My eyes flew open. I arched off the bed and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Hold her, dammit!”
Hands tightened on me. A sharp object slid into my side. I felt it probing, searching, tearing my insides. I screamed and wailed, fighting the hands that held me down.
“Hurry up,” someone snapped. The voice was familiar. A man that swore never to hurt me.
“I can’t find it,” a man responded. “It’s in too deep.”
“Listen to me, old man,” the voice above me snarled as he held me down. “Get that bullet out of her or I’ll put one in you.”
There was silence then the older man’s gruff order. “Hold her.”
Fingers tightened on me. The knife went deeper into my chest. I screamed louder. My body bucked. I kicked out despite the hands holding me down. I had to get away. They were killing me!
“Fuck, Tate! Hold her down!” someone shouted with anger, his fingers clamped on me.
“She’s bleeding too damn much, Cash. I…I can’t watch her die like this!”
“She’s not going to die, Tate. I won’t let her,” the man above me ground out.
The knife went deeper, cutting through layers of my muscle. I could almost feel it near my bone, scraping along its hard surface. I screamed and arched my body, my vocal cords almost bursting.
“Why isn’t she passing out? Goddammit! Do something, Cash!” the person holding my feet shouted.
There was silence except for my cries then a voice. Calm. Unemotional.
“Reverend?”
The man above me went from sounding angry to being frigid. I wanted to scream at him. Bare my teeth at him. Tell him to fuck off for being so goddamn cold when someone was carving my body to pieces.
A gravelly voice answered, one of his hands on my stomach and the other wielding the knife in my body. “If she were unconscious, son, it would be better. I can’t get that bullet out with her jerking around. I might puncture something vital since I’m going in blind.”
The man above me stiffened. I could almost feel him waiting, holding his breath.
The gravelly voice spoke again. “Do it.”
“Shit. Shit,” the younger man swore, standing at the foot of the bed.
I didn’t care anymore what they did to me. Nothing could save me from the pain. It consumed me. It tore away at my insides. I wailed as the knife dug deeper into my chest.
“Please!” The sound ripped from my chest.
The voice above me was taut. So cold. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
A hard fist punched me in the jaw. It was the last thing I remembered.
~~~~
I floated in a sea of hot and cold. Darkness pulled me under churning waters. Tidal waves of pain crashed against me. I’m not sure if hours, days, or weeks passed. All I knew was I was dying.
My teeth chattered. My body was on fire. Every cell I possessed seemed to be consumed in flames.
“Come back to me, Catarina,” someone whispered in my ear. “Please come back to me.”
My body reacted and my heart sped up. I knew him. His voice was like medicine to my soul. His presence was like a drug soaking into my bloodstream. I tried to open my eyes and look at him but I couldn’t. It took too much effort.
He touched my jaw, his fingers rough against my skin right where he hit me. “I’m sorry about that, sweetheart.”
Something cool brushed across my forehead. It felt good against my hot skin.
“God, you’re burning up,” the voice above me whispered.
“Is she any better?” someone asked, entering the room. He sounded younger and worried. I knew him too. My head just hurt too much to figure out how.
The man above me took the wet cloth away from my head and answered. “No. She’s still bleeding and her fever’s high.”
The words were clipped. Angry. I wanted to open my eyes and see who it was because it couldn’t be Cash. I was wrong. Cash was calm and polite at all times. The man above me was cold and forbidding. Pissed and bad-tempered. But if it wasn’t Cash, who was it?
The cloth reappeared and ran over my dry, chapped lips. I wanted to turn my head, lick the drop of water that landed near the corner of my mouth, but I couldn’t move. The heat and pain controlled me.
“You want me to sit with her a while? You can go eat or something,” someone else said, the sound of his heavy boots stopping near the side of my bed. He sounded older, wiser. His voice held all the experience of someone who had seen and done many things, not all of them good. “You need to take a break, son. Get some rest.”
The person beside me tensed. I didn’t need to be conscious to know it. The air changed, vibrating with warning. Like the air right before an electrical storm.
