He slid his hands past her knee and heard her gasp just as he found the bulge on her shin. "Your tibia is broken."
Not quite a compound fracture, but bad enough.
Her right ankle was tender and swollen, as well, either broken or sprained.
But of more concern to him than the broken bones was the fact that she was beginning to fade, slowly lapsing into unconsciousness, her dark lashes now resting on her cheeks, her eyes closed. A few times she'd muttered something in a language he didn't understand, and once she'd asked him something about a coyote. He'd bet his ass she had some kind of head injury. With a fall like that, she wouldn't need to hit her head to injure her brain.
"Stay awake, Katherine. Stay with me."
STAY WITH ME.
Kat thought time was playing tricks on her. He'd just spoken those words a moment ago, and yet it seemed like hours. She forced her eyes open, saw him watching her, a worried look on his face, his hands moving gently over her, seeming magically to find all the places she hurt most--her right leg and ankle, the ribs on her left side, the deep scratch on her left arm.
As if through a fog, some part of her noticed that he was a very attractive man, rugged and tall, with deep blue eyes. His square jaw was covered with dark whiskers, his temples trickling sweat, his thick, dark hair curling at his nape. There were calluses and chalk on his fingers and scrapes on his knuckles and his left shin. He was wearing only shorts and strange shoes, and although Kat had seen many men without their shirts, she'd seen very few men who looked like he did--all lean muscle from head to toe, as if an artist had carved him from marble and then brought him to life.
Strange that she should notice such an unimportant thing right now.
His callused fingers worked their way gently along her collarbones, over her shoulders and into her hair. "Did you lose consciousness when you fell?"
She tried to think. She'd heard the rocks scrape, felt the ground give way, felt herself falling, and then ...
The next thing she remembered was looking up at the sky, her right leg hooked over a rock, her entire body wracked with pain. "I think ... I must have."
Apparently done checking her, he sat back on his heels, looking down at her. "You are one amazing woman, Katherine James. I don't know many people, men or women, who would have been tough enough to do what you just did. You crawled the length of a football field, dragging that broken leg behind you."
But Kat hadn't been brave. She'd been terrified. Once she'd come to herself, she'd realized that no one knew where she was and that unless she could make her way back to the trail where hikers could discover her, she would die right where she lay. Fear had gotten her onto her hands and knees, driving her forward each unbearable inch, the pain excruciating.
Without warning, the full weight of what had just happened hit her. Tears burned her eyes, spilled down her temples, her body shaking uncontrollably.
You almost died, Kat.
The ranger took her hand, held it, his fingers warm. "It's going to be all right. I know it hurts, but they'll be here soon."
She looked up at him. "Y-you saved my life."
He shook his head. "You'd have been all right without me. You'd have made it to the trail eventually. It wouldn't have been fun, but you'd have made it."
But she wasn't so sure.
SHE LOST TRACK of time after that.
The park ranger telling her to stay awake, stroking her cheek, telling her everything was going to be all right. People crowding around her. An oxygen mask over her mouth. The prick of a needle in her arm. A warm blanket.
There was a moment of terrible, sharp pain when they put a splint on her leg, and she heard herself cry out. The ranger's warm hand squeezed hers, his voice deep and soothing. Why couldn't she remember his name?
"It's almost over, Katherine. In twenty minutes you'll be in Denver, and St. Anthony's will take good care of you."
Was he coming with her? A part of her hoped he was.
She didn't really know him at all, but somehow she trusted him.
"She fell from there?" a man's voice said. "Holy shit! Why is she still alive?"
"I can't believe she crawled all that way with a badly broken leg," said a woman. "Just the thought makes me queasy."
"So, you were free-soloing the Naked Edge when you saw her fall. Gee-zus! You have a death wish, Rossiter. One of these days we're going to be rescuing you, only there won't be anything left of you to save."
And then Kat was bouncing along as they carried the stretcher out of the trees toward a helicopter, the ranger walking beside her, his voice her anchor.
"Stay awake, Katherine."
Only after the helicopter had lifted off did she realize that he was gone.
