Strangers When We Meet

by Marisa Carroll

  “We need help.” Her knees sagged, and Clint hauled her upright. “Blake’s been shot.”

  “What the hell?” Clint’s voice was incredulous. “Did you say shot?”

  “Yes.” She was shaking so hard with relief and anxiety that she could barely get a word out. “Someone shot at us. The bullet hit Blake in the side. He’s in the lean-to. I’ve tried to keep him warm and dry.” A sob worked its way past the lump in her throat. “He’s lost so much blood.”

  “I’ll take a look at him, Clint.” Emma noticed the heavy backpack Alison was carrying as she swung it off her shoulders. Alison was too small and slender to be able to carry a wounded man very far, and Emma began to worry how they would get Blake down the mountain. But her first concern was to find if he was still alive.

  “Please, hurry.” She couldn’t erase the terror from her voice and didn’t try. “He’s seriously injured.”

  A slim radio appeared in Clint’s hand. “McAlester? Castleman? Are you out there?”

  The radio crackled to life. “We’re here, Clint. Did you find them?”

  “Yes. They’re about twenty yards west of the streambed where we split away from you. There’s an old hunter’s lean-to. Emma tells me Weston’s been shot.”

  “Shot?”

  Emma recognized the voice coming from the receiver. It belonged to Seth Castleman. She’d met Seth, the town’s electrician, in the spring when he’d done some rewiring for her grandparents. He was a strong man, well built. If he and Axel McAlester, the veterinarian, were nearby, they would have no trouble moving Blake down the mountain to safety. Emma went a little dizzy from relief.

  “Alison’s going to take a look at him right now. Home in on my signal. And you’d better alert the unit that we’ve got a badly injured man to transport, Stat.”

  “They’re already on this frequency.”

  “Standing by.” Another voice, distorted by static and distance. “Doc Dorn is here. He wants to know the condition of his granddaughter.”

  “She’s wet and cold but otherwise appears to be okay.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Emma insisted. “It’s Blake who needs your help.”

  “Someone get on the horn to the state police. Tell them we’re treating a gunshot wound.”

  Clint shrugged out of the big pack he was carrying. He pulled a rectangular package from a side pocket and shook out a metallic-looking sheet that gleamed fitfully in the circle of light. He wrapped it around Emma’s shoulders. “It’s a survival blanket—like the astronauts use. It’ll keep the rain off.”

  “Clint. I could use your help in here.” It was Alison’s voice. Calm, but with an edginess that started Emma’s heart pounding all over again.

  She pulled the rustling folds of the blanket tight around her shoulders and sank against the trunk of a pine tree whose lower branches had long ago given up the struggle to survive in the gloom near the forest floor. Pulling her knees against her body, she wrapped her arms around her legs, trying to hold what little warmth she had left inside the blanket’s cocoon. She was dryer only because rain was no longer dripping onto her face and into her eyes.

  As she leaned against the rough bark, she could hear Alison and Clint talking in low voices, and then, wonderfully, a reply from Blake. She couldn’t hear what he said, but at least it meant he was still conscious, alive.

  I love you. She dropped her head onto her upraised knees and began to cry.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I. LOVE. YOU.

  The refrain had been repeating itself with every drumbeat of agony that pulsed through his body into his brain.

  Had he really said the words aloud?

  He didn’t know.

  He hoped he had.

  Darkness swooped and spun around him, thicker than the blackness of the lean-to. Darkness that weighed so heavily on him he could barely breathe.

  He clung to the rhythm of Emma’s signals to the rescue team, gritted his teeth and hung on to consciousness with grim determination.

  Emma called to him, but the words were garbled by the rain and the pain. He opened his mouth to answer, but it took too much effort. His head lolled on his shoulders and he fought nausea and breathlessness to bring it upright again.

  There were other voices. And light so bright he couldn’t keep his eyes open against it. A woman spoke to him. Not Emma. This person’s words were light and calm but laced with authority. He forced himself to focus on what she was saying. Yes, he had been shot. No, he didn’t know what kind of gun. A shotgun from the sound of it. Yes, he knew his blood type, and stopped himself just in time from rattling off his name, rank and serial number.

