by Marla Monroe
As Dalton hurried over to where Shelby lay strapped to the cot, Bo walked closer to the small man standing next to where their woman lay unconscious on the dirty cot. So far he hadn’t seen what the man had dropped or what was behind him.
“Fuck, Bo. We’ve got to get her to a doctor. The son of a bitch cut her and she’s bleeding.” The tremor in Dalton’s voice worried him, but he couldn’t allow his concentration to waver with three men in the room to watch.
When he reached the man standing in front of him, he kicked his feet wide apart and patted him down. He didn’t have a single weapon on him that he could find. When he looked over the man’s shoulder he nearly threw up. On a tray on the cot next to Shelby’s head was the metal suitcase open wide to reveal an array of surgical instruments and things he hadn’t seen since his days in the marines. This man was an interrogator, which to him was no different than an old-world torturer.
Mind-numbing rage burned through his veins at the sight of his Shelby and that case next to where Dalton was binding her wounds and covering her exposed body. When he turned his gaze back to the man, he had the good sense to pale and take a quick step back. That only made Bo see red and lose it since it put the man closer to Shelby.
Before he knew what he was doing, Bo had the man by his throat and had lifted him off his feet before throwing him across the room where he hit the wall a good two feet off the ground before dropping to the concrete floor in a heap. Bo started to cross the room and finish the man off, but Dalton’s frantic voice cut through some of the red haze that nearly blinded him.
“Bo! Listen to me. She needs a hospital. Now, nis’ah!”
Bo shook his head to clear it and nodded. “Carry her up and I’ll gather their things. We’ll lock them in the basement then disable their vehicles so they’ll still be here when the police show up.”
“You’re going to regret you interfered, Indian. You have no idea who I am.” This came from the one lying on the floor.
Dalton growled as he picked Shelby up in his arms. “We don’t give a fuck who you are, but I have your wallet, so I’ll be sure to tell the police when we call them.”
Bo watched as Dalton carried their woman up the stairs before he gathered all the weapons, making sure to get the ones from the man still partially covered by the door. Then he closed the case containing bitter memories for him and after securing the latch, walked over and relieved the little man of everything in his pockets as he had the hire hand under the door.
Once back upstairs, they locked the pantry door and dragged the china cabinet and the table over in front of it. Bo left Dalton with Shelby in the front room of the cabin while he ran to get the truck. Before he’d even stopped the truck, Dalton had Shelby in his arms and was heading straight for the truck. He let Dalton tend to Shelby, settling her in the back seat with her head in his lap, while he disabled the cars, pulling out the batteries for good measure and putting them in the back of the truck. He had to stop and breathe through the raw rage still burning a hole in his gut. Why? Why had they wanted to torture her? He pulled the wallets out to look at them. The interrogator’s was obviously a fake, identifying him as Richard Smith from Maryland, while the thug’s was probably accurate since he looked the part of a Mike Sullivan from Seattle, Washington.
He threw the wallets over in the passenger’s seat and climbed up in the cab of the truck. Looking over his shoulder, he had to swallow before he could speak.
“Is she okay?”
“She will be.” Dalton’s voice cracked.
“Hand me that asshole’s wallet. I’m going to call the cops while we head to the nearest emergency room.”
Bo passed the other man’s wallet to him. When he opened it, Bo knew they were going to have trouble. The bastard was from one of the government’s alphabet agencies. He let his head hit the headrest behind him and sighed. Dropping the wallet on the seat with the others, he called a friend instead of the police, putting him on speaker so he could drive. Laredo answered on the second ring.
“Bo? That you?”
“Hey. We have her back, but she’s hurt and we’re going to the nearest emergency room,” he said. There was silence on the other end for a second.
“How bad?”
Dalton spoke from the backseat. “I’m not sure, but she’s bleeding from a lot of different places. The bastard used a fucking scalpel on her.”
They heard Billy Joe in the background. “Oh, God!”
“What do you need? Just tell us and you’ve got it.” Laredo’s voice had changed. He sounded more like the military man he’d been before taking over the ranch from his ailing father.
“One of the men is a spook of some kind. The other was a professional interrogator. I don’t want them getting away with this and I don’t want them harassing Shelby for the rest of her life. What can we do?”
There was silence over the phone once again. After a long two seconds Laredo spoke again.
“Get her to a hospital. As soon as she can talk, get her to tell you everything. I’ll make some calls on this end. Find out her real name. I’m almost positive she wasn’t using it if she’s been on the run for very long.”
“Okay. I’ll call as soon as she is able to talk.” Bo was about to hang up, but Laredo stopped him.
“As soon as it is safe to move her, head back here where we can surround her until we get this worked out.”
Bo drew in a deep breath. “Got it. We’ll be in touch.”
He heard the other phone disconnect over the speaker. He didn’t like not knowing everything that was going on. Something didn’t add up. Why would the government be involved unless Shelby was into something really serious? What were they going to do if they couldn’t get her out of whatever it was?
