Page 7 of Property of Rio

“What happened then?” Rafe’s voice is soothing, almost soft, which isn’t like him. He’s not a mean person, at least not to me,but growing up around Paps’s club, he never really had much of a female influence, so he’s usually abrupt and blunt.

“Rafe? I’m sorry,”I cry out as pain courses through me.“Why do I hurt so much?”

“There was an incident, Issy. Shhh now, Doc is checking you out.”

“Did I make it home? I figured out where I was, Rafe, and Star helped,”I whisper.

“Issy, what happened after you drank the water, sweetheart?” Rafe gently asks.

“I got dizzy and fell down. But when Gage tried to tie me up, I fought. I used everything you taught me, Rafe. I even remembered to use my elbow, I promise.”Tears are falling as the pain seems to get worse.“It hurts, Rafe. I’m so sorry I let you down.”

“You’ve never let me down, Issy. You hear me? Now rest, baby.”

I feel a sharp prick injected into the muscle of my arm and sink back into the oblivion of the dark abyss, unaware that Rafe is wiping my tears away as fast as they fall.

“Three days, Issy, you’ve been sleeping for three days now.” Rafe’s tortured voice has me prying my one good eye open to see him sitting on the bed next to me, his head in his hands.

I don’t recognize the room but figure I’m either in the clubhouse in his room or possibly in the big house, where he lives now that Paps is gone. Not that the clubhouse isn’t on the sameproperty, but like Paps used to tell him whenever Rafe would ask, sometimes a man needs his own space.

“Rafe?” My voice is hoarse from disuse. Actually, I feel like I swallowed some ground-up glass, along with a bag of cotton balls.

“Thank fuck, Issy!” he exclaims, leaning over me.

His crisp clean scent, mixed with leather and something that’s uniquely all him surrounds me. Having grown up with him, it makes me feel safe and protected.

“Am I at the big house?” I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me, and considering that I was stuffed into my own horse trailer then taken someplace against my will, I think I’ve earned the right to know when it comes to my whereabouts. “And what did you mean by three days?”

The last thing I remember is him and BamBam finding me after I came around and couldn’t get my body to cooperate. Since I’d been beaten to hell and back, I’m surprised I even had the thought process I did. My brain had felt as if it’d been tossed into a blender and ground into sectioned off pieces before being reinserted. Everything beyond that is blank, like a brand-new white board. Not even a speck of dust to show what happened.

“You are, but at first, you were in Doc’s clinic at the clubhouse,” he replies. “Brought you here so you could get some decent rest and start to heal. Then you decided to be extra and developed an infection in your wrists, so you’ve been pretty much out of it for the past three days while you ran a fever. Don’t you dare ever scare me like that again!”

He helps me sit up and I glance down to see both wrists are bandaged. I wince when I try to take a deep breath and holdup my hand, so he’ll stop. “Just need a second,” I whisper, the pain momentarily stealing my voice. “Need something to drink, Rafe.” Maybe that’ll help the cotton feeling I have going on.

“Here, babe,” he says, handing me a chilled bottle of water. A flashback of one of the last times I took a bottle from someone I trusted hits me like a freight train and I flinch, which has his face falling, before a look I’ve never seen before crosses it. “I’ll get you a glass, Issy.”

Vehemently shaking my head, I argue, “No,no! I know you’d never intentionally hurt me.”

“That’s what you thought about Gage, too, Issy,” he replies, handing me the bottle of water once he’s cracked the top and opened it for me.

“What do you mean?” I know I didn’t say anything to Rafe yet because I haven’t been awake long enough to tell him what happened. A thought pierces my head and I look at him and ask, “Did Starlight make it home? What about Stargazer?”

He reaches out and twirls one of my curls with his finger. It’s something he’s always done, and it brings me a sense of comfort, even though I’m so confused it’s ridiculous. “You talked during your fever, Issy. You kept apologizing because you thought you’d let me down. Let me make this perfectly clear, sweetheart. You fought your fucking ass off. After Doc was done checking you over, I had Millie and Constance bathe you and get you cleaned up. Then Doc stitched you up and got your wrists and ankles bandaged.”

I wave all of that off, worried about my girls. “And the horses?”

He chuckles, but there’s no mirth behind it at all. “There’s my girl. Shoulda led off with how Starlight and Stargazer were.Starlight made it here and we followed her lead to where you were laying. Unfortunately, Stargazer isn’t home yet.”

My head drops as my eyes well up. “Gage hasn’t brought her back yet?”

“No, he hasn’t, and believe me, we’re looking for him.” His tone is grim and kind of scary right now, but I’m not feeling particularly charitable toward my supposed friend, so I don’t say a word.

“So, you know what happened?” I ask.

“When you started apologizing to me for letting me down, at first, I thought you were awake. It wasn’t until you answered almost robotically that I realized you were feverish, but I continued asking you questions. I don’t have the full picture, though, Issy, so if you can, would you take it from the top?” he questions.

I take another sip of water as I try to put the events of that day in order. There are still some blank spots, but hopefully, what I do remember will be enough to help Rafe find my missing horse.

FOUR

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