  A man joined the woman at his side. Blake couldn’t see him any better than he could her. Strong, sure hands probed at the makeshift bandage. He tried not to pay them any attention but it was impossible to ignore the increasing pain. It gnawed at him like a ravenous snake, wrapping him in ever tighter coils.

  “Where’s Emma?” he tried to ask, but once more he wasn’t certain he’d spoken the words aloud. Answering the woman’s question had drained him of his last reserves of strength. The dizziness and vertigo were growing worse. He clenched his hands at his sides to try to hold on, to keep from crying out. The roaring blackness was gaining on him, promising oblivion. He gave up fighting and let the pain take him.

  Once more he was standing at the edge of the ravine where the shots had come from, but this time he was pitching headfirst off the rock. He had lost his grasp on Emma’s wrist and couldn’t see her. Couldn’t find her. He was slipping. Sliding. Falling free. And this time there was no bottom.

  * * *

  THE TRIP to the medical unit was a nightmare. Reaction had set in, and Emma could barely put one foot in front of the other. Alison Fairchild supported her for the hundred or so yards of slippery walking to the faintest of trails, where they were met by a rescue squad member Emma had never seen before. With a minimum of words the man helped her onto the back of an off-road vehicle that jolted and jarred her all the way to the bottom of the trail.

  She kept trying to look over her shoulder, wondering how they were going to get Blake off the mountain. She had argued with Seth Castleman over the radio until she was blue in the face, but he wouldn’t let her stay.

  Finally, it was Alison who secured her cooperation. They couldn’t give their full attention to helping Blake if they had her to worry about, she said matter-of-factly. Once Emma was at the unit, her grandfather could check her out, and if he gave his okay, she wouldn’t have to go to the hospital— Alison left the sentence unfinished.

  Emma had no problem grasping her meaning. She had no intention of being sequestered in a curtained cubicle, waiting for a doctor and nurses to deal with her scrapes and bruises while Blake’s life hung in the balance. She wanted to be near him—to know how he fared.

  So she had let herself be buckled into a safety helmet and had climbed on the back of the squat, powerful little vehicle to go meet the mobile unit. Her grandfather was waiting for her, standing in a circle of brightness cast by powerful lamps on the back of the ambulance. He was wearing a heavy parka and a black watch cap, and his breath billowed in the cold, wet air, circling his head like dragon’s smoke.

  Helping hands lifted her off the ATV and into the brightly lighted interior of the ambulance. Her eyes were tearing from the rain and cold, she ducked her head against the light. “Come on, Emma. Look at me, honey.” The words were gruff as always, but gentle, insistent fingers urged her to lift her chin. It was the same touch she remembered as a little girl when some childhood illness or another had made her feverish and fretful.

  “I’m fine, Granddad. But Blake—”

  He was checking her eyes with the penlight he’d carried in his shirt pocket for as many years as she could remember. He moved his hands over her neck an
d shoulders, finding the bruise at the back of her head, scowling at the scrape on her cheek. “I don’t think that will need a stitch,” he said, muttering half to himself, half to her. “But it’s going to leave a nasty bruise. No scar, though, or just a tiny one, anyway. Won’t need plastic surgery. You can cover it with a little makeup.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, hearing her voice rise hysterically. What did she care about a little scar? She was in radio, not TV. No one ever saw her face, unless you counted the huge, ugly picture of the WTKX personalities she had to look at every morning on her way to work. She clamped her mouth shut and reined in her careening thoughts. “I’m fine.”

  Her grandfather nodded, putting his stethoscope into his ears. “Looks like you’ll be okay after you get something warm in your stomach and some dry clothes on your bones.”

  She reached out and clamped his hand between hers. “Blake’s been shot.”

  “I know, honey. I’ll check him out the minute they get him down the mountain. The ER at Pittsfield’s already on alert. And if he’s in worse shape than it sounds from Clint’s report, when he’s stable we’ll Life Flight him into Boston.”

  “I want to go with him.”