The wet cloth was taken from my face and flung down.
“I don’t need a damn break! I need her awake! I need her to open her eyes and look at me!”
There was silence then the older man’s voice.
“Son, it’s in God’s hands now. All we can do is wait.”
A chair was flung back. It hit the wall with a crash. The person beside me jumped to his feet.
“God? Where was He when she was shot? Where was He when that monster tried to hurt her? No, I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait around for Him to take her from me!” He was angry but underneath it was something else. Fear. “He did this! He let this happen!”
The old man’s voice was gruff. “Son, God didn’t do this. Men did.”
The man above me went still. “You’re right, old man. God didn’t do this. I did.”
~~~~
Fever threatened to burn me from the inside out. I thrashed. Sweat soaked my body. Chills shook me.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, my mind fuzzy. What was real, unclear.
“Cat? Babe, wake up.”
I opened my eyes. Every inch of me hurt. Getting run over by a truck wouldn’t have hurt as bad.
“Look at me, Cat.”
I didn’t want to. My head was pressed against something cool. Something that felt good against my feverish skin. Wind whipped my hair around. Strings of it clung to my mouth.
“Cat. Look at me.”
There it was again. That voice. I knew it. I had cried over it. Many nights I craved to hear it again. I had to look at him.
I didn’t bother pushing my hair out of my face. I lifted my head. My neck protested. My arms were too heavy to move and my hands were useless, lying in my lap.
The first thing I saw was inky blackness. It was dark but the lights of a car’s dashboard lit up the night. My eyes adjusted. Wait. A car?
I could hear the roar of the engine and feel the road under the tires. Yes, I was in a car but how? Barbed wire fences and large oak trees flew by outside the window. I tried to remember how I got there but everything was blank.
“Babe.”
There it was again. That voice. I turned my head.
“Luke?” I asked in a croaky voice, my throat raw from screaming and my mouth dry from the fever that ate at me.
He glanced over at me and smiled. “Hey, babe.”
I drew a sharp breath. Luke’s beside me. How’s that possible?
He grinned and looked back at the road. I let my eyes roam over him, at a loss for words.
He had one wrist dangling over the steering wheel and one hand on the gearshift between us. His hair was cut short and his body was muscular. My mouth went dry and my heart jumped into my throat. He looked just the same as the night he died.
What was going on?
I glanced into the backseat, expecting to see Jenna, but she wasn’t there.
“It’s just you and me, Cat,” Luke said, his gaze flicking over to me.
I glanced down. I was wearing dark jeans and a jacket. Dusty, scuffed boots were laced up my calves. It was what I had been wearing on the sidewalk in Hilltop. When Frankie stopped us from leaving. When Paul and Hightower appeared.
Dried blood encrusted one side of the jacket. I touched it
then lifted my hand. Blood was caked under my nails and stained my hands. It was my blood, I realized, and I remembered suddenly how I lost it.
A bullet to my side.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered, dropping my hands back to my lap and staring straight ahead.
Luke downshifted and looked over at me, taking a curve in the road too fast. “Real is relevant, Cat. It’s not always what you can see or believe.”
“So I’m dreaming,” I mumbled, trying to comprehend. “Or dead.”
“You’re hallucinating. Your fever is dangerously high.”
I turned my head to look at him. “Then you’re not real.”
He grinned. “I never said that, babe.”
I scrunched my brows together, confused. He didn’t explain. Instead, he looked back at the road and shifted into another gear, his fingers tight around the gearshift.
The fever that was making me see Luke so clearly made everything else fuzzy. I licked my dry lips, so thirsty it hurt. Weakness made me rest my head on the back of the seat. The wound in my side grew.
Burning up with fever, I rolled my head to the side and looked at Luke. “Where are you taking me?”
He glanced over at me. “Home.”
I shook my head. Beads of sweat popped out on my forehead. My body started shaking violently from the infection trying to kill me.
