Love Me Steadfast (Love Me Dangerous #6)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

WILLIAM (NOW)

The tones wake me just past midnight. I autopilot into my jumpsuit and boots while the dispatch relays details from the loudspeaker.

Medical call triggered by the crisis line. The address is familiar, but I can’t place it.

My pulse thickens in my throat as I race for the pole and slide down to the truck bay.

Who do I know who lives on Salt Creek Road?

Burton is right behind me, and climbs behind the wheel while I jump into the passenger seat. An engine is also dispatched, and both of us pull out of the station, sirens wailing.

I check in with dispatch. “EMS Four underway. What’ve we got?”

“Patient is a twenty-seven year old female reporting a mental health crisis,” our dispatcher replies. “Possible substance abuse.”

“Is anyone with her?” I ask.

“Not that we know.”

I hope the crisis line folks are still talking to her. If anything, it will buy us some time .

“Sheriff’s department is ten minutes out,” our dispatcher says.

“Does she know we’re coming?” I ask.

“Affirmative,” dispatch replies. “Evergreen medics are on standby.”

I set the radio back in its cradle while Burton accelerates onto Sunnyside, which curves around the south side of Bear Mountain.

It’s a narrow paved road that turns to gravel after the first few miles.

The rig vibrates and dips over the uneven road.

There’s no traffic at this hour, so I kill the siren but leave the lights.

When the GPS indicates our turn is approaching, it hits me.

“Oh fuck,” I say, running a hand through my hair.

Burton frowns. “What?”

“I think I know where we’re going.”

The faded sign for Salt Creek Road flashes in the headlights, and Burton turns. The road’s in even worse shape than the one we left behind, and our heavy rig bounces and jerks over the potholes and washboards.

“You been out here before?” Burton asks as we take the left fork, passing beneath the Thunder Mountain arch.

“Yeah,” I reply. When Morgan started the rescue almost six years ago, she had four horses and a hundred acres. Now it’s grown to over 300—plus some public land she won the right to lease for cheap—and dozens of animals. “It’s…been awhile though.”

“Some kind of horse rescue?”

It’s normal to make conversation while responding to a call, but my throat is too tight for words right now, so I just nod.

What are we about to walk into?

The last time I talked to Morgan was in the cereal aisle at the grocery store a few months ago. Did I miss signs that she wasn’t okay? Or was I too distracted by the gnawing questions I refused to let myself ask about her sister that I didn’t notice?

No matter how hard I’ve tried to get over Charlotte, she owns my heart and always will.

Burton parks the rig just past the front door of a two-story farmhouse that’s seen better days. All the windows are dark, except for a faint glow coming from one upstairs.

Beyond the house stands the refurbished barn and several fenced pastures, everything in shadow thanks to the pale bulb shining from the peak of the roof.

Burton and I jump out and open the back doors. We both glove up and I grab our med kit, then follow him to the door. Engine 5 parks to the side. They’re only here for backup so they’ll stay behind for now.

On calls like this, we’re usually accompanied by a Finn River deputy or two. But they’re not here yet and I’m eager to get inside and check on Morgan.

“You wanna wait?” Burton asks over the steady hum of our engine as I glance over my shoulder, hoping to see a silver sheriff’s rig materializing out of the darkness.

“If she’s alone, we should be okay.” If this was a domestic, we’d be forced to wait. Firefighters and medics don’t deal with violence—just its aftereffects.

Apprehension fizzles under my skin as we step inside the house.

“Morgan?” I call out.

I’m instantly hit with a scent I don’t like—it’s sour. And stale. Though the house is dark, I make out the shape of the couch in the living room, the piano, and to the left, the dining room table cluttered with junk.

Burton peeks into the kitchen, then shakes his head.

“Morgan?” I call out, projecting my voice into the void.

There’s a thump from upstairs. We hurry to the staircase at the back of the house and climb single file. The stairs creak and the wall alongside it looks like someone tried to tear off the old wallpaper but didn’t quite get it all, then abandoned the project.

The top of the stairs is a carpeted hallway with bare walls. We move ahead, passing an empty room and a bathroom, drawn by the faint light coming from the end of the hall .