  “You’re going to Twin Oaks to get cleaned up and warmed up, or I’ll have Scott here haul you off to the hospital in his squad car whether you want to go or not. And I guarantee you, if that happens, you won’t see Blake Weston for the next twenty-four hours—or longer.” He jerked his head over his shoulder, and for the first time Emma noticed a tall, broad-shouldered man in the uniform and campaign hat of a state trooper, standing outside the door of the ambulance. “If you behave yourself, he’ll take you down to the house and see that you get to Pittsfield ASAP.”

  “I...” A million arguments jostled in her brain, but she knew voicing any of them with her grandfather would be an even greater waste of breath and time than it had been with Alison. “Thank you. I’ll go.”

  “I need to ask you some questions, Ms. Hart,” the state trooper told her. “But first, let’s do as your grandfather ordered and get you warm and dry.”

  “Thank you,” Emma repeated automatically. She could hear the roar of another ATV coming down the mountain. She wanted to stay right where she was while they brought Blake to the ambulance, but she turned and walked toward the police car.

  Five minutes later she was standing in the entrance of Twin Oaks. Maureen and her grandmother were waiting for her, and in the doorway of the dining room was Cooper’s Corner’s librarian, Beth Young, who played the piano so beautifully at afternoon teas in the gathering room. She was wearing one of Clint’s big white aprons tied snugly around her waist and carrying a tray of sandwiches. Emma caught a glimpse of a coffee urn and stacks of cups on the big mahogany table. Two or three people she didn’t recognize were sitting there, eating and drinking. They would be part of the rescue crew, she supposed, called in for refreshments now that the search was ended. Emma wanted to go thank them, but her grandmother’s anguished voice distracted her.

  “Oh, Emma Martha,” she said, holding out her hands. Emma saw the look of horror in her grandmother’s eyes and followed the direction of her shocked gaze.

  For the first time she saw the damage to Maureen’s coat, the gaping tear from the bullet’s passage, the bloodstains. So much blood. All of it Blake’s. Pinwheels of light and dark whirled behind her eyes. Her knees felt wobbly, and bile rose in her throat. “Nana...” No more words could make it past the tightness in her chest. She started to cry.

  Martha opened her arms, and Emma walked blindly into her embrace. “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right.” She patted Emma’s back as if she were still a little girl.

  “I’m so afraid for him.”

  “Your grandfather won’t let anything happen to him. You know that, don’t you?”

  Emma nodded and sniffed back her tears. “Granddad’s the best doctor in the world.”

  “Of course he is,” Martha Dorn said, recovering herself. She handed Emma a handkerchief. Her grandmother was talking to her as though she were a child, and Emma didn’t care a bit. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, and then she just stood there. She couldn’t seem to move her arms or make her brain tell them what to do. “Wipe your tears, then let’s get you out of these wet clothes. And get rid of that awful coat.”

  “I’ll need to take the coat,” the state trooper said quietly. “It’s evidence in the shooting, Mrs. Dorn.”

  “Oh. Oh, certainly. I...I didn’t think of that.”

  “I’ll get a bag. You’ll want to secure the chain of evidence.” Maureen’s voice was tight and hard.

  “Thanks, Maureen,” he said, then turned to Emma. “Let me help you off with the coat, Ms. Hart. Did you see the shooter at all?” he asked as Emma shrugged out of the garment. The entryway was warm, the fire blazing cheerfully in the gathering room fireplace only yards away, but as far as Emma was concerned, it might as well have been miles. She was cold as ice.

  “Scott, can’t this wait? Emma’s half frozen.” Martha reached up and brushed a fresh tear from Emma’s cheek with her hand.

  Scott. Gears clicked and meshed inside Emma’s head. Scott Hunter. Lieutenant Scott Hunter. Yes. She had heard the name before. He’d been married at Twin Oaks not too long ago. Martha’s e-mails had been full of the details for weeks. For the life of her, Emma couldn’t remember his wife’s name, but she had seen her often enough on television in the city. Her brain began to sift through names. Leah? Lisa? Lily? It suddenly seemed very important to remember just who Lieutenant Scott Hunter had married.

