At the ranch she was baffled to see several police vehicles parked out front, Jesse's Bronco among them. How had he known? she wondered as she burst up the stairs and into the lodge with her last ounce of energy.
Her brother was standing just inside the door, surrounded by what looked like the entire Salt River police force. His face went slack with shock when he saw her.
"Please. I need help." It was the only thing she could manage to say through her racing lungs.
Jesse rushed to her, taking in her bedraggled state and the blood and muck she knew was smeared all over her soaked sweatshirt. "Cassie. What the hell happened? Are you hurt?" His eyes sharpened with anger. "Where is he? Where is that son of a bitch? If he hurt you, I swear I'm going to rip him apart with my bare hands."
She blinked, finally realizing how odd it was to find him at the ranch. He had no way of knowing what Wade had done.
"What are you doing here?" she managed to ask, her voice weak and raspy.
"I've come for Slater. No way in hell was I going to let the bastard skip town. I finally managed to convince the county attorney to file charges against him for killing Melanie."
She gazed at her brother's hard, angry features. Of course, she thought hysterically, what else would he be doing? He was here to arrest Zack, who even now lay bleeding to death because he had stepped in front of a bullet.
For her.
The trauma and terror and terrible fear that had been nipping at her heels finally caught up with her.
She began to laugh, a bitter, grating, horrible sound. "You can't arrest him, Jesse. Not if he's already dead."
* * *
Chapter 12
« ^
He awoke to grinding, white-hot pain just below his left collarbone and the disorienting sensation of knowing he was in a completely unfamiliar place.
It had to be some kind of hospital. The walls were white, clinical, and he could hear the whoosh and beep of medical equipment. He looked down and saw a bandage wrapped around his chest.
What happened? Where the hell was he?
He closed his eyes, trying to remember what might have brought him here. For a moment he had only brief fragments of memory. Images, really.
Cassie.
A rainy mountainside.
Lowry...
He hitched in a breath as memories tumbled back like hard stones being thrown at him. Lowry. Cassie. A bitter struggle.
Where was she? Had she been hurt?
He had to find her! He struggled to rise, but a steady hand suddenly held him down. "Whoa there, cowboy. You don't want to move too much, I promise, or you're going to find yourself in a world of hurt."
A man with a steely gray buzz cut and a white coat stood over him writing on a clipboard. He knew this man. He squinted, trying to place him, then it came to him. Old Doc Wallace at the Salt River Clinic.
He swallowed, aware suddenly that his throat felt as if he'd gulped down a plateful of desert sand.
"Cassie," he managed to rasp out.
The doctor gestured with his thumb toward the door, where Zack thought he heard raised voices.
Hers, he realized. Sweet relief coursed through him. She couldn't have been hurt too badly if she was outside his door yelling at someone. He thought he heard the words owe and apology and pigheaded.
"Who else?" he asked.
Doc Wallace rolled his eyes. "Whole damn town, seems like. Her whole family got here right after they brought you in. I believe Chief Harte is the one being, uh, reprimanded out there. Jean Martineau and most of her Lost Creek staff showed up a few minutes ago. I think the police officers who rode up that mountain after you and Lowry are still hanging around. You're quite the hero. Lowry, in case you're wondering, has a concussion but he's being treated at the sick bay over at the jail."
Zack closed his eyes again, remembering those terrible moments on the trail when he was sure the son of a bitch was going to kill them both. When he had known he wouldn't be able to save her.
"Cassie's okay? You're sure?"
"More scared than anything. She had a mild case of hypothermia but she's fine."
The doc finished scribbling in the chart, then closed it with a wry smile. "Since you haven't bothered to ask about yourself, I'll tell you anyway. You are one lucky cowboy. I don't know how but that bullet missed just about everything important. You lost a lot of blood but you're stable enough now that I can send you on to Idaho Falls for surgery."
Surgery. Great. He grimaced. He hated hospitals, always had. But they sure beat the alternative—bleeding to death in the muddy mountainside above the Lost Creek.
As if he'd read his thoughts, the doc gestured toward the door to the trauma room. The shouting had died down, Zack noted. "That's one hell of a woman you got there," Wallace said. "You never would have made it if she'd had one ounce less grit."
Zack wanted to correct him but he didn't. Yeah, Cassie was one hell of a woman. He would never argue there.
But she wasn't his.
He remembered her kneeling next to him, tears coursing down her cheeks, and his chest felt tight and achy from more than just a lousy bullet hole.