Dalton met his gaze in the rearview mirror. He was thinking the same thing from the almost defeated look on his face. Well, he’d never really cared for society as it was anyway. A person could get lost in the mountains of Montana and Wyoming. Worse comes to worse, he’d take her there and they’d do just fine. He was almost certain Dalton would come with them. Between the two of them, they could keep them all fed and make her happy.
“Don’t leave me out of it, Bo. I’m right there with you.” Dalton’s face appeared fierce in the mirror.
“Calm down, nis-kun’, little brother. You will scare Shelby if she wakes up and sees your face. I would never leave you out. If we can’t free her of whatever she is in, we will disappear like our people once did into the mountains.”
Dalton nodded but didn’t say anything. He cradled their woman in his lap and whispered to her. Bo couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was in the language of his people. That soothed Bo for some reason. He relaxed and drove as fast as he dared down the gravel road then slowed so he wouldn’t sling Shelby around when he got to the turn off. Once on the highway, he opened it up and prayed they didn’t get pulled over. With all the firepower they had in the truck and a seriously injured woman in the backseat, he doubted they would listen to two Indians right away. No, they’d get locked up until someone could vouch for them and someone could get to Shelby while they rotted in jail. Bo backed off the gas some and kept a close watch in his rearview mirror.
* * * *
The pounding in her head let her know right away that she was still alive. Shelby hesitated to open her eyes, thinking that as long as they thought she was still out of it, they’d leave her alone. Then the sounds and smells got through to her and she knew something was different. Gone was the suffocating musty smell of the basement. Instead, she could smell disinfectant and leather. What would leather be doing in a hospital? She was almost certain she was in a hospital. She could hear the soft beep, beep, beep of a heart machine somewhere.
After several tries, she managed to get her eyes to open. Thank goodness the room was dimly lit. As it was, that small amount of light hurt her eyes. They throbbed in time with her heart and her head. Moving hurt, but she needed to figure out where the scent of leather came f
rom. It reminded her of the guys. She missed them so much.
Just as suddenly as that thought flew through her head, she wondered how she’d gotten to a hospital. Who’d found her and how bad had she been hurt before they had? Distracted with those thoughts, she tried to look down her body, but dipping her head made the back of her shoulder scream with pain. She moaned at the sudden tearing pain.
“Shelby? What’s wrong, kitten?”
She looked up to find Bo staring down at her, his eyes wide as if he was afraid. Of what? Bo was never afraid.
“Shelby?” She slowly turned her head to find Dalton on the other side of the bed with eyes just as wide and filled with something she couldn’t quite figure out.
“W—” She coughed, wincing as the sound reverberated in her head. She cleared her throat then sipped some water through a straw that Bo held up to her.
“What happened? Where did you come from?” she finally asked.
“Don’t worry about anything but getting better right now, little one.” Dalton reached over the bedrail to squeeze her hand. “We found you and now you’re going to be fine.”
“How did you find me?” she asked, too stubborn to let it go.
Bo drew in a sharp breath. “We tracked you. That’s what we’re good at. You should have trusted us to help you, Shelby. You wouldn’t have gotten hurt like this if you’d just let us help you.”
“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, Bo. I was so worried that something would happen to the people I cared about if I stayed. They had found me, and if I didn’t leave, they’d have taken down anyone who got in their way.” She sagged back on the soft comfortable mattress, her eyes closing in exhaustion. “I care about you both too much.”
“Shhh, kitten. Rest. We’ll figure everything out when you’re better. Just sleep.” Dalton’s soft words sounded so good to her, but she knew there was no figuring anything out. She was as good as toast. She just had to make sure no one else got hurt.
“Where am I?” she asked after a few seconds.
“I thought you were resting,” Dalton said, a smile evident in his voice.
“Resting, but where am I?”
“We’re in Waterville. As soon as it’s safe to move you, we’re going to Spokane then Helena. I’m scared to move you too far too soon,” Bo said. He walked around the foot of the bed to stand next to Dalton.
It made it much easier for her to see both of them without moving her head so much. The damn thing felt like it was going to explode. She remembered hitting her head a few times, then the bastard that had caught her had hit her again. Shelby wasn’t sure if she’d been hit again or not. Something had happened after that though. She just couldn’t remember what it was. Maybe she didn’t want to remember. She felt like crap.
“What all is wrong with me?”
“You’ve got a lot of cuts and scrapes, little one. Some of it is infected, which is why you’re still here and not heading to Montana. You’re getting some IV antibiotics first.” Dalton indicated the plastic tubing leading from her arm up to some stuff on a pole.
“I remember that I got away once and my hands were tied behind my back. I had to use a sharp rock to cut through them. I think I cut my hands some, too.” She lifted the one that didn’t have the IV in it to find that the other one was wrapped with gauze.
“Yeah, we wondered how you managed cut them up so badly and get dirt in them,” Dalton said. “You’ve got a deep gauge in your shoulder, too.”
“Oh, yeah. When the rope finally broke, it threw me off balance and I fell back on the rock I was using as a knife. It cut into me, but I had my hands free.” She smiled but even that hurt.
“There was a wolf, too. I hid in a hollow log and a wolf crawled in with me. Then when the man came for me, the wolf ran out and distracted it.” She knew that sounded pretty far out there, but she was sure that had happened.
