Heart of the Hunter

by Lindsay McKenna

  Casey shook her head and planted her feet. “No… listen, you have to see Reid. That’s why you’re here. I’m so glad you came, Ty… .” Her voice cracked.

  He gave her a compassionate look as he intently studied her. Gently, he put his arm around her shoulders. “How is he?”

  Gulping back tears, Casey closed her eyes. Ty Hunter was so much like Reid in some ways. Warmth permeated from him just as it did from Reid, and she didn’t fight his comforting embrace, instead leaning wearily against his very tall, heavy frame. Right now, Casey felt scared. Her mind spun with words, but she needed the right ones. She didn’t want to scare Ty.

  “He—Reid, that is—he’s critical. He’s in critical condition. They have him on life support… . Oh, God, Ty… he stepped between me and that black mamba. I had a little girl in my arms.” Casey choked and pressed her face against his shoulder. How comforting his arm felt around her! How very tired she was. “He saved our lives… .”

  “OID called me as soon as you contacted them. I was at the Perseus HQ in Washington when the message came through. They said he’d been bitten by a black mamba.” Scowling, he said, “I thought a person died in a couple minutes after being bitten?”

  Sniffing, Casey nodded and wiped her eyes with a trembling hand, but remained in Ty’s soothing embrace. “Y-yes, they do. Reid had taken a shot at the snake and blew its head half off. When the snake went down, it was still snapping and lunging as it was dying. If Reid hadn’t jumped between us, I’d be in ICU right now, not him.” Casey lifted her head and look miserably toward the intensive care area across the hall from the waiting room. “The snake hit Reid’s pant leg in a glancing blow as he pushed me and Gabriella out of the way. It looks like hardly a scratch on his right calf, but some venom got in there. He didn’t get a full dose and that’s the only reason he’s still alive right now.”

  Grimly, Ty moved her toward the entrance. “But enough to do this to him?”

  “Yes,” Casey whispered. “I—I had to give him CPR off and on during the flight from Kinshasa. His heart would stop beating. I—I’d strike him in the chest with my fist and his heart would beat and he’d start breathing again. Once he became conscious, and I told him to cough. Every time he coughed, he would start breathing again.” Wiping her eyes, she looked up at Ty’s set features. He was looking at the ICU door. She knew he wanted to see his brother. “The mamba’s venom is a neurotoxin. It attacks the central nervous system. A person just stops breathing and dies. I told the colonel to fly us here because Johannesburg had the most modern facilities for snake bites in Africa.”

  “I see,” he rasped. “What have they done for him here, so far?”

  “He’s on full life support right now. He has to be. It’s his only chance to pull through… .”

  Looking sharply down at Casey, Ty asked, “What is the prognosis? What’d the doctors say?”

  Wearily, Casey lifted her shoulders. “They don’t know. They’ve never had anyone survive a black mamba bite before, so they don’t know anything about what kind of prognosis Reid has—if any.” She waved her hand toward ICU. “I’ve been with him most of the time. I just keep talking to him, Ty. I keep telling him to come back to me.”

  “Has he regained consciousness?”

  “No, not since we landed. The doctors say he’s slipped into a coma… .” Casey started to sob. “I’m sorry… I’m so torn up over this. I—I love Reid, and God… I just can’t face it… I just don’t want him to die… . I lost someone before and… “

  Ty wrapped his large arms around her and brought her against him more firmly. He patted her shoulder. “Go ahead, cry,” he urged roughly, his voice strained. “It’s okay, just cry. I’ll hold you. You love him, eh?” He managed a slight, strained smile. “I’ll be damned. It finally happened… .”

  For the first time in twenty-four hours, Casey broke down. Earlier, she had to be the strong one. She had been Reid’s only way to remain alive. How many times during the flight to Johannesburg had she given him CPR? Too many times to recall. And each time, she had wondered if he would start breathing on his own once again. Every time he stopped breathing, she’d wanted to scream out in terror at her sense of loss. The sobs came stronger and faster now. Tears poured from her eyes and she buried her face against Ty’s shoulder. Just like Reid, he grazed her hair with his hand repeatedly, as if she were a small child to be comforted in her moment of terror. How alike the two brothers were!