And she hadn't even thanked him.
CHAPTER 1
Three months later
GABRIEL ROSSITER UNZIPPED his pants only far enough to free his cock, then bent her over the back of her sofa and pushed her skirt up over her hips, rubbing his hands over her smooth, round ass, her impatient whimpers urging him on. He slipped on a condom, then grabbed her hips, forced her legs wider apart--and filled her with a single thrust.
Oh, hell, yeah.
It felt so good, so damned good. He let his mind go blank and drove into her hard, allowing himself to feel only the pulsing ache in his cock, holding back just long enough to hear her scream. Then he fell over the edge, orgasm washing through him in a white-hot rush. And for a few blissful seconds, he forgot himself.
But the oblivion didn't last. It never did.
"God, Gabe, you are the best."
He gave himself a moment to catch his breath, her muscles still pulsing around him, the musky scent of sex filling his head. Then he slowly withdrew, walked to the bathroom, and tossed the condom in the trash. He wiped himself off with a tissue and had just started to wash his hands when he heard her footsteps. He looked up to find her blocking the bathroom doorway, wearing nothing but spiked heels and a smile.
Samantha Price had the best body money could buy, from her surgically enhanced tits to her Brazilian wax job to the tips of her red toenails. She ran her pretty fingers through her dyed red hair, her gaze on his chest. "Why don't you stay? We can do that all night long--as many times as you like. I'll even let you tie me up."
He supposed he should take it as a compliment. He doubted Samantha, one of Boulder's most expensive criminal attorneys, invited many men to dominate her. At another time in his life, he'd have been only too happy to oblige. Instead, he felt annoyed. "That's not how it works, Samantha. You know that."
She tilted her head, an attempt at being seductive. "Things can change. We've been together for almost six months now."
"Together?" He turned off the faucet and dried his hands. "Hooking up for a quick fuck now and again doesn't mean we're 'together.' "
He zipped his pants, buckled his duty belt, and pushed past her, adjusting the weight of his sidearm as he went. He'd known it was going to come to this. It always did--the mutual exchange of physical pleasure ruined by delusions of attachment. Sex was just a chemical reaction, love nothing more than a hormonal haze in the brain. Why did so many people try to turn it in to something more than that?
You used to believe in love, Rossiter.
Yeah, and he'd learned his lesson the hard way.
"It doesn't have to be just sex. I know that's what I said at first but--"
"Forget it, Samantha." He retrieved his undershirt from the floor where she'd dropped it, slipped it over his head, then reached for his shirt, buttoning it and tucking it into his pants. "It won't work."
"What makes you so sure?" She picked up his winter uniform jacket, traced a finger over the badge pinned to the front, then began to search the pockets in a cloying display of female nosiness.
"Because I'm sure."
She drew something out of his pocket and held it up. "What's this?"
It was Katherine James's turquoise earring.
Gabe had forgotten to give
it to her before the chopper had taken off. He'd meant to track down her address and mail it to her afterward but hadn't. Even he couldn't explain how it had ended up in his coat pocket--or why it had stayed there. Of course, he wasn't about to tell Samantha any of this.
"Is she your next destination?"
He didn't bother to dignify Samantha's prying question with an answer. "We never agreed to be exclusive, Samantha--only safe."
She shoved the jacket against his chest, the earring still in her hand. "You're an asshole, you know that?"
"Did you enjoy what we just did?" He held out his hand for the earring.
"Yes." She dropped it onto his upturned palm. "You know I did."
"Then what more do you want from me?" He tucked it back in his pocket.
"More. Just more."
Hell, were those tears in her eyes?
"Sorry, Sam, but I don't have anything more to give you." He turned and walked out of the living room and down the hallway toward the front door.
"I know about your fiancee," she called after him, an edge to her voice. "I know what really happened."
Gabe felt his stride falter, but he didn't look back. He opened the door and stepped into the night, knowing he'd never come here again.