“It didn’t hurt you?” Dalton asked.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “No. It saved me. I thought it would eat me for sure, but it just lay there until the man came. Then it left and took the man with him, so I could get away.” She closed her eyes with a sigh. “But I didn’t get very far. He found me and took me to that monster.”
Chapter Sixteen
The next time Shelby opened her eyes she felt much better. Both Bo and Dalton were asleep in the chairs on either side of her. Seeing them there assured her that they hadn’t been a dream after all. They really had come after her and taken her away from the nightmare. She should have trusted them all along, but she still wasn’t out of the mess she’d gotten into. How would she ever be free as long as they thought she had the drive?
“Hey there. How are you feeling?” Dalton stood up then stretched before leaning over the rail to smile down at her.
“Better, thanks. When can I get out of here? I’m a sitting duck lying in this bed.”
“Don’t you worry about that. We’re taking care of it. You just have to get better.”
“When the doctor comes back around, we’re going to see about transferring you to another hospital if you still need to. We want you closer to home.” Bo gave her one of his half smiles.
“Hey. Sorry I woke you,” she said, smiling back at him.
“Are you thirsty?” Bo asked.
She nodded and he picked up a plastic hospital mug and bent the straw in her direction so she could sip at the cold water. It felt so good going down.
“Easy, kitten. They said not to drink too much at a time.” Bo pulled the straw from her mouth.
“How long have I been out?” she asked.
Dalton frowned. “Too long. It’s been about ten hours total.”
“Laramie, Laredo, and Billy Jean send their love. They’ve been worried about you,” Bo told her.
She didn’t know what to say to that. No one had ever really cared what happened to her. They were always glad if there was trouble for her to be on her way. It floored her that everyone seemed so worried about her. What had she done to earn their friendship?
“Hey, hey, little one. Don’t cry. Nothing is going to happen to you. We’re going to take good care of you.” Dalton patted her arm. She looked down and realized both hands had gauze wrapped around them and her wrists.
“You did a number on your hands, kitten. Seeing you all bloody and unconscious nearly killed me. Don’t ever let something happen to you like that again.” Bo’s voice actually cracked.
“Believe me. I don’t plan on it. That’s why we really need to go. They’ll find me here.”
“You’re safe, Shelby. Trust us to keep you that way.” Dalton looked so earnest. She wanted to trust him and Bo, but they just didn’t know who they were dealing with.
A quick knock on the door had both men jumping to attention. Dalton hurried around to the other side of the hospital bed so that both men blocked her entirely from the door. She heard it open and both men relaxed.
“Stand down, you two. I’m just going to check on her. Is she awake?” The soft voice was new to her.
Bo and Dalton parted and an older looking man in a suit with a white lab coat walked between them. He had a headful of curly white hair and she realized his suit shirt was wrinkled.
“Well, hello there, Shelby. It’s good to see you awake. You gave these two men a scare when you wouldn’t wake up. How do you feel?”
“I feel fine. Can I go now?” she asked.
He chuckled. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. By the way, I’m Dr. Gibraltar. I’ve been taking care of you since they brought you in. Had us all in a frenzy downstairs.”
She thought he was a nice man, especially for a doctor. Most of the ones she’d dealt with in the past had been gruff and always in a hurry. Dr. Gibraltar didn’t seem to be in the least bit rushed.
“Let me check you over, young lady and we’ll figure out when you can leave.” He peeled back the covers then checked beneath the bandages on her belly. Shelby really didn’t want to see what was underneath yet.
He removed the ones on both hands and wrists, declaring them well on the way to healing. Then he had her roll over so he could check her shoulder where she’d stabbed herself with the rock. She had to bit her lip to keep from groaning as he removed the bandage. He poked and prodded before cleaning it and covering it in a new bandage.
Bo helped her roll back over. She could see the distress on his face though he quickly hid it when he noticed she was watching him. It was obvious that her wounds weren’t pretty.
“So, when can we move her? We want her somewhere safe, and this close to where she was taken isn’t the best location,” Dalton was saying to the doctor.
“She needs more time on the antibiotics. I suppose we can leave the access in her vein and you can go to any emergency room with a copy of your paperwork and my orders. They can contact me for verification if they need to. I’d feel better if you’d tell me what hospital and let me contact a doctor there to take over her care.” He crossed his arms and watched the three of them with concern.
“How about we call you with where we end up and you can contact a doctor there to take over her care. Will that work?” Bo asked.
“She’s really in that much danger?” the doctor asked with a frown.
“Like we told you, the less you know the better off you’ll be. These men are ruthless, as you can see by what they did to her.” Bo stood his ground.
“Okay. She’s stable enough that as long as you make sure she takes the medication and is able to receive the IV antibiotics, she should be okay. Looks like she has another thirty minutes of the one going right now. I’ll make a copy of her chart and write up some orders. Then you can get on the road.”
“Thanks, Doc. We appreciate it.” Dalton shook his hand then Bo.
Once he’d left, the two men turned back to her. Even she knew their smiles were forced. It left a bitter taste in her mouth. If they were worried, there was definitely something to be worried about.
