Page 70 of Silver-Tongued Devil
Above him, the burglar alarm started an insistent clangor, the noise harsh and unrelenting. Good. That would bring someone. Dakota moaned in his arms, a protesting sound, but that was good, too. If she was hearing that racket, she was conscious.
The man came running. Not from inside. From outside. Around the corner of the resort, coming fast, young and fit, shouting. “Hey! Hey! Get out!”
Blake whirled and roared at him. “911! Ambulance! Now! Ambulance! Now!” His quarterback voice, the one that could reach the entire offense even over the din of sixty-seven thousand in Seahawks stadium.
He was shouting like fourth and goal, and the guy heard, even over the alarm. He slowed, and his hand went to his belt. He had his phone out, and he was punching buttons, making the call. A few words, and then he asked Blake, “What happened? What do I tell them?”
“Drowning. Tell them to run. Tell themnow.”Dakota was still breathing, he thought, but her eyes were closed, her face white.
The guy finished talking, then hung up, shoved the phone back in his pocket, unlocked the front door of the resort, stripped his shirt over his head, and made a quick pad of it. “Put it under her head,” he said. “I’ll get a blanket.”
He took off, his footsteps echoing against the stone, and Blake laid Dakota gently down on the iron-hard floor. He was shaking himself, but she wasn’t, and her skin was so cold. He stripped his swim trunks off her, then the Devils T-shirt. It was torn, a huge triangular rip where she’d been caught and he’d pulled her free.
By the time he had her clothes off, the security guard was running back again, a white down comforter in his arms. He threw it over Dakota and asked, “What else?”
Blake was shoving his soaking dress pants over his hips, pulling off his briefs along with them, then yanking off his T-shirt. He climbed under the comforter and lay on the cold stone, then pulled Dakota over him. “Come on, baby,” he told her. “Climb on. Hold onto me. Come on.”
She heard him, because she was trying, and her eyes had opened. Her movements were sluggish, but she was moving. Blake told the security guard, “Help me get her on top of me.”
The guard did it, his movements decisive, unhesitating, not seeming to notice or care that they were both naked, and Blake thought vaguely,Probably ex-military.After that, the guy pulled the comforter over them both, straight over Dakota’s head, and said, “I’ll go out front and watch for the ambulance.”
Blake said, “Yeah.” Dakota’s body was so cold over his, and he began to rub his hands over her back, up and down, chafing warmth back into her. He felt her begin to shiver, and he thought,Yes. Come on. Shiver, baby. Shiver hard.
The ambulance didn’t take long. It just felt that way. The two paramedics put Dakota on a gurney, covered her with a blanket, and strapped her down, and Blake got to his feet, holding the comforter around his naked body.
Dakota was shuddering now, her teeth chattering. She looked up at him as he walked beside the gurney toward the waiting ambulance and said, “B-b-blake. Your b-b-boat.”
“What?”
“It’s in the l-l-lake.”
The security guard had been locking the door behind them, but now he was beside Blake again. He said, “Where?”
“By the logs,” Blake said. What did it matter?
“I’m on it.” The guy took off.
“You n-n-need to give him a r-r-raise,” Dakota said.
The paramedics were putting her into the back of the ambulance now, and Blake climbed up behind them. He smiled at her, though it felt shaky as hell, and said, “Good thought, darlin’. I’m on it.”
At the hospital, a low brick building on the highway, Dakota was whisked out of sight into the ER. Blake stood on the sidewalk with the paramedics, and one of them looked him over and asked, “What about you?”
“I’m good,” he said. “I’m fine.” His body was still trying to shake from the adrenaline, but he was used to that. If Dakota was fine, he was fine. She hadn’t looked all that wonderfully fine chalk-white, with her eyes closed and an oxygen mask on her face, but that was treatment, that was all. He’d had plenty of treatment himself in his time. Somehow, though, he was discovering that it was a whole lot different to be beside the gurney instead of on it. A whole lotworse.
The paramedics looked at each other, then the older one said, “You can probably get them to help you out in the ER.”
“I don’t need help,” Blake said. “I’m fine. I got wet, that’s all.” And had aggravated his knee, he’d found when he’d climbed down from the ambulance and felt it buckle under him, but that would settle down once he got some ice on it.
“Dude,” the younger paramedic said, “you’re a little bit naked.”
“Oh.” Blake hitched the comforter more securely around himself. He’d forgotten about that. “I’ll go see if they can help me out with that. Thanks, guys.” He hobbled along the sidewalk toward the main emergency entrance and headed inside.
It wasn’t the big city, that was for sure. A woman was holding a toddler who clung to her and looked miserable, and an older guy was sitting with a reddening towel wadded over his hand with his wife beside him. That was it. They both looked up at his entrance. Blake nodded and made his uneven way to the nurse’s desk at the rear of the room while the woman behind it, a middle-aged woman dressed in plain blue scrubs, watched his progress.
“Hi,” Blake said when he got there. “My…” He had to stop a minute and think how to put it. “My girlfriend just got brought in. Dakota Savage.”
“The drowning,” the nurse said. She started to write something down, and Blake’s heart just about stopped.
