Page 29 of Save Me

He felt her hand on his thigh as he knelt beside her, then began opening packets of gauze swabs, and dousing them with antiseptic. “Here goes,” he said, and began dabbing them along the cut on her forehead. He heard her take a deep breath, then she closed her eyes, but she didn’t cry out.

“Did you know the hiker?” he asked, trying to distract her from the pain.

“Stalker from work. Didn’t know he’d followed me up the trail. He attacked me, I got away and ran. I tricked him. Made him believe I fell into the canyon, then I did what you always said to do.”

He paused and looked up. “What’s that?”

“When faced with a difficult situation, do the unexpected. I backtracked on myself and ran up the mountain, instead of trying to get down to the trailhead. When it worked, I thought to myself, Hunter saved me.”

Three simple words... Hunter saved me, put a lump in his throat. All those years ago, and she’d remembered.

Lainie was still talking. “Then I really did fall later. Hit my head against some rocks. When I woke my head was bleeding, and there were bear tracks all around me. It scared me. I was dizzy and confused and started running. The next morning, I woke up with a fever. I kept getting sicker, then I got lost...so lost, but you kept finding me in the dreams and bringing me back.”

Hunt swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Because we belonged. I gave you my heart a long time ago. It will always be yours.”

Her hand was still on his thigh when he began making a bandage for her head. “I’m so sorry, Hunt. Sorry I never answered your texts. I didn’t see any of them until months later, after I was released from the hospital. Millie took me home to help me pack and get my car, and found my phone under my bed. I guess it fell there when Dad knocked me out.”

Hunt frowned, pulled a leaf from out of her hair and then finished wiping down the cut on her head. “I loved you then. I love you now. Nothing will ever change that.” He glanced up. It was full on dark now, and he shifted the lantern enough to get a bandage over the cut in her forehead and tape it down. “I’m going to move down to your feet now,” he said, and moved the lantern with him.

As he did, he began seeing the rips and tears in her pants and could only imagine how bruised and scratched her legs must be, but he was leaving that to the doctors. Right now, he was most concerned about her feet.

“Lainie, darlin’...you have a lot of open wounds here. I need to clean them out, but you’re too hurt. The best I can do is kind of drench them with alcohol. It’s going to burn like the devil, but I won’t have to touch them.”

“It’s okay, Hunt. I’ve outrun the devil before.”

In that moment, he felt defeated. He knew what she meant. Despite all of his military service, he had not been a part of their greatest war—the war she’d fought with her family to stay with him. The war that cost them their child.

He opened the bottle, then took a breath. God, he hated doing this. It was going to hurt her even more.

“Are you ready, baby?”

“I’m ready,” she said, and held her breath, waiting for the inevitable. But when the alcohol hit the cuts, it felt like she’d walked into fire. She screamed, and then fainted.

The shriek stopped his heart. He was on his knees in seconds, checking for a pulse, but it was steady. He dropped his head, then laid a hand beneath her breasts just to feel her heartbeat.

“I am so sorry, baby. Maybe this way is best. At least you’re not going to feel it.”

He quickly moved back to where he’d been sitting, put on a pair of surgical gloves and began sluicing alcohol over the bottoms of both feet, pouring slowly, and carefully, making sure he’d gotten it into all of the cuts, then put the lid on the bottle and went back to the first-aid kit for tubes of antibiotic ointment. Working quickly, he liberally applied the contents of the tubes to the bottoms of her feet. Then he stripped off the gloves, dug a clean pair of his own socks from his backpack and slipped them on her feet before rocking back on his heels.

It wasn’t nearly all she needed, but it was all that he could do. He was in the act of policing the area for the medical debris he’d discarded, packing it all into a bag to dispose of later, when she woke up screaming his name.

Her panic scared him, and within seconds, he had her in his lap. “I’m here, baby, I’m here.”

Lainie opened her eyes, saw his face and went limp.

“Thank God! I thought all of this was another dream. I was afraid to open my eyes and still be alone.”

He pulled her closer. “I know we’re still sitting in a pile of brush, but you did good finding this place. I’m here and I’m real.” He took her hand and put it in the center of his chest. “Feel that heartbeat? That’s panic. You passed out from pain and woke up screaming. Damn sure got my attention,” he said, then kissed the back of her hand and held it close. “Your feet are all cleaned up, and you’re wearing a pair of my socks. Do you feel like you could eat something? I have MREs...meals ready to eat. It’s military stuff. Spaghetti, stew, or chili, I think.”

“Oh. My Lord. Spaghetti. I choose spaghetti,” she said.

“I always knew the way to your heart was to feed you,” he said.

“I’d deny that, but it’s so the truth.”

It was the first time in three days that he’d smiled. “Let’s get you settled first,” he said, and scooted her out of his lap, and then down between his legs, letting her lean against his chest while he sorted through the food packs. When he found the MRE she wanted, he opened it, handed it to her along with a disposable spoon.

“Lean against me, darlin’, and here’s your drink. You eat. I’m going to call the ranger in charge of the search parties and let him know I found you, okay?”

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