  After a few minutes, the storm passed from Casey. In a soft, tear-filled voice, she thanked Ty and withdrew from his embrace. Gripping his hand, she whispered brokenly, “Please, go see Reid. He needs to know you’re here. He loves you so much. Over the past month he’s told me so much about all of you… I know he’ll hear you. I know he’ll want you with him. Go… .”

  Reluctantly, Ty took a step toward the hall. “Are you sure?”

  Casey waved him away. “I just needed a good cry is all. Go on. Reid needs you now, Ty.”

  Watching the big, tightly muscled mercenary move quietly down the hall toward the ICU nurses’ station, Casey took out a tissue and blew her nose. With another tissue, she blotted her eyes dry once again. For the first time, Casey felt a trickle of hope. Ty Hunter was here. Family was with Reid. Family was so important! Casey sat down wearily, torn between sleep and continuing to pray for Reid’s life to be spared. She leaned back in the plastic sofa and tipped her head against the beige wall behind it. Closing her eyes, she managed a soft, ragged sigh. Sleep came swiftly, and within moments, she nodded off.

  “Casey?”

  Casey groaned softly. She felt a hand gently squeezing her right shoulder.

  “Dr. Morrow?”

  Instantly, Casey’s eyes snapped open. She jerked upright.

  “Easy… ” Ty Hunter cautioned as he leaned down over her.

  Blinking rapidly, Casey came instantly awake. Ty Hunter was studying her intently. He kept his hand on her shoulder to steady her.

  “Reid?” Her heart pounded. She shot a look up at Ty’s shadowed face. Reid! “What’s wrong?” She tried to get to her feet.

  “It’s okay… .” Ty reassured her with a slight smile.

  “Reid’s okay, so relax. Just relax.”

  Casey crumpled. “Thank God.” She looked toward the ICU. What time was it? Her neck hurt and she ruefully rubbed it. How long had she been sleeping in that impossible position?

  “I’ve got good news,” he said, managing a bit of a smile. “They took Reid off life support about two hours ago. All his vitals are coming back… slow but sure. How about that? When I came in here to get you, you were asleep. I figured you needed sleep more than me waking you up right then.”

  Casey leaped to her feet and staggered. If not for Ty rising to his full height and reaching out to steady her, she would have tripped over her own feet. She felt drugged, half in her body. “I’ve got to go to him,” she whispered, pulling away.

  Ty followed, his hand still on her arm to steady her as they hurried down the highly polished hallway. Casey saw early morning sunlight filtering in through a window at the end of the hall. Looking at her watch, she saw it was eight a.m. She must have slept three hours. Anxiously, she opened the glass door to Reid’s room. The ventilator support machine had been withdrawn. Instead, she saw a cannula giving him oxygen. His color was no longer that pasty white, only pale, which was a decided improvement. She saw a hint of ruddiness in his cheeks. The IVs were still in his arms, but the beeps and sighs of the ventilator were gone. Only chirping monitoring machines remained. The turnaround was dramatic. Stunning.

  Moving to his bedside, Casey slipped her fingers around Reid’s still ones. Ty moved to the other side of the bed.

  “Does he look better to you?” he asked hopefully.

  “Yes, a lot better.” She looked over at Ty. It was then that Casey realized how very tired he really was. He must have hopped the first plane across the Atlantic to get to South Africa. His face was darkly bearded, and it gave him a v
ery dangerous look. Vaguely, Casey recalled that he was one of the top mercenaries at Perseus, a trained warrior who got the job done—or else. Off and on over the years Casey had had contact with Morgan and some of his highly trained employees.

  “The doctors? What have they said?” She couldn’t keep the anxiousness out of her tone.

  Chuckling, Ty gripped Reid’s other hand in his. “That Reid’s one tough bastard and that he’s probably going to pull through.”

  Her knees weakened. Casey closed her eyes and placed her hands on the bedside to steady herself. “Thank goodness… .”

  “They said he started breathing on his own shortly after you went to sleep.” Ty smiled tiredly. “One nurse told me that you’d been with him constantly before I came.”

  A lump formed in her throat as she absorbed the sight of Reid’s pale face into her heart. “If you love someone, you stick with them through thick and thin.”

