Chapter 26 Ramsay
Because I’d been so focused on Silver’s B and B, I had requests for freelance work piling up.
Today, I wasn’t needed on-site, so I headed over to the cheese farm this morning to fit a couple of bookshelves I’d built for them.
Now they were custom milled into place in their café that abutted the farm.
My plan was to head back to Stòr to lose myself in my workshop. But first a stop at the bakery. Between my workouts in my home gym, the physicality of my job, and the sexual workouts I was getting regularly with Silver, I was hungry all the time lately.
Akiva waited outside for me and as I stepped out, she gave a sudden bark and took off down Main Street.
A hooded, masked figure, too tall and broad to be a woman, shot past me clutching a woman’s handbag and threw his body over the harbor wall.
Instinct had me racing across the street as the cries hit my ears.
The man scrambled to his feet and unwound the rope anchoring a small speedboat.
My eyes flew down Main Street to where Akiva had run to, where the cries for help sounded.
People crowded around someone.
A gap in them revealed what I’d dreaded from the moment Akiva tore away from me.
A familiar blond head on the concrete.
The engine roared, drawing my attention back as the hooded figure zoomed across the water in the speedboat.
Blood rushing in my ears, I searched the harbor until I spotted Jack, the harbor master. His face stretched with worry as he walked toward the noise. “Jack, call the police!”
His face leached of color. “What’s going on?”
“That boat!” I pointed at its quickly disappearing silhouette. “That’s our perpetrator! Call the police, now!” There was no time to wait. My boat wouldn’t catch the fucker.
And she was the priority.
I ran down Main Street. “Move!” I bellowed and the crowd around her parted.
Silver’s wide, shocked gaze met mine as she lay there panting hard, her hands covering her blood-soaked stomach.
Rage and another feeling I couldn’t acknowledge filled me.
Memories of another woman staring up at me, eyes begging for help tried to intrude.
Tried to fuck me up. I held the memory back.
Forced myself to calm. For her sake. Akiva licked at Silver’s face, whimpering.
“Akiva, back off,” I commanded, and she did. But she sat on her rump like a guard dog at Silver’s side as I lowered to my knees. “Ambulance?” I asked the crowd.
“On its way, Ramsay,” a shaking, female voice said behind me. “They’re going to get her to the helipad to airlift her to Inverness.”
“Ramsay,” Silver gasped out.
I pulled off my shirt and bundled it into a wad. “I’m going to put pressure on the wound, Silver. Okay?”
Her panting grew faster.
She was hyperventilating.
“Breathe with me, Silver.” I took a deep breath in and out as I gently moved her bloody hands so I could quickly cover the wound.
Her breathing increased as I pressed down on it.
“Breathe.” I breathed in and out. “Like me. Look at me, angel.”
The pleading in her eyes almost undid me.
“Angel, breathe,” I begged.
She took in a slow breath and released it.
“That’s it. That’s it. Good girl.”
“They’re here, Ramsay.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see the island’s only ambulance stop at the scene. Inside were our two paramedics—Forde, who was driving, and Laurie, the second medic. Forde managed the ambulance and volunteered to drive it when he could.
His face slackened when he saw me and Silver. Then he covered his shock and dismay as Laurie pushed forward. “What do we have?”
“Possible knife wound. I’ve kept pressure on it.”
Laurie nodded grimly. “Keep the pressure on while we get Tierney onto the stretcher.”
It was quick, efficient, though I nearly lost my shit when Silver cried out in pain as she was rocked a little too hard going up into the ambulance. Akiva barked from outside it and I frantically scanned the crowd.
Cammie was there.
I hadn’t seen her arrive.
Her face was chalk white.
“Cam, can you watch Akiva?”
She blinked rapidly, tears falling down her cheeks. “Aye. Call me as soon as you can.”
I gave her a jerk of my chin. “Thanks.”
Then the ambulance doors closed.
“Ramsay.”
I looked to Silver. There was so much blood drenching my hands. So much fucking blood, I was terrified a major artery had been punctured. “I’m here.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “So … sorry.” Her eyes closed and her hands went limp at her side.