Chapter 15 #3
Breaking into a jog, Aspen hurried for the boat. By the time she got to it, she was dragging Kane. “Come on,” she urged, lifting her leg to step into the boat. But Kane held her back, not letting her get in.
“Why didn’t you stop and get her when you first heard about her?” Kane asked Derek.
“Because the boat was already full. I had a woman with three kids, the youngest was two. They were freaked out, and there was no way we would’ve all fit in here if we’d gone back.
Look, the longer you stand there, the worse her condition could be.
She might have that baby and bleed out, or she could even lose it. You comin’ or not?”
Aspen hadn’t delivered a lot of babies, but she’d seen her share of bad outcomes when it came to giving birth.
She remembered the baby she’d delivered while in Afghanistan, how good it had felt to hold the healthy infant in her hands.
She couldn’t let another woman suffer if she could do something to help her.
“Kane?” she questioned. She hoped he wasn’t the kind of man to let his personal grievances get in the way of doing what was right.
She breathed out a sigh of relief when he gave her a brief nod and shifted his grip to her arm to help her step into the boat.
“How far away is she?” Kane asked.
“Not too far,” Derek said, backing the boat up the second Kane’s foot left dry land, not even giving him time to sit before he was revving the engine and flying away from the staging area.
Aspen frowned and held the edge of the boat for dear life. She understood the need for urgency, but none of the other drivers they’d had that night had driven as recklessly as it seemed Derek was.
“Slow down, man!” Kane yelled, obviously feeling the same unease as Aspen.
“Gotta get to her!” Derek shouted back.
The rain pelted Aspen’s face, making it impossible for her to keep her eyes open. She ducked her head into her shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut. She held on to the side of the aluminum boat with all her might and prayed that they made it to the pregnant woman in one piece.
How long they drove, Aspen had no idea, but she’d never been so happy to feel the boat slowing down.
She lifted her head and looked around. She had no clue where they were; nothing looked familiar.
There were no lights on anywhere. She could see the vague shape of townhouses all around them in the darkness, but the electricity had obviously gone out in this part of the city.
“We’re almost there,” Derek said. It was much easier to hear him, now that they weren’t driving a million miles an hour. The rain still fell steadily, making it even harder to see.
“Keep an eye out, I don’t know exactly which townhouse is hers. The other lady said she thought she was three or four units down from hers,” Derek told them.
Which didn’t exactly help, since Aspen didn’t know where the original rescue had taken place.
She was sitting toward the front of the boat, and Kane was more toward the middle.
She glanced over her shoulder, noting Derek still sitting in the back next to the engine.
Kane gave her a chin lift and a reassuring smile, which she appreciated.
Aspen turned back around and leaned forward, trying to see through the darkness, looking for debris in the fast-moving water, as well as any sign of the townhouse in question.
The boat rocked a bit, but Aspen ignored it, concentrating too hard on finding the pregnant woman in distress.
But she couldn’t ignore the loud thud behind her—or the way the boat suddenly swayed back and forth alarmingly before a splash sounded.
Spinning around, she blinked in confusion.
Derek was standing in the back of the boat with an oar in his hand—and Kane was nowhere to be seen.
She heard something brush the boat and turned…only to see a body floating, facedown, quickly being washed away.
Aspen made a noise in the back of her throat and stared at Derek in disbelief.
“Hope his head is harder than it looks,” he snarled. “He’s not so tough now, is he?”
In a flash, Aspen realized that Derek had clobbered Kane upside the head with the oar—and she was probably next.
She could stay in the boat and fight Derek, or she could bail and save Kane.
It was an easy decision.
Taking a deep breath, Aspen threw herself to the left and over the side of the boat. The current immediately tugged at her, pulling her in the same direction she’d last seen Kane.
When her head popped up from the murky water, she heard Derek laughing. “Good luck getting back to base!” he called out, then he gunned the engine on the boat and zoomed away.
Knowing she should be outraged that Derek had left them in the middle of nowhere, Aspen couldn’t waste energy on anything other than finding Kane. He was unconscious and likely only had seconds to live.
She swam as fast as she could with the current, hoping to catch up to Kane, and as luck would have it, crashed right into him as she frantically pinwheeled her arms. Grunting, she turned him over onto his back, which wasn’t easy in the middle of the fast-moving water.