  “Does he know how you feel about him?”

  Opening her eyes, she gazed into Ty’s dark, assessing ones. “What? That I love him? Yes.” She was forever grateful they had shared that with one another before he’d lost consciousness.

  “When did this happen? Reid never mentioned anything about it.”

  With a one-shouldered shrug, Casey whispered, “It just happened over time, Ty. I knew I loved Reid a lot sooner than I told him how I felt. I—I hadn’t told him the truth because of my stubborn thickheadedness about the whole situation. I was afraid to, I guess.”

  “Hmm, loving someone is a helluva risk. Biggest one any of us will ever take.”

  “I know,” Casey said softly. “I know better than most.” She nervously moved her fingers up and down Reid’s damp forearm.

  “I was hoping that someday Reid would get married,” Ty continued in a low tone, “especially after what happened to him. Getting left at the altar was damn hard on him. I was there. I saw how it hurt him. I felt so damn helpless for him, and there was nothing I or anyone else could do about it. He’s the marrying kind, you know? He’s got Husband and Dad written all over him. He cares so much and he’s so damn responsible about everything and everyone.”

  Wryly, Casey looked across the bed at Ty. “Oh? And I suppose you’re nothing like him?”

  Grinning unabashedly, he looked up at the ceiling. “Doctor, I’m a footloose-and-fancy-free kind of guy, like my other brothers. Yeah, I love women, but I haven’t ever met one that makes me yearn to sink down roots and think about a family and things like that. I doubt I ever will. I’m thirty-one now, and I’ve had plenty of relationships. If it hasn’t happen by now, well… “

  “Reid said you three were the tumbleweeds of the family,” Casey said, laughing a little for the first time in hours. She felt a huge weight beginning to lift off her shoulders. Reid was going to live! Her next worry was if he would suffer any nerve damage from the black mamba’s deadly neurotoxin. Reid was such a graceful athlete. It broke her heart to think that his central nervous system might be somehow permanently affected by the venom. Sometimes she wished she didn’t have so much medical knowledge. No one had ever survived a black mamba bite, so there was no way to tell from previous medical literature Reid’s prognosis. One way or another, he was going to make medical history just because he had survived. Her heart swelled with such fierce joy and elation that Casey knew it didn’t matter how Reid was affected. She would be there for him. She would be at his side every step of the way because she loved him.

  “I have a confession to make,” Ty admitted quietly. He glanced toward the door to make sure it was closed and no one could overhear them.

  Frowning, Casey said, “About what?”

  “I’m in touch with a homeopath. Her name is Rachel Donovan-Cunningham. It’s a long story, but Rachel and I go back a long way. I was in Africa on a Perseus assignment three years ago when I caught Rift Valley fever. Most people who contract it die in a week or less after getting it. Morgan Trayhern, my boss, pulled me out of the mission clinic in Africa and had me flown to London for medical help because I was dying. I was taken to the Royal Homeopathic Hospital, where I was treated not only with traditional drugs, but with a homeopathic remedy, too. The MD on my case said the only reason I pulled through was because of the homeopathic intervention. The practitioner who cared for me was Rachel.

  “I never forgot her or her magic potions or remedies.” He smiled a little. “When I got word that Reid had been bitten by a black mamba, my first call was to Rachel, who now lives in Sedona, Arizona. I told her what had happened, and she told me to go to a homeopathic pharmacy in Washington, D.C., and get a snake venom remedy known as Lachesis Muta.” He circumspectly pulled out a small glass vial from his jeans pocket and handed it to Casey. “Take a look at this medicine. Rachel told me that like cures like. If Reid was bitten by a venomous snake, then I’d need the homeopathic version of snake venom to save his life. She told me to put the pellets in some brandy to dissolve them, and when I got here, to place a couple of drops on the inside of his wrist—the one you’re holding—and gently rub it into his skin. I did that.”

  Blinking, Casey looked at the small, amber glass, which contained a clear fluid. “This contains snake venom?”

  “Yes, from a South American bushmaster snake. Lachesis is the Latin word for the snake. Actually, there’s none of the crude substance left in that bottle, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s the energy signature of the venom, is all. It’s perfectly safe to handle.”

