“Let it go,” he ordered. “Let go of the knife.”
“Fuck you!”
“Time’s running out, asshole. Give me the knife.”
While the two of them struggled, Bethany rushed to check on S.G. She dropped down next to her. “Are you okay?”
The girl opened her eyes, and a wicked grin spread across her face. She held up the wrench Bethany had used before. With an expression of triumph, she brandished it in the air. “I’m not going back with him.”
“Of course you’re not. Hand the wrench to me, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
S.G. shook her head. “No missing this time.”
“Right. I guess I’m more of a healer.” She helped S.G. get to her feet as she checked her for injuries. She spotted bruises, but nothing seemed to be broken. S.G. was one tough kid.
The girl marched over to where Nate and the intruder were struggling with each other.
“I’m not going back!” she yelled as she brought the wrench down on the man’s bushy head.
He dropped like a stone. His head hit the floor, his arms splayed out, and the knife clattered onto the concrete.
Nate kicked it under the engine and crawled off the man’s unconscious body. “Thanks, S.G. Damn, he’s strong.”
“Very strong. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Where’s Bethany?”
Nate twisted his body around to look for her. He winced and clutched at his side. She saw blood dripping from his jacket.
“He hurt you!” she cried as she ran the last few steps to his side.
“Meh.” He shrugged and reached for her. “What’s another stab wound? I’m getting used to them. Are you okay?”
She checked her side, where the man had held the knife to her. The cut wasn’t even bleeding anymore. “I’m fine.”
She crouched next to Nate and helped him peel his jacket off his body. The man had slashed his other arm, not the one S.G. had cut. This wound was even deeper; the man had meant business. “We have to get you to the hospital. You need stitches.”
“I don’t even feel it.”
“You will. You’re running on adrenaline right now, but it’s bad. Where’s your cell phone? We have to call 9-1-1, or no, we can take my car. It’s right outside. Where’s your first-aid kit, I’ll bandage you as best I can then drive you to the hospital. S.G., can you find the first-aid kit, or maybe just a rag I can use for now?”
S.G. limped over to the workbench. Nate blinked his eyes to keep them open; wooziness was setting in. He was losing blood. It pooled on the floor and ran in a stream under the engine.
My God, Nate had thrown himself on top of that monster, knowing he had a knife. He really had been willing to die to save her. The thought was overwhelming.
He loved her. He’d said so, at least twice.
Unless—a crazy thought occurred to her. What if he’d just been trying to distract the man to keep him from hurting her?
S.G. brought her a rag that smelled freshly laundered. She lifted Nate’s arm and wrapped the cloth around the wound. “Compression,” she murmured. “It might hurt.”
“Compression,” he agreed. Of course—he knew what needed to be done.
“All those things you said, were you just babbling to distract him from S.G.?”
“Babbling?” He turned his insulted gaze on her. “I was baring my heart to you. I was sharing all my emotions, just like you wanted me to. Now you say I was babbling?”
“I’m sorry.” She tied off the cloth. “I just didn’t know if—”
“Baby, I meant every word. Now, if my words don’t quite come up to your fancy med school country club standards—”
“No! That’s not what I meant. I loved your words. Truly.” Too late, she realized he was teasing her. “Why do I fall for it every single time?”
“I don’t know, but it’s one of the things I love about you. Bethany, you said before that you loved me.” His eyes gazed into hers. His whole heart seemed to be revealed in those gray depths. “Can you give me another chance? I’ll prove to you that I love you too. Once I love someone, that’s it. There’s no going back. I love the way you talk and smell and look and fuck and—”
Okay, now he was actually babbling.
“Shhh.” She angled her eyes in S.G.’s direction, but the girl had limped over to the door and was opening it for a throng of first responders.
“I love you too,” she whispered before they got swarmed. “Even if you hadn’t rescued me, I’d give you another chance.”
Chief Darius Boone burst through the door and charged across the floor toward them.