A cold wind hit him in the face, carrying away Samantha's scent, taking the hottest edge off a sudden surge of temper. He filled his lungs, walked down the icy sidewalk to his service truck, trying to put Samantha and her last salvo out of his mind and ignoring the pricking of his own conscience.
Why in the hell should he feel guilty? Samantha was an adult. She knew what she'd signed on for. He'd told her right up front that he wasn't interested in a relationship, and she'd told him all she wanted was good sex. So now she'd changed her mind and he was supposed to feel bad?
Well, he'd never liked breast implants anyway.
He climbed in behind the wheel, adjusted the gear on his duty belt so that it wouldn't jab him in the back, then shoved his key into the ignition. The digital clock on the truck's dash read 8:45--enough time to get in a few routes at the rock gym before it closed. He'd just turned onto Baseline Road when his pager went off. He pulled it out of its holster and read the LED display.
Flames on Mesa Butte. On-call officer please respond. Police request backup.
On-call officer. Tonight, that was Gabe. But what were the cops doing at Mesa Butte? That was Mountain Parks's jurisdiction.
He flipped on his overheads, pulled a U-turn, and sped east toward the butte.
KAT STARED IN disbelief and shock toward the open sweat lodge door, only to be blinded by a flashlight.
"Police!" a man's voice shouted. "Everyone out!"
Stunned, she shielded her eyes and looked to Grandpa Red Crow, who sat on her left closest to the door. He looked amazingly calm, beads of sweat on his wrinkled face and bare chest, an eagle-bone whistle in his hand, its piercing song abruptly silenced.
"Come on! Move it! Out!"
Grandpa Red Crow leaned toward the door, spoke to the man outside. "You are interrupting the inipi, a sacred Indian ceremony--"
The police officer reached in and grabbed Grandpa by the arms. "Come on, old man. Out!"
Wearing only gym shorts, a towel wrapped around his waist for modesty's sake, Grandpa was hauled roughly forward, whistle clutched tightly in his hand.
"No!" Kat shouted, her cry echoed by the dozen women who'd come to Mesa Butte to pray.
This can't be happening!
Oh, but it was.
No sooner had Grandpa Red Crow been dragged through the small opening, than the same cop ducked down and took hold of Glenna, an Oglala Lakota elder from Denver who was sick with ovarian cancer. Her eyes wide in her thin face, Glenna cried out in her native tongue, her towel slipping from her shoulders, exposing her damp T-shirt and skirt, as the officer pulled her through the doorway. "Hiya! Hiya!" No! No!
Then the cop ducked down and shined his flashlight into the lodge once more. "Are the rest of you going to come out, or do we have to drag you out one at a time?"
Pauline, a young Cheyenne woman and next in line to the door, looked to Kat, panic in her eyes. "What should I do?"
Kat swallowed her own fear. "I'll go, and you follow me."
She crawled around the edge of the fire pit toward the door, feeling trapped in some kind of nightmare. When she reached the doorway, she spoke the Lakota words she would have spoken when leaving the lodge at the end of the ceremony had it not been interrupted. "Mitakuye Oyasin." All my relations.
"Come on! Hurry it up!" the officer shouted.
She lifted her head and crawled forward another step, only to feel a fist close in her hair, the cop yanking her painfully upright, her towel falling into the mud. She tried to stand, but her weight came down on her right leg, which had been out of its cast for only a few days and was still weak. Her ankle twisted, and she lost her balance, falling forward, clutching at the hand that held her hair, trying to keep it from being ripped out by the roots.
"What the hell are you doing?" A familiar voice, footsteps.
"Let go of her! You can't just manhandle people like that!"
"They're resisting." The cop released her.
Scalp still burning, Kat landed on her hands and knees in cold mud, her heart slamming, tears of shock and rage and pain blurring her vision. Unable to stop her trembling, she looked up--and felt as if the breath had been knocked from her lungs.
There, striding toward her, was Gabriel Rossiter, the park ranger who'd saved her life. This time he was dressed in his full ranger uniform--dark jacket with a silver badge on the front, gun on his hip, heavy boots on his feet. From the way he walked, she could tell he was angry.
