“Luke,” she gasped, the human words still thick and strange on her tongue. “Hurt. He’s hurt.”
“Where, Joey? Where has he been hurt?”
Bile rose in her throat as she forced her way around it “Woods—his land. He can’t move. Allan… ”
For a moment his earnest blue eyes searched her face She willed him to understand the urgency, to act, to run, he let go her hands and stood before she could scream at him in desperation. “Wait there, Joey, and rest. I’m going to go send the nurse in to look after you and go for help. If he can’t move, I’ll need someone to—”
“No!” Joey fought to keep hysteria from her voice. “No, no help. They shot him. He can’t… ” Somehow she made her tongue form the correct shape. “He’s wolf.”
Collier froze at the door, staring back at her. Understanding suffused his expression. “Good God,” he murmured. There was a span of time in which Joey could see the thoughts moving behind his eyes, naked emotion as he reached the inevitable conclusion. “All right.” He closed his eyes briefly and let out a deep breath. “Then it’s up to you and me.”
Relief washed over Joey. She hardly heard Collier as he spoke to someone outside the door, disappearing briefly to return with an armful of clothing. “Are you strong enough, Joey?” he said, searching her eyes. “Are you going to be able to help me find him and bring him back?”
Without answering, Joey stood up and cast the blanket from her shoulders. Collier looked away, his hand half-extended to help her as she caught her balance; she turned aside to tug on the borrowed clothing, embarrassment a meaningless burden for which she had no time. There was only one thing that mattered, one goal that carried her on shaking legs after Collier as he gathered up his equipment and led her out to the garage behind his office, firing off final instructions to his assistants and pursued by the puzzled questions of patients he had left in the waiting room.
Her inner vision was focused on Luke while Collier pulled the Land Rover out into the thin, sluggish traffic of Main Street and headed out of town. He was alive, she knew that much, as she knew her heart would have stopped when his did. The dull ache of his pain throbbed along her nerves, and she welcomed it. It meant he was fighting. He was alive, and she drove the message home again and again, down the arteries of the new-made link in time to the beat of her blood, praying he would hear it. Don’t give up, Luke. I won’t let you go.
Chapter Nineteen
Straightening up from his work, Allan Collier set aside the last of his instruments and stripped off his surgical gloves. Joey forced herself to rise, to leave Luke again where he lay on the folded blankets before the fire, and went to retrieve more hot water from the stove. Collier smiled up at her gratefully and wiped the instruments clean, sterilizing and packing them away carefully before blotting at his face with the cloth Joey provided.
“He’ll be all right, Joey.” The words descended like small miracles. Joey closed her eyes and spent several seconds walking on air. “You got me to him in time. His body was trying to heal itself, but he was too weak. He couldn’t have made it without you.” Joey felt his hand brush her cheek. “It took great courage to do what you did, Joey.”
She opened her eyes slowly and stared at Luke, stitched up and bandaged, bullets extracted, his side rising and falling steadily. Her fingers stroked over the triangular space between his closed eyes. “I didn’t want to do it, Allan,” she whispered. “It was… ” She closed her mouth on an inadequate description of something he could not hope to understand.
He smiled sadly, and his hand found hers. “Don’t try to explain it, Joey. Luke tried once, and I’m afraid he wasn’t very successful, either.” His fingers squeezed gently. “But don’t belittle what you did. You’re a very brave young woman.”
Freeing one hand to scrub at unshed tears, Joey managed a smile. “I don’t feel very brave right now.” She let the numbness of reaction settle over her. Soon enough the emptiness would fill with the new and terrible knowledge, harsher emotion rising to overwhelm relief and gratitude and joy. She wondered how she would be able to bear it.