She couldn’t touch the ground beneath her and couldn’t see anywhere to drag Kane’s unconscious body to get traction, in case she needed to do CPR.
Frantically, she put one hand on his chest to try to feel for movement, and she almost panicked when she couldn’t detect that he was breathing.
Knowing nothing about this was ideal, she turned his head, covered his lips with hers, and blew.
Then she did it again, and again.
She had to get him breathing!
She could feel his heart now, sluggishly beating under her hand, but if she had to do chest compressions, they were screwed.
After one more long rescue breath, Kane gagged. Water spewed out of his mouth, and as gross as it was, Aspen was almost delirious with joy.
“That’s it…throw it all up. Get it out,” she told him.
She hoped he’d open his eyes and tell her that he was all right, but he never did.
Using her legs to keep them afloat, Aspen looked around for a direction she could go to get them out of the water. She might’ve gotten Kane breathing again, but he wasn’t out of trouble, far from it. She could barely make out a dark splotch high on his forehead, and she knew he was bleeding.
“Damn you, Derek,” she hissed as she put her arm around Kane’s chest and began to swim sideways. She didn’t know where the current would take them, and the last thing she wanted was to end up in a river and headed out to the gulf.
She was relieved to see the townhouses were relatively nearby now. They were all dark, but maybe she could get to one and break inside.
Her body trembling with exertion and adrenaline, Aspen used one arm and her legs to propel them in the direction of the closest building. Hoping she didn’t get turned around in the current.
She almost cried when she saw a townhouse dead ahead.
It took ten more minutes of fighting the current, but she finally managed to get to the steps leading up to the house at the end of the row.
There was a wrought-iron rail along either side of the stairs, and she used it to help pull herself and Kane onto the steps.
They were fully submerged, but the landing had only a couple inches of water.
Using all her strength, Aspen hauled Kane’s dead weight up to it.
She straddled his head and reached up for the doorknob, praying that maybe, just maybe, it would be unlocked. But of course it wasn’t.
Since she didn’t fit on the small landing with Kane, she eased herself down on the first step, the water lapping at her hips.
Leaning over Kane, she tried to feel his head where she’d seen the blood.
She felt the warm sensation immediately, and knew the wound was still bleeding. Putting her hand over his head, she could literally feel the way his skin had split open when Derek had hit him.
Anger rose within her again. Hot and hard.
Derek had lied to them from the start. There was no pregnant woman. No one in trouble. She didn’t know if he’d thought of the scheme right there on the spot, when he’d seen her and Kane coming toward him, or if he’d planned to hurt them from the second he knew they’d all be together in Houston.
It was shocking to realize he’d gone so far off the deep end.
What other reason could there be? He’d tried to murder them!
How had a decorated and respected Army Ranger fallen so low?
And why? They hadn’t even dated very long!
Two measly dates. Why had he gotten so enraged just because she didn’t want to see him anymore?
Nothing about the situation made sense…and now Kane was lying unconscious and bleeding in the middle of the night, miles away from anyone.
Aspen didn’t have any of her medical supplies, they were both soaking wet, and the water contained who knew what kind of contaminants.
“Kane?” she semi-yelled, hoping he’d be able to hear her. “I need you to wake up now. We’re in deep shit.”
She waited, but there was no movement from the man she loved with all her heart.
She pressed harder on his head wound, hoping like hell she’d be able to slow the bleeding.
She put her free hand on the side of Kane’s neck, where she could feel his pulse throbbing under the vulnerable skin there.
Then she lay her head on his chest, listening to his heart.
There was absolutely nothing she could do right then but hope and pray they’d be missed, and someone would come looking for them. It was a long shot, as she had no idea how far Derek had driven them from the staging area, but surely one of Kane’s team would eventually wonder where he was.
She had to cling to that hope—because the alternative was unthinkable.
Feeling overwhelmed, and more frightened than she’d been in her life, Aspen closed her eyes. The scent of oil and sewage was all around her, and she didn’t even want to think about what was in the water she was sitting in. At least she’d gotten Kane out of it.
“Wake up, Kane,” she whispered. “You have to wake up.”
But he didn’t even twitch.