Page 25 of Ms. Fortune
I found myself sprawled on my back, the cold asphalt stinging my spine as I stared up at the rapidly darkening sky. Everything hurt, and I was at a loss. I was used to my luck making things miserable, but it had never been so bad that I was constantly in a fight for my life. I’d laughed off Risky’s earlier claim that I had an enemy; now it didn’t seem very funny.
I was scared. Terrified, as I belatedly realized that I had more to lose than the lodge.
My final coherent thought before I succumbed to the pressure in my head and passed out was, I hadn’t had to ask Risky to come. I’d simply told him I was in trouble, and he’d promised he was on his way.
There had been no one I could rely on like that in my life before.
It was going to be impossible to see him as anything other than a man who had given me something I hadn’t even known I needed.
I was in an entirely different type of trouble where Declan Risk was concerned.
The reprieve from blacking out didn’t last long. When I opened my eyes, it wasn’t Risky I saw, but a worried family who had pulled over to check on everyone involved in the accident. They had already called 911 and assured me emergency services were on the way. The mom was holding hands with a terrified teenager while the father tried to keep everyone calm.
There were a million tiny rocks digging into my back, and the asphalt was ice-cold along my spine. I tried to sit up, but the motion made my stomach roll and sent lightning bolts of pain shooting through my brain.
Behind the worried family, I saw a large man in a baseball cap talking on the phone. He was shouting at whoever he was speaking with and pacing furiously next to the open door of the big rig. I guessed he was the truck driver who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and inadvertently gotten dragged into a deadly game of chicken. I was relieved that he appeared to be unharmed, even though his truck was still hanging off the side of the mountain.
The same couldn’t be said for the person in the black SUV. I couldn’t move my head too much without wanting to throw up, but even from my supine position, I could tell the SUV had suffered the most damage. The front end was obliterated, andthe entire vehicle was crushed like a recycled can of soda. There was no escaping a head-on collision of that magnitude.
I lifted a hand to wipe away the blood that was still running down my face. I frowned when my wrist throbbed just as bad as my head did. Through blurry eyes, I noticed it was swollen to the size of a small grapefruit. All these bumps and bruises I was collecting were going to make getting the lodge ready for opening day even harder than it had already been. As I was cataloging my various aches and pains, I heard another set of tires screeching on the pavement and then a deep voice calling my name.
I forced myself to turn my head and saw Risky rushing toward me. It was dark, and my vision wasn’t clear, but I could still tell that he was deeply worried about me. His eyes looked at the wrecked truck and trailer, and a litany of swear words filled the night air.
“I don’t ever want you to say you’re unlucky again in this lifetime, Ms. Fortune.” He lowered himself so that he could touch the side of my face that wasn’t covered in blood. “The calls don’t come much closer than this.” A muscle in his cheek jumped, and despite his gentle touch, I could tell he was furious. “Are you okay?”
“I called 911. An ambulance should be here at any minute. And the police.” The dad with the family rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess it will take a while because of the remote location and the difficulty of the road conditions.”
I tried to grab Risky’s hand, but my sore wrist didn’t want to cooperate.
“Stop moving.” He barked the order. I could barely feel the pressure from his fingertips where he touched me. “There’s no telling how badly you’re injured. Don’t make things worse by wiggling around.” He looked over at the trucker, who was stillyelling into his phone. “What happened? Did the semi’s brakes go out?”
I automatically went to shake my head but nearly passed out again. Risky resorted to holding my face between his warm palms so I couldn’t move. I realized it was nearly impossible to see the SUV where it was crushed under the front end of the massive truck.
“Someone tried to run me off the road. They hit the semi when it came around the turn.” My voice was thin and thready.
I felt like my tongue was too big for my mouth, but Risky didn’t have a problem understanding me. He glanced at the front end of the semi and frowned.
A minute later, the first responders arrived. The family who stopped was happy to hand the whole situation over to the professionals. If I wasn’t mistaken, the heavy aura that had come when Risky arrived made them nervous, but they didn’t want to leave me alone with him until real help arrived. It was a kind, if unnecessary, gesture.
Of course, as soon as I was strapped to a gurney and loaded into the back of the ambulance, the sheriff crawled in alongside me and started peppering me with annoying questions. From the jump, I could tell he wanted to pin the fault of the major accident on me. He repeatedly asked if I had been drinking or was under the influence of anything. He questioned if I had been speeding. He demanded to know how someone who had grown up driving the pass could miss an oncoming semi truck. I didn’t say a word as he hammered at me relentlessly. Even when the EMTs told him they needed to go and asked him to leave the back of the ambulance, he gruffly stated he would meet me at the hospital to continue questioning me.
I didn’t respond, but right before the doors at the back of the emergency vehicle were closed, I saw Risky step up to the older man and tell him flatly that the truck driver had a dashcamand the entire accident had been filmed and saved. The sheriff immediately lost some of his bluster and shot a dirty look to where I was lying, strapped down for the winding ride off the mountain.
I heard the sheriff ask Risky who he was, and maybe I’d hit my head harder than I thought because I swore I heard him reply, “Her man.” Not herhandymanor one of her employees, but something that was far more personal and would put him directly on the cranky lawman’s radar, right next to me.
Right as the doors were about to click shut, I thought I heard Risky say something about the sheriff being terrible at poker or having a shitty poker face. I didn’t understand the context, but the brief glimpse I caught of the older man’s furious expression showed that he was suddenly angrier at Risky than he’d ever been at me. The entire exchange was confusing, and my head was too rattled to make sense of it. I made a note to remember to ask Risky at a later date what he’d said that got under the sheriff’s skin.
When I arrived at the hospital, it was obvious that I was banged up and had some minor lacerations, but I wasn’t critical. They determined that even though I’d passed out, I didn’t have the symptoms of a concussion, and they chalked the blackout up to shock.
I was wheeled into a room and waited for quite a bit until a nurse came in to take my vitals and make notes about all my injuries. She stayed to disinfect everything and sent me off to get my wrist X-rayed to make sure it wasn’t broken. She also gave me a tetanus shot when I told her most of the abrasions and scratches that were bleeding had come from broken glass.
When I got back to the room from radiology, Risky was there. I still had to wait for a doctor to go over my X-ray and for them to prescribe painkillers.
I noticed when the nurse subtly checked Risky out before she left us alone. He never moved his eyes off of me. His handsome face was still set in angry lines, and there were waves of hostility pouring off his big body. It was obvious why the unsuspecting Good Samaritans had been eager to get away from him.
“Did you leave your friend at the lodge?” I asked in a raspy voice to break some of the tension filling the small space.
“He dropped me off and headed back to Denver.” Risky kept the answer clipped and was back to holding on to words like each one he used was worth a fortune.
