Page 8 of Montana Freedom

My vision darkened, and pain exploded through me as something struck my side. But it wasn’t pavement. It was warm, living, and breathing. Someone caught me.

“Whoa, hey. Hey, I’ve got you. Are you okay?”

I cracked open my eyes, and I knew I was already gone, because it was him. The man from my dreams. He had let me out of one cage, and now he was going to let me out of another.

That was nice of him.

It’s you, I thought at him, trying to smile before the world went dark.

Chapter4

Daniel

I stared down at the woman in my arms in shock, horror, and disbelief.

It washer.

The woman from the cage, the same woman who’d been haunting my dreams for months. Part of me wondered if I was hallucinating, but I knew her face as well as my own. Hell, I saw her face more often than I looked in a mirror.

Her face was red, and she was sweating. The way she’d swayed on her feet, she was sick. One touch of my fingers to her forehead confirmed that.

She was here.

I shook my head, forcing myself out of shock and into action. My years of training clicked into place, replacing emotion with logic and the mission, which was to finally be able to save this woman’s life.

Shifting, I moved my hand and saw blood. What the hell?

Undressing someone in a parking lot wasn’t my style, but I didn’t need to peek under her shirt far to see the problem. A gash across her ribs. Red, inflamed, and now bleeding. She had one hell of an infection, and if it was that far along…

This woman would not die on my watch. Not after all these months wondering where she was.

She shifted in my arms, not fully unconscious. “Hey,” I said evenly, trying to be comforting as I moved, lifting her up and starting toward my truck. “My name is Daniel, and I’ve got you.”

I heard a whisper of a moan in response.

“You’re very sick. I need to get you to a hospital.”

“No.” It was the only clear thing about what she said, all other words unintelligible. She wasn’t even fully awake, but she fought me, twisting to get away from me even as I fought to hold on so she wouldn’t injure herself falling to the pavement. “No hospital.”

That explained why her infection was this bad in the first place, if she refused to go to the emergency room.

What could I do? She was delirious and needed medical attention. But my instinct also told me if she was fighting me this badly to get away from me when she likely knew she was dying, she had a good reason.

Fine. We wouldn’t go to the hospital. The hospital would come to her. I set her on the passenger side of the truck, letting her slump down until her torso lay across it, making sure nothing was pressing on the injury. I made the seat belt as loose as I could manage, and then my phone was in my hand.

I called Liam as I started the truck. He was in the lodge now and could set things in motion.

“Hello?”

“Listen closely, because we don’t have a lot of time. I’m incoming with a woman who’s very sick and refuses to go to the hospital, but if she doesn’t get medical attention, she’s not going to make it. Call Dr. Gold. I don’t care if she’s at the hospital or not. Get her to the ranch. I’ll pay whatever it takes.

“Have someone go to the Rattlesnake cabin and make sure the bed is made and there’s enough room for the doctor to work. Get the emergency medical equipment over there too. And have someone ready to go to the grocery store on Everett and Main to get her car. I have the keys, and I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Daniel—”

“Liam. Do it. You can ask me everything later.”

“Got it.”

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