Page 122 of Love Me Dangerous

Gently, I brush her cheekbone. “He hurt you.”

“That was all,” Sofie says, her gaze unwavering. She’s so brave.

Tears burn my eyes. To think he frightened her… hurt her. “I’m so sorry.”

“We need to remove the coat,” the medic says. “This heated blanket will work faster to warm you.”

Sofie reaches for the zipper but her fingers fumble.

“Let me help.” My right hand isn’t much better, but I work the zipper down and help Sofie slide the sleeves off.

While the medic tucks blankets all around Sofie and straps her in safe and snug, the need to check in with the sheriff before things can spiral further out of control seizes me like a vice.

“Can you wait one second?” I ask the medic.

He frowns.

“It’s okay,” Sofie says.

“One,” the medic says.

I dash out the back door. The blinding snow is like a wall of white needles. I hurry to the sheriff’s SUV. Rowdy is tucking Dustin inside the back. Henry and Barb are waiting just out of the circle of swinging lights, with Leo and Bea standing rumps to the wind, huddled for warmth. Another pulse of gratitude washes through me, warm and bright. As if sensing my distress, Henry nods, and Barb rubs the side of Bea’s neck. Later, I’ll figure out some way to thank them.

“You ridin’ with me, or your girl?” Sheriff Olson shouts over the wind.

I glance at Rowdy as his last phrase echoes through my mind.

My girl.

Rowdy’s eyes lock with mine in the whirling snow. It’s a look of gratitude and strength. Belonging.

Emotions clot into my throat, but I force them down. I lean closer to Sheriff Olson. “Can you keep Dustin from his phone call?”

Sheriff Olson squints at me, one hand on his cowboy hat, and nods. He climbs behind the wheel and shuts the door.

I race back to the ambulance. Inside, with the doors shut behind me, I settle onto the side bench and fumble for Sofie’s hand beneath the blankets.

“Ready?” the driver asks.

I lean close and kiss Sofie’stemple. “Ready.”

The hospital staffwas prepared with an entire triage team to rewarm Sofie, but the respiratory nurse took one look at me, and soon I had a team of my own. X-rays and a rewarming bath for my frostbitten hand, and a physician’s assistant named Julian shooting me up with lidocaine to stitch up a gash on my temple.

“Let me guess,” the athletic-looking doctor said when he showed me my X-rays. “I should have seen the other guy?”

Laughing only made me hurt, so all I managed was a grimace.

I wait through an agonizing ten minutes alone for the lidocaine to work, where I second-guess letting them treat me. It’s going to expose me, but it’s too late to stop it.

Is it too late for everything else?

The PA returns with a suture kit.

“Um, can you hurry?” I ask him.

He looks up from unwrapping gauze and anti-bacterial swabs on the little table next to me, his eyebrow arched. “You want to look like Frankenstein, sure.”

“Sorry, I just need to be somewhere else.”

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