“He’s injured. Get a gurney!” he called to the crew behind him. Kneeling down next to Bethany, he gave Nate a quick assessment.
“Knife wound?” he asked Bethany.
“Yes, about three quarters of an inch deep. Exposed bone, clean edges. He’ll need stitches at the very least, possibly some surgery to repair the tendons.”
“Damn, Nate. Always making trouble.” But Bethany could read the concern in his eyes.
“He’ll be okay,” she reassured him—or maybe herself. He had to be okay. Anything else would be unacceptable. And now that she’d found her inner spine of steel, she wasn’t about to let go of it.
“Fine,” mumbled Nate. “I’m fine. I’m getting married.” He pointed at Bethany. She made an apologetic little face at the fire chief, but couldn’t help blushing. That was a big leap, right to marriage. But somehow, she didn’t mind.
“Oh yeah?” Darius moved aside as the other paramedics arrived with a gurney. “That’s good news. Congratulations.”
“I haven’t asked her yet, but I’m telling you, Chief, I’m getting married.”
With impressively coordinated and efficient movements, the crew transferred him onto the gurney. He winced as someone repositioned his arm. “Careful, guys! I’m gonna need that hand for—”
“Okay, okay.” Bethany bent down and kissed him on the lips before her babbling beloved said anything inappropriate. “Shh,” she whispered against his mouth. “How about you save your breath for later?”
With his uninjured arm, he brushed her hair away from her face. “That’s the thing, my love. There might not be a later. Gotta enjoy the moment. This, right here,” with his eyes, he indicated the equipment bay, the crew of paramedics, S.G. hanging back wide-eyed, worried Chief Boone, and then landed back on her, “this is a fantastic moment. Will you ride with me in the van, Doc? I’m scared.”
The gleam in his eye told her he was joking. He might be woozy and losing blood, but he was still Nate. The one and only. The one she loved with all her heart.
“Sure thing. I’ll even hold your hand.”
“Told you I was going to need it.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
For days after the stabbing, Nate woke up in a cold, shaking sweat. It wasn’t the stabbing part that disturbed his dreams. It was the part where Bethany was being held hostage by a deranged mountain man. One move of that man’s knife and she would be dead right now.
Every time, he’d roll over to make sure her warm body was still curled up next to him in bed.
Then he’d slowly relax, each of her soft breaths easing him back to a normal pulse rate.
But each time, the panic lessened. Eventually, he slept through the night with no attacks of anxiety, just the simple reassurance of her presence.
Sometimes she worked a night shift, and during those nights he grappled with his midnight awakenings on his own. It wasn’t easy, but he knew it was important. If he was going to be with Bethany—and he damn well was—he couldn’t keep her hostage to his fear. She had a job, one that she loved, one with a purpose. He refused to interfere with that.
So he worked through it alone on those lonely nights—the trapper, the burn of his wound, the still body of his sister—and slowly his breathing would return to normal and he’d lie back in bed.
Some of S.G.’s strange words came back to him. Ghosts are thieves. He d
idn’t want to be haunted by his sister. He wanted to love her.
No—he wanted to love.
“Sabrina, you’d love Bethany,” he whispered in the dark. “And Bethany would love you. I want to marry her, and I think I want a family—I know she does—and I’m scared. How’s a guy supposed to have a life when anything can fucking happen?”
Of course his sister didn’t answer, but nevertheless his mind was made up. He might not know how to do it, but he was going to do it. The thought of making a life with Bethany filled him with a deep joy. No fear could compete with it.
It turned out that the entire town of Lost Harbor had been worried about him. As soon as the news spread that he was okay, a flood of visitors made their way up the Hilltop Homestead to bring him casseroles, smoked salmon, get-well drawings from their kids, and even homemade knitted hats.
He got into the habit of keeping a pot of coffee brewing for anyone who came by. He even made some brownies on a day when his surgically repaired tendons and muscles weren’t hurting too much.