"It looks to me like they're doing what you asked them to do, so why don't you stand back and give them some room?" He knelt down before her, his face cast half in golden light from the fire and half in shadow. "How's your leg? Are you able to stand?"
Kat nodded, confused to see him here, horrified to think that the man who'd saved her life, the man she'd thought about every day for the past three months, the man she'd just remembered in her prayers, could be a part of this ... this desecration.
"You know her?" the cop asked. Lantern-jawed and clean-cut, he had a military look about him. "Better get her out of here before she gets herself arrested."
The ranger didn't answer. "I'll help you up."
Strong hands grasped her arms, lifting her out of the mud and holding her steady until she got her footing. Her gaze met his, and for a moment all she could do was stand there, looking up at him. He was taller than she remembered, her head only reaching his chest. And he was a lot angrier.
He picked up her muddy, wet towel and handed it to her. "I'm sorry, Katherine, but we have orders to put out the fire and clear the butte."
"Why?" Icy November wind blew through her damp hair, piercing the wet cloth of her skirt and T-shirt, chilling her to the bone.
"I'm not exactly sure why." He glanced about. "Apparently, the fire violates land-use codes that the city has suddenly decided to enforce."
Land-use codes?
She started to tell him that federal laws protecting Indian religious freedom trumped city land-use codes, but the cop had knelt down before the sweat lodge again.
"I guess all we got here are squaws," he said, panning his flashlight over the women inside, a degrading tone to his voice. "Must be the braves's night off. Either that or the old guy has himself a harem. Come on! Move it!"
Inside, Pauline sobbed.
"No! Let me! She's afraid of you!" Outraged by the cop's insulting comments and his bullying manner, Kat turned to help, but the ranger caught her with a strong arm around her waist and drew her back against him, the contact startling.
He spoke quietly, his breath warm on her chilled skin. "You'll only get yourself arrested. Let me handle it. Go back to your car and warm up."
But right now Kat didn't care about being cold, and she wasn't about to leave the other women behind
. Shivering hard, she wrapped her wet, muddy towel around her shoulders, stepped back and watched as the ranger bent down and spoke to the cop.
She couldn't hear what he was saying, but after a moment, the cop stood, glaring at him. "Fine. Do it your way, Rossiter, but it's on your head."
Then the cop stepped away from the sweat lodge, making room for the ranger, obviously furious at him for interfering.
The ranger squatted down before the sweat lodge door, hands in his pockets. "It's all right. No one's going to hurt you. Come on out."
Kat recognized the soothing tone of his voice, and despite her anger, she knew he meant what he said. She leaned nearer to the sweat lodge door and called out. "It's okay, Pauline. You don't have to be afraid. This one won't hurt you."
She saw the top of Pauline's head and stepped back to make room for her and the other women, looking beyond the firelight, searching for Grandpa Red Crow and Glenna. And then she saw.
A dozen squad cars were parked down below on the access road, lights flashing. Three fire trucks stood nearby. The butte seemed to swarm with law enforcement, two officers holding German shepherds on leashes.
Police? Firefighters? K-9 units?
All of this--to stop an inipi?
Everything but the cavalry.
Fighting tears of rage with every breath, she spotted both Grandpa Red Crow and Glenna just beyond the firelight, talking with a uniformed officer. She might have walked over to them and tried to help, but then Pauline was there, trembling and crying, soggy towel around her shoulders, the other women emerging one by one behind her, their faces pinched with fear.
"Come." She met the ranger's gaze, then turned away, wrapping her arm around Pauline's shoulder. "Let's get dressed."
GABE WATCHED As Katherine limped, soaking wet and barefoot, through the snow, shepherding the other women around to the other side of a blanket that had been strung up between two saplings, her quiet dignity an indictment.
He'd arrived to find three fire trucks and most of the cops in the city parked along the access road to the butte, lights flashing. With that kind of response, he'd expected to find a frat party turned homicide or perhaps even arson. Instead, he'd found nothing more threatening than an inipi-the same kind of ceremony that had been going on up here every Saturday night since before Gabe had become a ranger.