In a split second, the details of Morgan’s bedroom come into focus. Only it’s all wrong.

“Shit,” Burton mutters as we race to where Morgan is limp on the floor. I almost trip over a pile of clothes and the thick faux fur blanket that she’s twisted up in.

“We need the medics!” Burton says.

I push through my growing panic and get on the radio while Burton rolls Morgan to her back, exposing not just the blood that’s soaked into the blanket, but the deep wounds on her wrists.

Fuck, she’s pale.

Kneeling on either side of her, Burton and I jump into action, applying direct pressure to her wounds with our gloved palm, then rip open layers of gauze and pack them tight against the bleeding.

With one hand still adding pressure to the wound, I find a pulse, but it’s thready and way too fast. Her breathing rate is also elevated.

I don’t have the luxury of taking down exact numbers yet but she’s definitely showing signs of hypovolemic shock.

“Morgan,” I say, loud. “It’s Will Hayes. Can you open your eyes?”

Her lids flutter, and she makes a low growl in her throat.

The hit of relief that she’s at least partially conscious vanishes when I clock the ashen look to her skin and the thin layer of sweat—both signaling a decline in her body’s ability to compensate for the blood loss.

“We need an IV,” Burton says.

“I got it.” I lunge for our kit. I rarely do IVs because that’s a skill usually reserved for our paramedics. But we can’t wait for them.

“You sure?”

“Yes, damnit,” I say, tearing open the alcohol prep pad and circling it over where her median cubital vein should be. With her shocky vitals, this is going to be the hardest stick of my life.

One I can’t miss.

I rip open the catheter and slide my thumbs up the vein, mapping its shape .

“Stay with us, Morgan!” Burton calls. Footsteps in the hall signal the approach of help, but I’m locked on the vein I need to access.

“Little poke, sweetheart,” I say to Morgan, and go. Because her skin has lost so much perfusion, the needle puckers for a tense instant before it breaks through. I aim for the vein beneath. Come on. There’s the slightest resistance, and then red blood oozes into the catheter.

“Hallelujah,” Burton says, handing me the tape. I add it to the catheter and connect the IV to the bag of saline, then open the tubing all the way. She’ll need another IV as soon as the medics arrive, but this will hopefully buy us the time we need.

The two firefighters from the engine—Rumsey and Hobbs—rush into the room with a gurney and we work as a team to transfer Morgan onto it.

It’s then I get a better look at how thin she’s gotten.

Her long dark hair is limp, like she hasn’t washed in a while.

There’s a bruise on her thigh as big as a softball.

The medics arrive just as we’re carrying her down the stairs.

They meet us at the door, and I’m relieved one of them is Ryan Hutchins, a former Air Force pararescueman and the absolute best guy in a crisis.

I give him the pass-down as we rush Morgan to the back of the medic rig idling in the gravel turnaround.

There are two Finn River Sheriff’s SUVs parked in front of the engine, and Troy Robinson and my brother Zach are walking toward us.

Zach and I lock eyes for an instant. He’s the only one here who knows how I feel about Charlotte.

He also probably knows that I’m going to break every privacy law in place to call her with the news of what went down here tonight regarding her sister.

Zach will offer to do it, but it’s me Charlotte needs to hear from.

I’m going to have to tell Theo, too. Fuck.

A thought tickles the back of my mind. Theo’s off tonight. Did Morgan plan this so her brother wouldn’t be in the ER to see it?

“Any idea what she took?” Hutch asks, snapping me back to the task of loading Morgan into the medic rig.

“Negative,” I say .

“We’ll have a look,” Burton says.

“Good,” Hutch says, climbing in with Morgan.

He and I lock the gurney in place and he whips out a warmed blanket.

He and I tuck it in around her, then Hutch starts gathering supplies for another IV.

Before I go, I find Morgan’s hand underneath the blanket.

I tell her with my touch that she’s safe now.

I will her to fight her way back from this.

“You did good,” Hutch says, shooting me a serious glance. “These wounds…”

I force down the lump clogging my throat. “Take good care of her.”

“You know it.”

I let go of Morgan’s hand, then jump down and shut the ambulance doors. The rig rumbles off, lights flashing in the darkness.