“I don’t want to go home, Luke. I want to stay with you.”
Luke’s gaze was somber. “You can’t, babe. You’re not ready. You need to go home.”
“I have no home,” I whispered, my eyes slowly closing. “Not anymore.”
There was silence then Luke’s deep voice.
“Yes, you do, Cat. Your home is with him.”
My eyes slowly opened. A different kind of warmth filled me. Not the kind from infections or fevers. The kind that Cash caused in me.
“I don’t want to leave,” I murmured. “I love him but I miss you.”
Luke gave me a sad smile. “I know but I’ll always be with you, babe, I promise.”
I smiled weakly and closed my eyes. The fever took control. My teeth started chattering. My shoulders slumped and my body grew weaker and weaker. The shaking in my limbs turned into strong tremors.
Luke’s voice came from far away. “I need you to fight, Cat. Fight and go back to him. He’s angry and pissed but he needs you and you need him. Go back.”
I wanted to open my eyes and tell him that Cash didn’t need someone like me but I couldn’t. I was losing consciousness fast.
Luke’s voice came back one last time, swirling in my mind. Whispering. Persistent.
“Listen, Cat. Do you hear it? Home is calling you.”
I furrowed my brows, listening. There. A voice. Luke was right. I didn’t hear it before but now I did. It was faint but grew stronger and stronger. Angry. Desperate. It grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go.
The sound of the wind rushing into the car disappeared. The roar of the engine grew silent. I heard the voice in my ear as clear as day.
“Don’t leave me, Cat. Please don’t leave me.”
My eyes fluttered open. Luke was gone. I was no longer in his car. I was in a bed.
The voice belonged to the man sitting in a chair beside me. His face was in his hands. His hair was disheveled. His chin was covered with a thick growth of beard and his clothes were wrinkled as if he had slept for days in them.
He looked tired, weary. His shoulders were slumped with despair. He was a man suffering, worn out with worry.
It was Cash.
And he was my home.
Chapter Five
Cash
I rubbed my hands over my eyes. Exhausted. At my wits end. My world had fallen apart. The last week had been hell.
I didn’t know where Gavin and Keely were. There had been no sign of them. When we left Hilltop, we kept an eye out but hadn’t spotted them. Part of me screamed to go find my sister – I had finally found her after all these years and didn’t want to lose her again – but Cat was bad off. I was afraid if I left her, she would slip away from me. I just had to trust Gavin to take care of Keely.
Sending my sister with Gavin was tough but watching David dig the bullet out of Cat’s side was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I stood there and held her down. Subjected her to pain and watched her bleed as he took a knife and tried to locate the bullet buried in her. She screamed and thrashed around until I thought I would go berserk. I wanted to knock the old man’s teeth out for hurting her but he was the only one who knew what he was doing.
When he slammed his truck to a stop in front of us in Hilltop, I wasn’t sure if I could trust him but I had no choice. Cat had been in my arms, wounded and bleeding. Maybe even dying. I was frantic. I needed help. The decision was simple. I had to trust him. Now here we were, in a small cabin he had taken us to miles and miles from town.
It wasn’t much to look at. It had two bedrooms and a kitchen with a large porch out front. It was set back against a hill, a barn off to one side and an outhouse on the other. The preacher had been stocking the place for years, stealing from Frankie what he had stole from others. When we got to the cabin, I didn’t give a damn why he had it. My concern was Cat.
“Take her to the bedroom,” David – the preacher – instructed, nodding to a sheet-covered doorway as I carried her into the ice-cold cabin.
With Tate behind me, I headed toward the room as David lit a kerosene heater and went to a cabinet in the kitchen. I heard him rambling around in it as I pushed past the sheet. The bedroom was small, just big enough for a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser.
I laid Cat down on the faded quilt, careful not to jar her too much. Blood soaked my jacket and drenched her side. A smear of it was across her cheek.
