Boone hog-tied Reeves and left him for the sheriff’s deputies to take charge of. The men busied themselves checking her injuries and tried to stop Maya’s blood loss from the wound at her side. When the EMTs made it across the creek, after being directed to the shallowest point by Richard so their equipment wouldn’t get wet, they stabilized Maya. Kendall, Boone, and Richard personally carried her stretcher across the creek and rode with her in Jack’s SUV back to the waiting ambulance.
Boone helped to hold Maya’s stretcher in place and listened to Jack’s cell phone conversation with Grace as he tried to keep Maya from being jostled too much.
“That’s right, darlin’. Hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap. And a bucket. Meet us at the old horse trough out by the barn. One of the ranch hands can fill it for you. No running, okay? I love you, too, darlin’.”
Jack slipped his phone in his pocket and grinned at Boone and said, “Grace is bringing skunk remedy. No offense, Boone, but you stink to high heaven.”
Boone had become desensitized to it, but when he put his nose to his shirt and sniffed hard, the odor made him gag a little. He was distracted by Maya’s moan.
The two EMTs perched in the back of the SUV tended to her, and she looked over to Boone.
He held her hand as she smiled at him and murmured, “You’re okay. I was afraid you were hit when the gun went off. I–I must have passed out. What happened?”
“The skunk sprayed Reeves right before I jumped him. He got it worse than I did.”
“I probably stink, too. It made me want to be sick, it was so strong. I can’t smell it now.”
One of the EMTs spoke up and said, “We’ll probably all need de-skunking. With the humidity this high his spray was thick in the air.”
At the ranch, Grace waited with a bucket and the other ingredients Jack had requested. Jack couldn’t talk her into going back to the house, though. She stayed with Maya until they had her loaded and took off for the hospital.
The EMTs told them that she was in good hands and urged them to take the few minutes to use the de-skunking solution so they would be allowed to stay in the ER waiting room.
As it was, they got lots of surprised looks and a few disgusted ones when they showed up a few minutes later. Fresh clothes evidently hadn’t helped much either. Boone didn’t really care as long as he got to be with Maya. Judging by the looks in Kendall’s and Richard’s eyes they felt the same.
In consideration of the other occupants of the ER waiting room, they stood in the hallway outside the doors to the emergency and trauma department. Kendall and Richard looked about as bad as Boone felt. He hoped he never saw a look on Richard’s face like he’d worn that afternoon while on the phone with Maya. Sheer panic, devastation, and powerlessness.
He’d heard Maya’s pained yelp each time Reeves’s bullets had struck her, and the sound had terrified him.
No one could blame them if they wrapped Maya in cotton, took her home, and never let her go anywhere else alone ever again.
* * * *
Maya returned to consciousness slowly. The first things she was aware of were a deep, rhythmic sound, a warm weight on her thigh, and the fragrance of roses.
Her mouth was dry, and she shivered with cold. Shivering made her tense up, and she felt a weird sort of muffled pain in her right side. Then she remembered being shot. The room was dim as she opened her eyes and took in a sight that brought the sting of tears to her eyes.
Boone sat in the corner by the window in a very uncomfortable-looking chair with wooden arms. His chin rested in his palm, and he was turned sideways in the chair. It looked like the chair had won the battle to find a comfortable position to sleep in.
Kendall sat in an identical chair on one side of the bed next to a lot of monitoring equipment. He didn’t look like he was faring much better with his head tilted back, mouth wide open, snoring like a jackhammer.
She grinned and almost wished she had a camera so she could snap a picture of him like that. The others wouldn’t think that was so amusing, but Kendall would laugh and ask her why she didn’t take a video instead and post it on YouTube so he could be famous.
Maya looked down at the dark form on her right and realized the warm weight on her thigh was Richard’s hand. He sat forward in a hospital chair with his upper body resting on the mattress, his head on his forearms.
Even though he was in repose, she could see the stress of the day’s events on his face. His eyebrows were drawn slightly together so a line formed between them, and there was tension around his eyes. Even so, he was a handsome man. She loved his full lips and neatly trimmed beard and moustache and the way it tickled when he kissed her.