Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(51)

“Changed my mind about trying that,” Kate told him. The wind blew her hair; her cheeks looked flushed. At this moment—most moments—she was so beautiful, so desirable.

“Good,” he told her. “We agree on that, so what’s next?”

She smiled, but it looked forced to him. She’d seemed a bit wary of him today, almost cool.

A shout came from above.

He heard Todd’s voice. “What in the...? Hang on, hang on! No, not to me! Your rope—the branch...”

Branches snapped, cracked. Very high in the tree, limbs and leaves shuddered and shook. Amber screamed. Grant rushed toward the tree as a body bounced off high branches, hurtling downward.





16

Amber screamed again. Kate threw her arms around her as they both stood transfixed. Grant lunged toward the tree as limbs snapped. Another shout came from above. Brad? He must have fallen.

It seemed an eternity before they saw him—not Brad but Todd—crashing into the branches, clutching at them, bending them. But the last twenty feet were a free fall. Grant ran forward as Todd hit the ground. The two youngest boys started to wail. Kate grabbed them, turned them away while Jason shouted, “Dad! Dad!”

Grant reached Todd first, Amber right behind. He had not fallen headfirst, but sideways.

From above, Brad’s panicked voice called out. “Is he all right?”

No one answered him. “He’s breathing,” Grant said to Amber.

“Oh, dear God, don’t let him die. How could he fall? Not Todd!”

“We don’t dare move him. Kate! Take Amber’s phone and the boys. Go back to the house and call 911 as soon as you get a signal. Tell them we need a chopper. They should land in the grassy field southwest of Pleasant Drive, and I’ll meet them there. Amber. Amber! Give Kate your phone.”

Jason ran forward and wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck where she crouched beside Todd.

“Jason, listen to me,” Grant told the boy. “You have to go with Kate and your brothers to get help for your dad. We’ll stay with him. I’m depending on you.”

Her face streaming tears, looking stunned, Amber thrust her phone at Kate. “Come on, Jason,” Kate cried. “I need your help. Come on, right now.”

Sobbing, the boy let go of his mother and turned toward Kate. “Take Aaron’s hand and try to keep up,” she told him, fighting her own tears. “I’ll carry Andy. We have to get your daddy an airplane to take him to the hospital so they can fix him.”

“Is his legs broke?” Aaron asked.

She scooped up Andy. “The doctors will take care of him.”

Kate stretched her strides, juggling the child and the phone until it stopped searching and took her 911 call. She put Andy down and spoke over his crying. She told the dispatcher what Grant had said, gave Todd’s name and address, explained what had happened, gave them her name and Grant’s. “In the field southwest of their house,” she repeated. “And maybe for a flight to Columbus, not just Chillicothe.”

She collapsed on the grass with the three boys huddled to her, all crying, while she tried to cuddle them and tell them everything would be all right. But would it? She could not believe it was Todd who’d fallen and not Brad. How could it have happened? And now would Brad get what he wanted at the mill if Todd was too badly hurt to return to work—or never did?

*

“If you can’t come down safely,” Grant bellowed up at Brad, “just hang on until the volunteer fire department gets here. 911 always sends them, too.”

“But is he going to be okay?”

“He’s unconscious, looks bad, so just hang on.”

“I swear, I don’t know what happened! I don’t like it up here alone.”

Amber hovered over Todd, but Grant kept her from moving him. Who knew what bones could be broken? Grant’s eyes stung with unshed tears. His friend looked crumpled. His legs for sure must be broken, maybe his back, however skillfully he’d managed to turn himself so he didn’t fall headfirst. But he was unconscious and had a huge bruise rising on his forehead. If it wasn’t his imagination, Grant saw Todd move his left foot about an inch from the grotesque position it was in.

Time stretched into eternity. Jace Miller arrived, jogging, his equipment bouncing on his duty belt.

“Got the 911. Saw Kate and the kids on the way in. Can’t believe it,” he said, bending over them, out of breath. “Not Todd from a tree. I’ll have to look at the ropes, his gear. See what happened.”

“Brad was with him,” Grant said. “He’s still up there, so we’ll need help to get him down.”

“At least he can tell us what happened.”

“He says he doesn’t know.”

What he’d been trying to ignore hit Grant hard. Had someone—surely not Brad—tampered with Todd’s gear? He was always so careful. It would take a while to get that harness off him to examine. It would probably go with him to the hospital, where they’d have to cut it off anyway.

While Jace shouted up to Brad, Grant kept his hand on Amber’s shoulder where they knelt next to Todd. She was shaking; tears dropped off her chin onto her clasped hands as she kept murmuring prayers.

The minute they heard the chopper, Grant took off running to bring them in from the field. He saw Kate and the boys huddled halfway to the house. In the midst of his panic and fear, an errant thought hit him—she looked like a mother comforting her kids.