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Her Cowboy Distraction(24)

By:Carla Cassidy


Who? It made sense that it was probably the same person who had attacked  her before, but who in the hell was it and why was he after Lizzy?

Lizzy. His heart cried her name as he pressed on the gas pedal,  exceeding the speed limit to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.  She had to pull through this, but as he thought about how still she'd  been, how pale and small she'd looked, his entire body shuddered with  dread.

His hands relaxed as the sight of the hospital came into view. Grady  Gulch Memorial Hospital was small but staffed with good doctors and  nurses.

He parked and raced for the emergency room entrance, his heart still  hammering hard and fast. Cameron was already standing in the waiting  room. "They've taken her back to get her checked out. I imagine it's  going to be a while before we hear anything." He gestured toward the  chairs. "Why don't you sit and I'll get us a cup of coffee from the  machine."                       
       
           



       

"None for me," Daniel said as he sank into one of the chairs. He felt  that if he tried to put anything into his stomach right now, it just  might not stay down.

Cameron returned with a foam cup of coffee in hand and sat next to Daniel with a tired sigh. "What are you thinking?" he asked.

Daniel stared down at the tiled floor. "I'm thinking I wish I hadn't  watched the weather report. I'm thinking that when I saw her headed for  the barn I should have gone out and joined her. Dammit, I should have  been there in the barn with her." He raised his gaze to meet Cameron's.  "And I'm thinking that whoever attacked her the first time and told her  to leave town was pissed because she hadn't done what he'd told her to  do, and tonight he found her again."

"Who in the hell could it be?" Cameron asked.

"Aren't I supposed to be the one asking you that question?" Daniel said wryly.

Cameron sighed again. "I've never felt so impotent as sheriff. My number  one goal has always been the safety of the people of Grady Gulch, and  now I have one young woman murdered and another apparently beaten to  within an inch of her life. I called for a couple of my deputies to head  out to your barn and see if the attacker left anything of himself  behind. We'll wait until morning light and check for car tracks or  whatever else we can find in the general area. Whoever was in that barn  didn't walk to your place from town. If we can find some tire tracks,  I'll cast them and compare them to every vehicle in the whole town."

"Just find him, Cameron."

"I'm doing my best." He took a sip of his coffee and then continued,  "Lizzy told me a couple of days ago that she was getting ready to move  on from Grady Gulch. Maybe it's time she did that, if nothing else for  her own safety."

Daniel's heart rebelled at the very thought, and yet deep in his soul he  knew that it had always been Lizzy's intention to move on. Besides, how  could he ask her to stay someplace where her life might be at risk?  "Maybe you're right," he finally said around the hollow ache of his  heart.

The two of them fell silent then as they waited to hear if the entire  conversation had been moot because Lizzy wasn't going to pull through.

There was nothing worse than waiting to hear about the condition of a  loved one, Daniel thought. Minutes felt like hours, and he could only  sit and think about all the terrible things that might be happening  behind the closed doors ahead of them.

As he thought of those dark bruises he'd seen on her, he felt her pain, a  jagged piercing ache that shot him to his feet to begin a pace of  impatience.

Cameron got up for a second cup of coffee as Daniel continued pacing  back and forth in the small room. What was taking so long? Why hadn't  the doctor come out to tell them something?

It was another half an hour before Dr. Michael Lawrence finally walked  out the door to greet them. "She's stable," he began, and the words  nearly cast Daniel to his knees in relief. "But, she's still  unconscious. All our tests have indicated there's no brain swelling,  although it's obvious she was kicked several times in the head. She has a  couple of cracked ribs and bruises pretty much from head to toe. All of  them appear to be the result of her being kicked over and over again."  He frowned. "Somebody wanted her badly hurt or dead. One more kick to  her head and I have a feeling we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"But, she's going to be all right?" Daniel asked.

Dr. Lawrence frowned. "I'm not happy that she hasn't regained  consciousness yet, but I think she's going to be okay. It's going to  take her some time to get back on her feet. She took one hell of a  beating."

"Can I see her?"

"Can I keep you from it?" Dr. Lawrence asked with a small smile.

"Not unless you have a big gun," Daniel replied.

"Room 119."

Daniel left Cameron and the doctor and burst through the door to find  her room. The hallway smelled of some sort of pine cleaner and  antiseptic soap.

The last time he'd been there was the night that Janice and Cherry had  died. The city morgue was in the basement of the building. He never  wanted to go to the basement again.

When he found the room he sought, he entered to see Lizzy looking small  and fragile against the big hospital bed. She'd been placed in a  hospital gown and one arm was out of the blanket that covered her.

The sight of that small arm, dark with bruises, made him half-crazy with  rage and sorrow and guilt. He pulled a chair up next to the bed and  sank down and stared at her face.                       
       
           



       

He loved her face, even though half of it was showing the signs of the  deep purple bruises to come. Why hadn't she regained consciousness? Had  the doctor missed something?

He leaned forward. "Lizzy? Honey, I know you're in there somewhere. You need to come back. You need to wake up."

There was no response, not even a faint flicker of an eyelid or a change  in her slow, even breathing. Would she ever wake up? And if she did,  was there going to be any kind of residual damage?

One thing was clear. She was going to need somebody to help her in her  recuperation process, and he was committed to being that person.

He leaned back in the chair and released a weary sigh. He would do  whatever it took to get Lizzy back to health, and then he would have to  tell her goodbye.

* * *

She rose up from the darkness just enough to be aware of faint voices  and pain. She couldn't make out what the voices were saying, but the  pain shouted loud, hitting her in every area of her body.

She tried to fight past it, to open her eyes and see what was going on,  but the pain was too great, the confusion in her head too tumbled, and  instead she eagerly embraced the darkness as it rose up to claim her  once again.

The next time the darkness began to clear she became aware of more  things: the feel of the bed beneath her and the hospital scent in the  air. Why was she in a hospital? Had she been in a car accident? She  remembered leaving the café, Cameron walking her out to her car. What?  What had happened after that?

The barn. The apple. She should be in the barn with Molly. As the memory  of what had taken place in the barn pierced through the veil of  darkness, a cry escaped her lips and full consciousness slammed into  her.

"Lizzy?"

Daniel's voice came from someplace at her side, and she slowly turned  her head to see him seated in a chair next to her. He looked like a wild  man, his curly hair standing on end and his eyes dark and filled with  such torment she wanted to weep for him.

"I'm okay," she said, hoping those simple words would take away some of  the darkness in his eyes. She glanced past him toward the window, where  the early light of day was streaking across the sky. "Long night, huh?"

He raked a hand through his hair, letting her know exactly how it had  come to be in its current position. "You have no idea. I need to go get  the doctor and let him know that you're awake. Will you be okay while  I'm gone?"

She forced a pained smile. "I'll be fine, and I'm certainly not going anywhere."

He got up from the chair and raced for the door. It was only as he  disappeared from her sight that her smile fell and tears burned at her  eyes. Everything hurt. Even drawing a deep breath created a wealth of  pain inside her.

As she tried to sit up, she was struck by a wave of dizziness that  instantly forced her back to a prone position. He tried to kill her, she  thought with a touch of horror. He'd almost kicked her to death. What  kind of a man did that to a woman? To anyone? It had been an act of  sheer brutality, of evil hatred.