  Frowning, she looked down at Reid and then over at Ty. “I’ve only vaguely heard of homeopathy.”

  “I can fill you in more later,” Ty said. He took the bottle and stuffed it back in his pocket. “Five minutes after I rubbed that remedy into his skin, Reid started moving around, and it scared the hell out of me.” Grinning sheepishly, Ty said, “I called the nurses pronto. I didn’t know what was going on. Reid started thrashing around and damn near tore out the ventilator. The nurses called the MD and he said Reid was breathing on his own and didn’t need any life support. So,” he said with a slight shrug as he studied his brother, “they took it out of him and upgraded him to serious but stable condition.”

  “Incredible… .” Casey whispered. “That medicine— homeopathy—did it?”

  “Must have.” Ty chuckled. “I just got off the phone with Rachel. Woke her up in the middle of the night at her ranch and told her what had happened. She said to put one more drop on his wrist in about six hours, and that should pull him out of the most immediate danger.”

  Shaking her head in disbelief, Casey whispered, “That’s a miracle, Ty.”

  He nodded somberly. “Listen, I was down for the count with that fever. I was starting to bleed out of every orifice in my body. The Catholic priest at the mission had already given me the last rites. When I got wheeled into that London hospital, they said I was a goner, too—except for Rachel. She was the only one on the medical team who said I’d live.”

  Releasing a breath of air, Casey leaned over and gently threaded her fingers through Reid’s damp hair. “He’s perspiring. That’s a good sign,” she murmured. “Before, his skin was cool and dry.”

  “Rachel said that this homeopathic remedy will engage Reid’s immune system to fight back and get rid of the black mamba venom left inside him.” Ty placed his hands on his hips as he watched her move the back of her hand against his brother’s unshaved cheek. “I wonder if Reid knows how lucky he is?”

  Casey barely heard Ty’s voice; all her focus, her love, was directed at Reid. His lips were parted and badly cracked. His lashes were dark, short and spiky against his still-pale flesh. But just the way he was breathing made her feel better, more hopeful.

  “Morgan wants to transfer Reid back to the U.S. on a Perseus jet that’s waiting for us at the Johannesburg airport whenever he’s stable enough to transport.”

  Casey lifted her head. “This is a state-of-the-art hospital.”

  Shrugging, Ty moved closer to the bed and placed his large hand o
n his brother’s gowned shoulder. “I asked Morgan to fly Rachel Donovan-Cunningham to Bethesda Hospital in Maryland. I want him there, to be cared for by her. Think of it as a combination of the two best kind of medicines in the world working together to help Reid pull through this. They’ve got just as good a tropical lab department there as they do here.”

  Smiling a little, Casey straightened up. “You want Rachel to treat him homeopathically, then?”

  Ty nodded and frowned. “Absolutely. He’s my brother, Casey. I won’t do anything less for him than what was done for me when I was down for the count. And Rachel was the only person who stood between me and death’s door.” He smiled a little. “Are you game? Will you come home with us?”

  “Sure,” she murmured. “But what about Black Dawn? We haven’t seen any indication that they were in the area where we were hunting for the Ebola virus.”

  Ty’s dark brown brows dipped. “Oh, that. Well, that’s the good news—bad news, Casey.” His full mouth thinned. “We managed to intercept some comsat traffic from them out of Germany. We discovered they’d sent us on a wild-goose chase, making us think they were going to follow you into Africa to get Ebola if you found it during your research.”

  “And they aren’t here?”

  “No. Instead, we found out just a few hours before I hopped a flight to come over here that they are actively nosing around in South America. They’re scouting an outbreak south of Manaus, Brazil. An Indian villager managed to make it to the city and report that half of the people under his jurisdiction are either dead or dying of some bug. They’re bleeding out, and I think it’s one of the hemorrhagic viruses. But it could be a new one, too. No one knows yet. With them tearing up the rain forest and uncovering viruses that have been dormant or buried for thousands of years, anything is possible. And Black Dawn wants to get their hands on it. Whatever it is. If it’s as lethal as that report that came out of Manaus indicates, we’re looking at something that can be in the same class as Ebola virus.”