalded it. His lungs felt frozen, as if they had to chip free of his ribs with every breath. And his leg was the worst. It shook so much he knew it was only a matter of time before it gave out entirely. And each step sent pain from his knee up to his hip and then back down, as if that metal was still impaled there.
He wasn’t going to make it. He was going to fail her, like he’d failed his brothers. They were going to die out here.
“You’ve made me believe I’m worthy of a life that’s truly mine.” Kensie’s voice cut through his thoughts, a strange raspy croak that sounded nothing like her normal voice. “I want you to believe what I already know. That you’re worthy of a good life, too. Even if it’s not with me.”
She thought he didn’t want a life with her? He didn’t have the energy to correct her, but keeping her talking wasn’t a bad idea. It would keep her awake. Falling asleep was a quicker trip to hypothermia.
But she was wrong. He wasn’t worthy. His right leg was failing him. He couldn’t even lift it anymore, just slide it forward and pray he didn’t lose traction and send them both tumbling down the mountain.
He glanced at Rebel and her soft brown eyes stared back at him, weary but determined. Rebel was still going on force of will and love for him and Kensie. She’d never give up, his dog, his partner.
In that instant, a new kind of strength filled him. A strength that wasn’t his own.
He glanced at the sky and he could almost feel his Marine brothers, watching over him, helping him. “Thank you,” he rasped.
Then he heard the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard in his life. The familiar whomp whomp whomp of a helicopter.
He lifted his gaze skyward once more and there it was, circling overhead. A spotlight shot past them, then darted back. They’d been found.
Colter’s leg gave out and he collapsed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Colter woke with a start in an unfamiliar hospital bed. The beeping of the heart monitor next to him accelerated as the past few hours came back to him. “Kensie!”
“She’s okay,” a nurse reassured him.
Colter took a few deep breaths, getting his heart rate under control. This had happened several times already.
The helicopter he’d spotted from the mountain was a police chopper, sent out after his text to 911 had gone through. It hadn’t been able to set down for them on the wooded mountainside, so Colter had forced himself up. Beside him, Kensie had managed to do the same with Rebel pressed against her side. Together, the three of them had limped as far as they could, until finally a rescue team met them.
Now they were here, getting checked out. As hard as he’d tried to stay awake, Colter kept drifting off to sleep.
Beside him, Rebel pushed wearily to her feet and the nurse gave his dog a stern look.
“She shouldn’t be here.” The nurse repeated the same th
ing she said every time he woke.
“She’s my service dog.”
The nurse grunted, clearly not believing him. But hospital administration had—or, at least, that’s what he’d assumed, until a doctor had winked at him then bent down and checked Rebel’s leg, too. The doc had said his wife was military and he knew a soldier dog when he saw one.
Rebel seemed to like that and let the doctor examine her. He’d put ointment and gauze over each of her paws and then gently wrapped her leg. Thankfully, she hadn’t torn anything, just aggravated the old injury. It just needed time, the doctor told him. Much like Colter’s own leg.
They’d stripped off his wet clothes and soaked his hands, feet and nose—which all had minor frostbite—in warm water. Now his hands and feet were bare, wrapped in gauze, and he was in a hospital gown.
He knew Kensie had also suffered from frostbite, that she’d been experiencing hypothermia. But they’d assured him she would survive, then rushed her off to surgery to remove the bullet from her leg. That was the last he’d seen her.
Colter glanced at the clock on the wall, trying to remember what time they’d arrived. “What’s taking so long?” he asked the nurse.
“We’re making sure we address everything,” she replied, a little more patiently than she’d responded to Rebel’s presence. “She’ll be okay.” Then she glanced over at the door. “You’ve got visitors.”
His gaze shot up. Rebel’s did, too, surely expecting the same thing he did. To see Kensie standing there, smiling tiredly. Instead, he discovered a pair of police officers.
He didn’t know either of them. They were wearing uniforms from a town northeast of Desparre, closer to where the helicopter had found him, Kensie and Rebel.
The pair stepped into his room, both serious cops who looked like they’d been on the force a long time. The nurse left, closing the door behind her, and Colter’s heart pounded. “Did you find them?”
K-9 Defense (HQR Intrigue) Page 18