Page 52 of One Last Chance

His gaze fixed on hers, so close, too close maybe, and truthfully, all these feelings probably had way too much to do with the last twenty-four hours of panic, then relief, and now rescue than actual attraction, sohello. Wake up and calm down.

But oh, Axel Mulligan was a handsome man.

“It’s back in the socket?”

“Yeah.” She straightened, then swayed, and he grabbed her waist.

“Hokay, I think it’s time to close up that cut on your forehead and head back to Copper Mountain.”

He picked her up and set her back on the porch, just like that. He moved her onto the sleeping bag. “Lie back. Let me see what you’ve got around here for first aid.”

“I bought a kit in town, at the outfitter’s,” she said. Probably. At least she said it in her mind.

He emerged holding the bag and now crouched beside her and opened it. “Yep. Butterfly bandages. Perfect. That’ll get us started.”

She let him doctor her cut, adding ointment, then taping it shut. Then he wrapped her knee with an instant ice pack and an ACE bandage.

“You’re a regular Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

He looked at her.

“Except you’re a guy.”

“Thanks for noticing.” He tucked the kit away. “Do you think you can ride on my bike?”

“I can try.” She pushed herself up. “I did manage to walk down the mountain by myself.”

He considered her a moment. “Okay. Let me pack up your gear. Or is it Peyton’s?”

“Peyton! Oh, we need to call her?—”

He held up his hand. “Where’s the radio?”

“I . . . think it might be in my pack?”

He found the pack and pulled out the radio. “You didn’t think to use this?”

“You remember the shooting part, right? The last thing I wanted was to bring Peyton into that.”

He considered her for a long moment, then nodded.

“Channel sixteen,” she said.

He stood up and went into the cabin, and she heard him call up Peyton. Tell her that he was bringing Flynn into Copper Mountain.

He also mentioned the shooter, then someone named Hank—oh, right, she knew Hank—and as she closed her eyes, she heard him say he’d called Nash.

How could she have thought he might be a killer . . .

“Don’t sleep!”

His voice jerked her back, her eyes open. He stood over her, the pack over his shoulders. “Don’t sleep, Sparrow.”

Sparrow. She should tell him her . . . name . . .

“Okay, that’s enough. We’re going. But I don’t trust you to hang on.” He whipped off the pack, stepped into the cabin, and in a moment he’d returned with the empty pack, her supplies gone.

“Let’s go.”

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