Identity Crisis(115)

She landed a jarring kick in the man’s groin, and before he could utter more than a harsh grunt, she followed it with a hard right cross to his jaw. The impact of Kendra’s unexpected attack sent him flailing backward, his feet slipping and sliding on the muddy ground before his went down on his back. There was another sharp grunt as the breath left his lungs, then a cry of utter surprise. His eyes teared and his right hand jerked spastically to his chest.

Kendra skidded on the wet pine straw and nearly fell backward, but just as she gathered her balance for another attack she noticed the front of Edge’s white T-shirt bloomed bright red, and in the confusion that gripped her, it took her a second to see the jagged, sharpened stake that was the remains of a nearby tree branch broken off by last night’s wind and storm. It ran through Edge’s chest just below his sternum. He uttered another startled grunt, convulsed once, then his eyes glazed and he didn’t move again.

She watched his life’s blood drain away with a strange indifference that later might be the stuff of nightmares, but for now she just wanted to be sure he wouldn’t come back for more. Then she turned and practically fell onto her knees next to Garrett.

‘Call an ambulance!’ she shouted as the first police shoved their way out of their cars, guns drawn. ‘Damn it, call an ambulance now!’ She struggled out of her jacket, barely noticing the cold or the hammering rain. ‘You shouldn’t have pulled the knife out of the wound,’ she heard herself shouting at Garrett, as she pressed the jacket tight against his side to stop the bleeding. ‘Damn it, Garrett, you’ve only got so much blood you, know?’ Her words came out as a sob and she struggled to see through the tears.

Garrett winced and grabbed her other hand with a grip that belied the amount of blood he’d lost. ‘Jesus, woman, you’re bossy to the end, aren’t you?’

‘No, Garrett,’ she sobbed. ‘No! This is not the end! I’m gonna be bossy for a long time to come, so you’d better get used to it. Now shut up and stop bleeding!’

His eyelids fluttered and he winced again. His lips were pale and pressed tight in pain but he forced a smile. ‘I suppose I could get used to that,’ he managed. ‘The bossy bit, I mean.’ He nodded to the crumpled Mustang. ‘How did you do that?’

‘Stunt driving course. Gift from another satisfied client.’

‘Pity about the Mustang,’ he managed.

‘It’s just a car, Garrett. It’s just a car.’

She placed a finger against his lips and her heart nearly broke at his effort to kiss it. ‘I love you, Garrett Thorne, and you were right. You were right about me, I do deserve romance, and I want it from you, so stop bleeding, all right, just please stop bleeding, damn it!’

He uttered a little sigh that was some cross between pain and, she hoped, something much happier. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he managed, squeezing her hand hard.

From out of nowhere, Ellis and Dee arrived with Harris and Stacie right behind them, all piling out of Ellis’s Jeep. She barely noticed them crowding around. Ellis gently placed his jacket over Kendra’s trembling shoulders and Harris knelt next to her with a first aid kit.

‘Let me see,’ he said, gently easing Kendra aside, just enough that he could tend Garrett’s wound. Another one of Harris’s outdoor talents was that he was well-trained in first aid.’

Garrett eyed Harris suspiciously. ‘You’re not going to put the knife back in, are you?’

Harris grunted and bit his lip in concentration. ‘I might if you ever do anything to hurt my best friend.’

Garrett forced himself into a half sitting position, leaning heavily against Kendra. ‘Your best friend happens to be the woman I love, Walker. I would never hurt her. In fact –’ he gave another squeeze of her hand ‘– I plan to do my best to make her very happy, if she’ll let me.’

‘See that you do,’ Harris said. ‘Or this will seem like a little scratch when I get through with you.’

Garrett lost consciousness just as the ambulance arrived and, in spite of Harris assuring her that the wound wasn’t as bad as it looked, Kendra couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it until the emergency room doctor at the hospital had reassured her.

Garrett was lucky, the doctor said. The knife missed both the heart and the lungs. They had kept him in the hospital for observation, and he had been pretty heavily sedated, but not so much that he hadn’t called for Kendra in the night, and not so much that he hadn’t been aware she was there, in spite of hospital regulations, curled up on the bed next to him. She wasn’t about to let him out of her sight again. Dee had brought her fresh clothes, and she had cleaned up as best she could in the bathroom of Garrett’s hospital room. In spite of exhaustion, she slept very little, and when she did, she was lulled to sleep by the slow, even in and out of Garrett’s breathing, by the steady, powerful beat, beat, beat of his heart, beneath her hand resting gently on his chest.