  “Your wife is Laurel London,” she blurted, relieved to have gotten something right.

  Scott’s rather severe expression softened. “That’s right.”

  “I’ve seen her on TV.”

  “And she listens to you on the radio. Why don’t you go upstairs with your grandmother and get warmed up and change into dry clothes.”

  “And she needs something to eat, Scott.”

  “That, too. I’ll go check on Mr. Weston’s progress. When I get back we can leave for the hospital. I can ask her what I need to know on the way to Pittsfield.”

  “You won’t leave without me?” Once more Emma’s world had narrowed to her anxiety about Blake.

  “I won’t, ma’am.”

  Keegan came out of the dining room. He, too, was wearing one of his father’s aprons, cinched around his middle and falling to his knees. “I wanted to come and help look for you and Mr. Weston,” he said, not quite making eye contact with Emma. He fiddled with the ties of the apron. “Dad said I wasn’t old enough to go along on a search and rescue yet. But I wanted to help.”

  Emma reached out a hand to him, then pulled it back. Her nails were crusted with blood. Keegan saw it, too, and paled a little. He swallowed hard. He looked so earnest and awkward, caught as he was in that stage between boy and man. “Thank you so much for wanting to help. Someday you’ll be a real asset to the team,” she said, pulling a smile out of the deepest reserves of her heart.

  “He’s been a great help to me.” It was Beth Young speaking. She had come to the entrance of the dining room, and walked forward and put her hands on Keegan’s shoulders. She was a striking woman, slender, with pale translucent skin and coal-black hair highlighted with a dramatic streak of white that swept from her widow’s peak. “I don’t know what I would have done without his expertise in the kitchen.”

  “All I did was make sandwiches and tell you where to find things,” Keegan said, but a dark flush of color on his cheeks betrayed how proud he was of the praise.

  “I would like one of those sandwiches before I leave for the hospital,” Emma said. “Keegan, would you make one for me, please?”

  “Sure. What would you like? We have peanut butter. Or cheese. Or ham. Or roast beef.”

  Emma’s stomach roiled at t
he mere thought of eating. But her grandmother wouldn’t hear of her having only a cup of tea. “Cheese will be just fine.”

  “Swiss or American?”

  Emma felt the confusion and wrenching anxiety she’d been holding back by sheer force of will pulsing behind her eyelids once more. What difference does it make? she wanted to scream.

  Beth Young noticed it, too, and urged Keegan gently toward the hallway leading to the kitchen. “Why don’t you surprise Ms. Hart. And I’ll make her a nice hot cup of tea. You can take it up to her room when it’s ready.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Thanks, Keegan.” Emma had control of herself again. Going to pieces in front of Clint’s son wouldn’t help Blake. She summoned one last smile. “You’re a lifesaver. I need that sandwich just as much as I needed your dad to find me up on the mountain.”

  Keegan galloped off to the kitchen, beaming. “Thanks,” Beth Young mouthed silently, then followed him with an indulgent smile.

  Lieutenant Hunter and Maureen resumed their low-voiced conversation as Emma and her grandmother mounted the stairs. Maureen might as well have been talking in code for all Emma understood, but a small, functioning corner of her brain found it odd that a Berkshire innkeeper should know so much about chains of evidence and ballistics testing. Emma was in no shape to lean over the railing and ask Maureen what was going on. Blake had been shot. By whom wasn’t important at the moment. She knew at some point it would become important to her that the man be caught and punished, if not for the shooting itself, then for running away. She knew Maureen’s ruined coat would be important evidence. As would her recollections. But none of that mattered at the moment. Only Blake mattered. Dear God, she prayed, let him live.

  And she had so little to tell, really. Heaven knew, she’d racked her brain during those long hours on the mountain. But she’d dredged up so few details. The birds and small forest creatures they’d listened to all afternoon had been silent those last minutes before the shot. She had thought it was because twilight was falling, a natural occurrence. But had it been because a more dangerous human trespasser than she and Blake was nearby?