A Merciful Secret (Mercy Kilpatrick #3)(98)

Truman?

“Mercy, can you hear me?” Christian grabbed her head and turned her face to him, cutting off her search for Truman.

She snarled, swinging her knife in his direction. He whipped his hands away, tumbling backward into the snow. “Where’s Truman?” she screamed as she flung her body to the right, not caring about the burning pain in her leg, fighting to see where Truman had been standing. “Where’s Truman?” she shrieked again.

“Right here.”

Suddenly he was with her, gathering her into his arms. Hyperventilating, she buried her face in his neck. He’s okay. The fragile hold she’d had on her emotions crumbled, and she sagged against him. More than anything she simply wanted to sleep with his arms around her. He pulled back and shook her. “Stay awake,” he commanded, his eyes deadly serious.

“Get pressure on that,” he ordered Christian. “Help me get my coat on her,” he told Salome. Everyone was silent as they frantically followed his directions.

Too silent.

“It’s bad,” she stated. Truman wouldn’t meet her gaze as he zipped her into his coat.

“You got him,” she whispered to Truman. “I thought he’d hit you.”

“I didn’t shoot him. Someone else shot first.”

Mercy swiveled to look at Christian, and her heart broke at the bleak expression on his face. He wouldn’t look up, focused on her leg. Salome met her gaze and laid a hand on Christian’s shoulder. “You had no choice,” she told him.

He was pale, and wet tracks covered his cheeks. He killed his brother. For me.

Mercy’s lungs wouldn’t work. “Christian . . .”

Christian gave her a sickly smile as he tightened the wrap on her thigh. “I guess I had it in me after all.”

“That’s not funny.” The weight of what he had done made Mercy’s brain want to shut down.

“He would have killed you,” Christian stated.

Salome nodded in agreement. “And he wouldn’t have stopped with just you.”

“You got him too,” Mercy told her, remembering the knife handle in Gabriel’s chest.

The woman shrugged. She would kill to protect her daughter.

Mercy abruptly jerked straight up. “The girls!” She dug for her radio, her fingers uncoordinated. I’m freezing. Lack of blood to keep me warm. The realization didn’t bother her. I’m not important. The girls and Truman are important.

Truman took the radio, and she was relieved to hear Kaylie’s voice as Truman told her to come back in.

Mercy closed her eyes. My people are safe. She was dimly aware of Truman shaking her again, ordering her to open her eyes, but she was too tired. I’m just going to nap for a little bit.

“Damn you, Mercy! Open your eyes!”

She smiled, her lids too heavy to cooperate.

It feels good to have people who care.





FORTY-ONE

One week later

One week out of surgery and Truman wanted to strangle Mercy. She was the worst patient ever. After two days she’d stopped her pain medication even though she still had pain in her leg. Now she wanted to drive up to her cabin. He had told Mercy he wouldn’t drive her, so she’d sworn she’d drive herself.

Driving was still out of the question, whether she was on painkillers or not.

After she scared the crap out of him by passing out that day, Truman and Christian had loaded her into the back of the Lexus, and Truman had stayed in back next to her, unwilling to leave her side. Kaylie and Morrigan had cried on the drive, terrified Mercy would die, and with extreme calm Salome did her best to comfort them.

Truman had kept his fingers at her neck during the entire slow drive out of the forest. As long as there was a pulse under his fingertips, he promised himself he wouldn’t panic.

But damn, it’d gotten slower and slower.

They’d driven about ten miles when they’d spotted the responding county sheriff and ambulance. On Truman’s suggestion Christian had blocked the two-lane highway as the vehicles came toward them, worried they’d not stop.

The EMTs had immediately taken over, placing an IV and pumping who the hell knows what into her veins.

It was over. And he didn’t want to repeat it.

But she’d been asking to return to her cabin for the last three days. He’d refused. She was still weak, and he didn’t need the sight of her destroyed hopes and dreams breaking her down more.

But she was strong enough to annoy the hell out of him. Even Kaylie had been short with her aunt, ordering her to rest.

Mercy wasn’t one to sit still.

He’d given in and driven her to the cabin. A weeklong warm spell had melted nearly all the snow in the lower elevations, but the rough road that led past the Sabins’ cabin and hers was still covered with packed snow. The drive had been silent.

Now he watched as she stared in awe at the mess.

Her cabin had collapsed in on itself. An entire loss.

Blackened beams jutted out of the debris. The only recognizable parts were the fireplace and woodstove. The fireplace had stubbornly stood in place, refusing to submit to the flames. A few pines had been singed, but the snow and distance had kept them from fully burning and starting a forest fire. The smoky stench still hung in the clearing. It wasn’t the good wood smoke smell that everyone loves; it was a harsh, burned-chemical-and-plastic smell with an undertone of wood.