Bethany hovered, but he couldn’t blame her. He hovered over her too, even though she’d only gotten minor bruises and a small nick in the skin over her ribs. The nurse at the hospital gave her a Bullwinkle moose Band-Aid, which should have amused him. But the sight of her wound made him too wild with fury to laugh.
So he didn’t begrudge Bethany the need to call him every couple of hours, even from work. She checked his wound every night, helped him shower, and gave him careful backrubs.
Sometimes he felt that his love for her expanded with every hour they spent together. As if once he’d knocked down the dam holding back his love, it came flowing out with unstoppable force.
A couple of days after the incident, Chief Boone made the trek up the hill. He’d insisted that Nate stay off duty until he wasn’t in danger of ripping out his stitches. Stomping the snow off his boots in the arctic entry, he brought a whiff of firehouse energy into Nate’s quiet house.
Nate offered him coffee and brownies and showed him into the living room. Darius took three brownies and lowered himself into an armchair with a long sigh. “Nice view up here. I drove through layers of storm clouds on the way up.”
“Another snowstorm’s coming?”
“So they say.” He wore a knit cap that made him look vaguely like a Viking. “Got an update on your assailant.”
“Yeah?” Nate crouched next to the fireplace and adjusted a log, releasing a plume of sparks. “Did they figure out who the bastard is?”
“They did. His name is Edgar Murchison. I gotta say, you have some strange criminals up here. You were right, he’s a trapper. But he’s also a fugitive wanted on robbery and murder charges. He’s been living somewhere in the Lost Souls Wilderness for the past twenty-five years.”
That part was a surprise. “He’s been living across the bay? So how did S.G. get to Lost Harbor?”
“She says she stowed away on a fishing boat docked at Far Point. She didn’t tell us before because…well, because she didn’t really tell us much at all.”
“Can’t really blame her.”
“Not at all. But I sure as hell blame him. There’s an arrest warrant out for him in Texas, and I plan to personally hand him over to the authorities there. Unless you want to file charges against him here.”
“I’ll talk to Maya about that. There’s also all the stuff he did to S.G.—kidnapping and child trafficking. How’s she doing? I haven’t seen her since that night.”
“She’s not saying much. I think she’s in shock.”
“Maybe it’s all catching up with her. She’s been through a lot. Most of which we don’t even know about.”
Darius stretched out his legs so his stocking feet nearly reached the fireplace. “True that.”
For a moment, they sat in comfortable silence. Nate toyed with the idea of asking the chief more about himself. No one really knew anything about him, except that he was way overqualified for the position of teensy-little town fire chief.
“Funny thing,” Darius drawled, breaking the quiet. “Sometimes it seems like Lost Harbor is in a world apart. And then some wilderness lunatic with a hand-carved knife shows up and you realize there’s fucked-up people everywhere.”
“Yeah. We just have our own flavor, that’s all. People are people, wherever you go.”
Darius nodded ruefully. “For better or worse. Speaking of which…is it true you’re marrying the doctor?”
“I hope so. I’m going to officially ask her soon. It feels right. I’m ready.”
“Oh yeah? Well, good luck with that.” He slapped his hands on his thighs and rose to his feet. “I’ll get out of your way so you can practice.”
“I was kinda hoping I could practice on you.”
Nate didn’t normally joke around with the chief the way he did with everyone else. But what was his boss going to do, send him home? After a moment of surprise, Darius gave a booming laugh. “You don’t want to practice on me, I’m an automatic ‘no.’ Been there, done that, got the scars. But seriously, hope it goes well. I recommend that you don’t do it in front of a crowd, and definitely not on a horse.”
Okay then. Darius took his leave, leaving Nate with lots of questions and an extra nervousness he hadn’t felt before.
Practice. The chief was right, he should practice some more.
He paced around the living room, rehearsing the words he’d come up with over the past couple of days. “Bethany Morrison…no, Dr. Bethany…shit, what’s better, doctor or no doctor? It’s good to show respect, right? On the other hand, that’s her professional name. I’m asking her to marry me, not operate on me.”