"She's itching to come in," the doc said. "You up to a visitor?"
He nodded and kept his gaze trained on the door for the next few moments, trying not to focus on the pain, until she opened it cautiously, peeking around the door.
He was startled to see a whole crowd milling around outside behind her. What were they all doing there? An instant later she slipped inside the door, then closed it behind her, shutting out the noisy waiting area.
Her eyes looked red and puffy, and smears of shadow underscored them. She looked tired, he thought with concern. If he hadn't felt so weak himself, he would have ripped out this damn IV line and climbed right out of the bed so she could lie down for a few minutes.
Unfortunately, he had a sneaking suspicion he would end up on the floor if he tried it.
For all her fatigue, she moved quickly to his side. "How do you feel?"
"Like I've tangled with a couple of bull moose." His voice sounded rough, raspy, and he cleared it before continuing. "The doc says I should be fine once they patch me up."
"Oh, Zack. I'm so glad." To his dismay, two tears slipped out from her spiky dark lashes and were quickly followed by several more.
He grabbed her hand and wrapped his fingers tightly around it. "Hey. Don't cry. Everything's okay."
"I was so afraid you wouldn't make it."
He squeezed her fingers. "The doc says I wouldn't have if you hadn't been there."
"You wouldn't have been shot in the first place if not for me! I'm so sorry I dragged you into it."
He breathed deeply of her wildflower scent. "Don't say that. I don't want to think about what might have happened if he had found you alone."
"I would have figured something out," she mumbled.
"Yeah. More beef and barley soup."
Although he knew it wasn't wise, he couldn't restrain himself an instant longer. With his good arm he reached out and snagged his fingers in her hair, then brought her face to his. Her mouth tasted sweet and pure and he wanted to stay there forever just drinking her in. "Thanks for saving my life," he murmured.
She sniffled, and more tears slid down her cheeks. "Right back at you."
She edged away, grabbing a tissue off the small table next to his bed. "Jean tells me you were planning on leaving tomorrow."
The hurt in her eyes stabbed at him like a sharp scalpel. "I had to go, Cassie. I'm sorry. It was too hard staying here with the way things were between us."
"The only reason for that was because of your stubbornness! You're the one who pushed me away."
Only because he was trying to protect her, just as he had pushed her off the trail to safety so he could take on Lowry. He didn't know how to answer, so decided to keep his mouth shut.
After a moment she spoke again. "So Doc says you'll probably have to spend a few days at the medical center in Idaho
Falls. Will you be heading to Denver when you get out?"
Did she want him to go? Was this her way of telling him to get lost?
"I don't know. I guess that's something I'll have to figure out."
"Well, let me know when you make up your mind."
The scalpel twisted a little harder. "I will."
"Good." She paused. "I just want to know what forwarding address to give my family."
He stared at her, his vision a little gray around the edges. The damn medications must be making his head fuzzy. "What did you just say?"
She gazed back with an innocent expression. "You don't really think I'm going to let you just ride off into the sunset again, do you?"
He cleared his throat. "Cassie..."
"No. I'm sorry, Zack, but this time I'm sticking to you like flypaper. Wherever you go, I'm going right along with you. Denver. Durango. Timbuktu. It doesn't matter."
Dazed by her conviction, he could only stare at her for several long moments. "You would be willing to leave your family?" he asked when he could find his voice again. "Star Valley? Everything you love here? All for some no-account drifter?"
She shook her head emphatically. "No. But I would leave in a heartbeat for you."
Gripping his hand tightly, she brought it to her chest, where he felt her heartbeat strong and true beneath her shirt. "I love you, Zack Slater. I have never stopped loving you. When I saw you lying so still on that mountainside, I realized nothing else matters but that. Whatever happened in the past can stay there for all I care. We have the rest of our lives ahead of us and we can build whatever kind of future we want."
"What do you see in that future?" He found he was suddenly desperate to know exactly where she was heading with this.
"Simple. We're going to get married and have babies together and live happily ever after."
Oh, hell. He felt the sting of tears behind his own eyes as wave after wave of love for her washed over him, purifying him, healing him. He could see that future vividly, and he wanted to reach for it so fiercely he trembled with it.
"Is that a proposal?" he managed to ask through the joy exploding inside him.
She smiled that slow, sweet Cassie smile that had haunted him for so long, for all the years and miles between them.
"No, Slater," she murmured softly against his mouth. "It's a promise."
* * * *
Table of Contents
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CASSIDY HARTE AND THE COMEBACK KID Page 20
