Page 45 of Montana Rain

It took way too long to get to her, inch by agonizing inch, making sure I didn’t fall too and doom us both. I slid the last foot down beside her. “Rayne.”

“I fell,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I fell. My ankle. I tried, and I can’t put weight on it.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’re going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

Rayne stared at me like she wasn’t fully with me.

“Do you believe me?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

Pushing myself to my feet, I moved, shifting so I faced the hill once more. Adrenaline spun through me like a hurricane, a tornado stronger than the storm we were in. I could probably do that “lift a car off a baby” thing right about now.

Rayne whimpered as I pulled her up off the ground and into my arms, and rage shattered across my vision. She was hurt. Nothing could make it better unless I got her back to the cabin. And I would. We were going to get through this.

“We’re going to go slow,” I told her, still having to yell over the wind. “We’ll get back. Grab the rope around my waist. You’ll keep us on course.”

She used the hand not around my neck to grab the rope, gathering the slack across her chest. And we went. Step by agonizing step. All the way back to the cabin. The shadowy shape through the snow was a welcome sight.

“Here we are,” I said, shouldering the door open, nearly stumbling with the force of it.

Moving quickly, I set her down in front of the fire before ditching the rope around my waist and kneeling in front of her. “Can I touch you? I need to touch you, Rayne. You’re freezing.”

Her skin was so pale it was nearly blue, her teeth chattering. “Y-yes.”

Boots first. This would be hard because of her ankle, but I needed to get the rest of her clothes off and see the damage we were dealing with. One boot got tossed behind me, and then it was time for the other one. “I’m going to be as gentle as I can, princess. It’s going to hurt. I’m so sorry, but we have to get it off.”

Rayne moaned in pain. “Do it.”

The sounds coming out of her made me want to kill something. They brought out the warrior inside me and the urge to protect. But Rayne needed a different kind of protector right now.

I peeled the sock away and cleared my facial expression. Her ankle was swollen all to hell, red and angry in comparison to her cold, soaked skin. “Okay, princess. That was the hardest part. Now we have to get you warm.”

Her coat was sopping. If possible, more soaked through than my clothes had been yesterday. Piece by piece, I took her clothes off. The number of times I’d imagined this, and it wasn’t the least bit sexy. Her body was shaking she was so cold.

Snatching a blanket off the couch, I wrapped her in it once her clothes were off, shifting her closer to the fire, where I added another log.

First aid. I knelt, snowmelt pooling around my knees as I held her foot. “I need to see if it’s broken,” I said quietly. “I’m going to be so careful.”

The smallest movement made her shudder and whimper in pain. But the way it did move, I didn’t think it was broken. Luckily. We’d tended to more than one injury by ourselves in the Navy. Wrapping it was easy, but it wouldn’t do much. At the very least, it would make her more comfortable.

“Here,” I said, placing a pillow under her foot. “Keep this elevated.”

“Where are you going?” Rayne’s voice was strangled with panic.

I picked the rope up off the floor and wrapped it around my waist again. “We still need wood. I’ll be right back. Promise.” If I didn’t get out of the cabin right this second, I wouldn’t be able to force myself back into the freezing void. So, I went. I reattached the rope to the tree by the dwindling wood pile, and I brought back as much wood as I could. Until my limbs shook and I thought I might be seeing things in the snow.

My clothes joined Rayne’s on the floor, and I grabbed my own blanket, settling beside her on the rug and putting more wood on the fire. “We’re good,” I said. “We’re going to be fine.”

Rayne didn’t say anything. She stared into the flames much like she’d done for most of the day before she’d gone outside. Her foot rested on the pillow, and her shoulders rose and fell with each breath. But besides that? Still as a statue.

“What happened out there?” I asked. “How did you fall? Is it something we can fix?”

She didn’t say anything at all.

“Rayne, are you okay? Please talk to me.”

In the glow of the fire, her cheeks turned pink, but she didn’t look at me. Realization suddenly dawned. She was embarrassed. Before she’d gone out to bring in the wood, she’d made a stand about helping and being an equal partner, and it had gone to hell.

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