Okay, maybe he hadn’t quite perfected it yet. Take number ninety-five.
“I love you, Bethany, and I want a future…I want you to be…I mean, future Bethany, will you be mine?” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “What? That makes no sense. You sound ridiculous, asshole.”
Taking a break from this torturous rehearsal, he crouched down to add a log to the fire. With the poker, he maneuvered it so the fire blazed with life.
The problem was that he was talking to himself, and it felt weird. He needed a prop, something to act as a stand-in for Bethany. The fireplace poker would do just fine.
He stood up and gazed at its still-glowing tip. “You light up my heart, Bethany. Without you, I’m as dead and cold as those logs. Not the ones in the fire, the other ones, in the wood pile next to the fireplace. Oh my God.” That was terrible. “I ought to just bury this fricking poker in my chest. It’d be a hell of a lot easier.”
“But then I’d have to do more surgery on you, and I’m still not over the first round.”
He spun around to see Bethany dashing across the room toward him. She still had her parka on. Snowflakes dotted the fur-lined hood like diamonds, outshone only by the joyous look in her eyes.
“Shit. You heard all that?”
“I heard enough.” She arrived at his side and wrapped her arms around him, careful not to jostle his injury. Her face tilted toward his like a daisy fully opened in the sun. “Actually, Gretel heard some of it too, but I made her go sit in the car.”
He groaned and dug the heel of his hand into his forehead. “Well, you probably already know I’m not exactly Mr. Suave.”
“Believe me, Mr. Suave wants nothing to do with me. So I guess that works out just fine.”
He gazed down at her flushed face and wide-set eyes, the pale hair swept back from her rounded face. “I wasn’t necessarily going to do this so soon, but…Hey, was there any part of what I was saying that stood out from the rest? Or was it all crap?”
“It was all perfect and one hundred percent guaranteed to succeed.”
Oh thank God. Relieved beyond words, he broke into a wide smile. “Really? Does that mean I can skip straight to the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ part?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Holding on to the couch, he dropped down onto his knees. “Wait, is it one knee or two? I feel li
ke I’m praying right now. This doesn’t feel right. Does it matter which knee? Like right is good luck and left means disaster? Damn, I should have done more research.”
She was laughing so hard she had to bend over and rest her hands on her thighs. “I can’t believe you’re overthinking this so much,” she gasped.
“Yeah, well, that’s because it matters. You matter. So much.” All laughter gone, he gazed at her with his whole heart and soul in his eyes. “Bethany, will you please marry me? I love you so damn much. You are beyond anything I ever hoped for in my life. I want to make your heart sing the way mine does every time I see you.”
Once he got started, it seemed he couldn’t stop.
“I want to stand beside you and cheer you on. I want to tell you how incredible you are, over and over, until you believe it. I know this is fast, and we don’t have to do it right away. We can wait as long as you want. I don’t have a ring, but I do have this.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a crystal in the shape of a heart. “I found it on Seafarer’s Beach the last time we took Sabrina there. It’s the most important object I have, and I want it to be ours. Maybe we can make it into a necklace, or give it to our first child, or—”
A tear dripped onto his hand. He looked up to see Bethany crouching down beside him and taking his hands, crystal and all, in hers. “You know my answer is yes. This is so beautiful. I love it. And yes…did I say the ‘yes’ part?” Another tear dripped onto his hand.
Tenderly, he wiped a tear from the upper curve of her cheek. “You’re crying.”
“Yes. You really want to have a child?” she whispered.
“I do. I mean, I’m terrified, but I really do want to. I think I always have. I was a really good big brother, and I’m a fantastic uncle-type dude for lots of kids in town, and I think I did pretty well by S.G., all things considered.”
“You did. You did great. She’s going to be fine.”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her sweet downturned lips. “Please don’t cry. I might take it personally, like my proposal was just that bad.”
Seduced by Snowfall Page 24
