Close To Danger (Westen #4)(86)
Why wasn’t he hurrying?
Why wasn’t he trying to get to Wes?
“Give me a hand.” Gage motioned to the other deputy who’d been keeping a gun focused on the pair. They lifted the massive mound that was Hannah in her camouflage suit off to the side.
With an elbow to Cleetus’s side, Chloe gained her release and rushed over to Wes.
“Wes!” she said, coming to her knees beside him, cradling his head in her hands, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Wes, please, please be alive.”
His eyes opened and he lifted his left hand to cup her face. “Just got the wind knocked out of me counselor.”
“Oh, God!” she said, lowering her mouth to his. The warmth of his lips easing some of her fear. He slid his hand behind her head, gripping her hair in his hand, deepening the kiss.
“If you two are done. I need to see to his wounds.” Harriett said, kneeling beside them.
“Wounds?” Chloe broke off the kiss, sitting back to scan over him. His right leg and arm, along with the side of his chest were covered in blood. “Oh, God, you’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing more than a few cuts,” he said, trying to sit up, but Harriett put a hand on his chest, stilling his movements.
“Stay,” she commanded.
“I’m not a pet dog,” Wes muttered.
“Stubborn as one.” Harriett had her hands up under his shirt, placing bandages she’d taken out of the bag Chloe still had on. “Looks like that knife wound glanced off your ribs. You’re going to need stitches. Now let me look at the bullet wound in your leg.”
“Bullet wound?” Wes asked. “Hannah didn’t have time to get a round off my direction. Who shot me?”
“I did. Needed to change your trajectory or you would have this knife deep in your chest instead of glancing off your ribs,” Harriett said, stunning them all. Before anyone could comment, she started giving orders like a drill sergeant to new recruits. “Daniel, go get your truck. Cleetus, bring the dog. Chloe go with him. Animal knows you. Don’t need him biting Cleetus. Gage, call your wife. Tell her that her sister’s okay.”
Everyone scurried to do as she’d ordered. Chloe hurried over to W?den, reassuring the injured wolf-dog that Cleetus wouldn’t hurt him. Once the big man lifted the animal into his arms, Chloe walked with him through the woods back to Wes’s house.
“Get some blankets,” Harriett said, as she and Gage helped Wes onto the back of the pickup truck Daniel had parked next to Wes’s SUV.
Running into the cabin, Chloe grabbed the blankets from the bed. Back outside, she spread one on the bed of the truck. Wes lay down on one side and Cleetus set W?den in beside him. The nearness to his friend, seemed to ease the wolf-dog and he nuzzled against Wes’s neck. Climbing into the truck bed with them, Chloe covered them with the other blanket, then hunkered down on the other side. She slipped her hand over Wes’s where he held onto W?den. Turning his hand, he linked his fingers with hers and squeezed.
“Hold on you two,” Harriett ordered as she climbed into the truck cab with Daniel. “Let’s go wake up the Doc.”
*
As it turned out they didn’t have to wake up anyone. Doc Clint and his wife, Emma, were standing on the front porch of their clinic when the small caravan of trucks arrived. Beside them was an older, whipcord-lean, man with salt and pepper hair.
The minute the truck came to a stop, everything seemed to happen at once.
“We’ve got two gunshot patients,” Harriett said, as she hopped out of the truck cab. “The human one is a through and through in the right thigh. He’s also got a knife wound to the right lateral chest. Blade didn’t puncture the rib cage. No internal organs hit.”
Chloe moved to the side of the truck bed as the doctor and his wife helped Wes onto a wheelchair and hurried up the ramp into the clinic.
“The non-human patient has at least one gunshot wound to the back-left leg. Possibly a second. Didn’t have a chance to check. Besides I like my fingers. Glad you made it, Neil.”
“Your phone message didn’t give me much choice, Harriett,” the older man said with a chuckle. He stood by the side of the truck and held out his hand for W?den to sniff. “Hello, old friend. Remember me?”
Instead of snarling like he had when Cleetus first approached him in the woods, W?den whimpered and nuzzled the man’s hand.
“That’s it. You know I won’t hurt you. Let’s get you inside and make you feel better, okay?” The man turned to Chloe, held out his hand and smiled. “Dr. Neil Haverman, local vet.”
“Chloe Roberts.” She shook his hand. “I figured that’s who you were. Wes told me you treated W?den when he first found him.”
The rattling of wheels interrupted them as Cleetus pushed a hospital-type gurney down the ramp from the clinic. “Harriett says she has room two ready for you Doc.”
Chloe moved to the side of the truck so the men could move the wolf-dog onto the stretcher, then followed them inside. “What can I do?”
“Go keep him calm,” Harriett said coming out of a room.
Chloe started after Cleetus and the vet.
“Not the animal. I can handle that. You keep the human patient calm. He keeps asking if you’re alright,” she said, pointing to the room she just left.