I was on the verge of freaking out. I wanted to scream and throw something. Shake her and tell her to wake the fuck up. This couldn’t be happening. I was in hell and watching her bleed was my punishment for all the bad things I had done.
David walked in with a bowl of supplies in one hand and carrying the heater in the other. He rounded the bed and set the heater on the floor and the supplies on the nightstand. When he turned to Cat and started to reach for the top button of her jacket, I grabbed his wrist in a bone-crushing grasp.
“Don’t touch her,” I growled through clenched teeth. My hand was bloody and my mood was dark. No one touched Cat but me.
David looked up. “I’m a doctor, son,” he said in a calm voice. “It’ll be okay. I’m not going to hurt her.”
Doubt played with me. I glanced down at Cat and saw the blood soaking the bed under her. I fought the possessiveness in me that wanted no one to touch her and hurt her more.
Relaxing, I let the preacher go. “One wrong move and my knife will find your jugular. It’s as simple as that.”
His wrinkled, square face went white. “I took an oath, son. I’m a doctor, not a monster.”
“I thought you were a preacher,” Tate piped up from the end of the bed, staring down at his sister with a pale face.
David stood up straighter, almost giant-like in the small room. “I am a preacher but I’m also a doctor,” he explained, unrolling the towel that held his supplies. “Well, I was an obstetrician to be exact.”
Tate shifted to his other leg with uneasiness. “She ain’t pregnant, Doc.” He paused and looked at me, his face going slack. “Or is she?”
I avoided his eyes. “No, she’s not.”
I started unbuttoning her blood-soaked jacket, anything to keep my fists from finding a wall. The truth was I wasn’t sure if Cat was pregnant. We hadn’t used any protection. Condoms were impossible to find, thanks to the lack of supplies. Nothing was being manufactured and nothing was being shipped into the U.S. Birth control was nonexistent except for abstinence and pulling out. One was damn hard to do and the other was not fool proof.
Shit, I didn’t want to think about her lying there bleeding, maybe even dying, and possibly carrying my child. My hand
s started shaking. I got weak in the knees. But one thing at a time. We had to get that bullet out of her.
I unbuttoned the last button on her jacket and pushed the edges back. Bile rose in my throat when I saw the blood soaking her side. It turned her shirt a dark red and made the material stick to her. Her chest rose and fell slowly. Too slowly. I counted each breath she took then I prayed for her to take more.
Swallowing hard, I let my gaze travel to her face. God, it was pale. Her dark lashes lay against her colorless cheeks. Her dark hair spilled behind her on the bed. She was beautiful and she was dying.
All because of me.
I felt my stomach roll and the room spin. Not from nausea. From the fear and disgust knowing she was lying there, bleeding and unconscious, because of me.
I reached for the buttons on her shirt with shaky hands. I did this. I caused her to get shot and bleed.
I peeled back the edges of her shirt, exposing the hole in her side. Blood ran from it, soaking the quilt under her. David handed me a rag and I started wiping it away but it kept coming. Pouring.
I did this.
Fury had me clamping my jaw shut. My fingers gripped the cloth, my knuckles turning white.
Me.
The clink of metal interrupted my thoughts. I looked up, anger rippling through me and looking for an outlet. David was arranging his equipment on the bed beside Cat. There was a half-empty bottle of alcohol, a paring knife, tweezers, a tube of antibiotic cream, and a needle wrapped with thick black thread. A sorry excuse for a doctor’s stash of supplies.
I felt sick, seeing that needle. The thought of someone stitching Cat up made me want to puke. I didn’t want to watch David stick a needle in her skin but I damn sure wasn’t going to leave her side.
He picked up the paring knife and poured some alcohol on it. That’s about as sterile as it was going to get, being out in the middle of nowhere without a working hospital.
His hand shook as he set the bottle aside. I watched as he ran his hand over his whiskered chin, holding that damn knife in his trembling hand and looking unsure.
What the hell? He’s nervous?
He must have seen the look in my eyes – the one that said you better get your shit together – because he cleared his throat and looked at Tate.