Page 54 of One Last Chance

She did, and he motored up the bike, still holding her leg, and pushed off.

They crawled along, stones and rock pinging off the tires, his body taut, clearly trying to keep them from sliding.

And all the while he kept a firm grip on her leg.

She closed her eyes again, surrendered to the buzz of the motor, the sense of him, stalwart, in front of her.

She didn’t know how long they’d traveled before she heard the engine cut down. He stopped, his legs bracing them.

She lifted her head and spotted a pickup on the side of the road. A man, dark hair, a canvas jacket, and jeans walked over to Axel. “This is your fifty-year-old bush woman?”

Huh?

“She did show up with a gun, so you weren’t wrong there. Help me get her off the bike. Easy. She fell down a mountain.”

“You two are a pair.”

He eased out of the pack and leaned up, still holding her leg. “Sparrow, I’m going to put your leg down and lift you off the bike.”

He looked at Moose. “Take her helmet off. Then catch her because she’s in and out of consciousness.”

Yeah, well, if she’d been sleeping before, she woke when Axel got up, trying not to jostle her leg. Her knee must have swelled six sizes since getting on the bike, and a noise that she’d never heard before came out of her body.

“Okay, okay—” Even he sounded panicked. He came around and scooped her up again into his arms. “Listen, I’m going to put you in the back seat of the truck, and Moose is taking you to the Copper Mountain hospital. They’ll assess you, and if you need it, we’ll fly you down to Anchorage.”

She looked at him, dust on his skin and his clothing, his eyes holding a fair amount of worry, and she couldn’t stop herself. “You’ll be there, right?”

He smiled. “Yeah, Sparrow. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Then he stepped up to the back seat and placed her inside. She slid back onto it and let her leg lie straight.

The big guy got into the driver’s seat. “I’m Moose, Axel’s brother.”

“The one who called him Lugnut.”

He considered her for a moment. Then chuckled. “Don’t you worry, Sparrow. I’ll take good care of you.”

“Stay alive,” said Axel as he stood at the door. Then he winked and shut it.

Fear not. Because her sister’s murderer was in those mountains; she just knew it.

And she wasn’t going anywhere.

* * *

“You did hear the part about someone trying to shoot her, right, Deke?”

Axel didn’t mean to raise his voice, and despite the lingering late-evening sun, a nurse had walked by twice with a finger to her mouth to shush them.

He didn’t care when visiting hours ended, he wasn’t budging. Not until Sparrow came out of a CT scan for her head, her MRI for her knee, and X-rays for her shoulder.

And not until he got some answers about who might have been shooting at her on a mountaintop in the middle of a national forest.

So there was that.

The moment Axel had arrived at the Copper Mountain hospital—a five-bed hospital attached to the clinic and the new maternity ward—and discovered Sparrow getting a head and knee CT, he’d left to track down the sheriff.

“I did hear you, Axel,” Deke said. He was out of uniform, Axel having dragged him out of the Midnight Sun Saloon. He’d gotten a takeout box from Vic, the owner, for the man’s hot wings, so what was he complaining about?

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