Chapter 5 Autumn
AUTUMN
A series of barks jolted me awake.
The slope came back into focus in pieces. I was sprawled face down like a crime scene chalk outline.
My left knee was bent, my calf impaled and locked in place, my left hand was still clutching the base of the fallen tree, and my right arm dangled, useless with my wrecked shoulder.
My right foot—blessedly intact—was wedged into a shallow dip between two rocks, the only thing keeping me from sliding farther.
I had nothing left in the tank. But thank God this was a slope, not a cliff. It was steep and miserable, but survivable. For now.
The bark kept coming.
“Lulu? Lulu!”
This time, she wasn’t barking alone.
I could hear a voice. A man’s voice.
“Hey, you okay?” The words echoed down from high above, bouncing off the ridge like a thrown stone.
Lulu bounded back into view and scrambled to my side, her tail wagging.
I whispered, “Tell me you didn’t just bring another problem.”
She licked my face.
Not helpful.
I peered up.
The man stood at the top of the slope, framed against the sun, a solid silhouette—tall and broad-shouldered with a tapered waist. He was built like someone who got things done. And I didn’t mean burying something in the wild and shooting an eyewitness. There was no awkward posture.
Definitely not Stiff-Neck.
“I’m coming down,” he said.
Oh yeah. That was the voice of a hero. Lulu had found someone capable.
“Good dog, Lulu. Good dog,” I rasped, not even sure the words made sense anymore. But she wagged harder and pressed close, whining near my face.
Up above, the man scanned the slope, then dropped his pack beside him.
Smart. I should’ve done that. Instead, I’d gone down with my entire pack. Real genius move.
Then I caught flashes of movement. His arms were working, shifting things around. The calm in his pace told me this wasn’t his first time pulling someone out of trouble.
My tension eased just a fraction.
I couldn’t see much of him now, just his silhouette shifting between the trees. Then, a rope slithered down beside him, uncoiling fast. He crouched again and did something with his hands. Anchoring it, maybe. I couldn’t tell from here as I just saw glimpses of motion.
Whatever he was doing, he’d come prepared.
Thank God.
Soon, my rescuer came into view. He crouched as best he could, his boots angled wide for balance, one hand braced against the hillside. Sitting wasn’t even an option. It was that steep.
What the hell had I been thinking?
This wasn’t a slope. It was a slide waiting to happen.
Yeah, I’d misjudged it. Badly.
“Water, please?” I croaked.
A flash of worry crossed his face. Perhaps he could tell that every part of me was seconds from shorting out. He unscrewed the cap of his bottle and leaned in, one hand braced into the slope beside me. I was still face-down, awkward and hurting, and he took a second to figure it out.
He poured a small amount into the bottle cap and carefully slid his fingers under my chin. “Gonna help you drink, all right?”
His hands were rough but careful, and his touch was all control. He tilted my face just enough for the water to reach my lips.
“Easy,” he murmured. “Tiny sips.”
The water hit my tongue, and I nearly cried.
The water was cold. Clean. Real.
I swallowed once, then again. Some part of my brain, the only part still thinking straight, told me this was the best thing I’d ever tasted.
He poured again, just a little, and then again, tilting it slowly and precisely.
Afterward, he wiped a trickle from my chin with the side of his thumb. His dark eyes held a calm that settled something in me, and I dared believe my story might actually end well today.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I think I love you.”
That earned me the ghost of a grin, as if he’d heard it before, but didn’t mind hearing it again.
If my breakup with toenail Jimmy led to this? Then hell, maybe I owed the bastard a thank-you note. Because getting rescued by this man was a tale I’d tell everyone back at college.
“I’m Dominic. Call me Dom.”
His voice was deep, though a little gravelly.
“Your dog led me here,” he added. “What an incredible animal!”
“Indeed. I’m Autumn. And that’s Lulu,” I said, already feeling like she was my dog.
He shifted beside me, adjusting something at his hip, fingers working the harness.
“Wait,” I rasped, thinking he was about to take it off. “You’re—?”
“I’m putting it on you,” he said, already moving. “You need it more than I do.”
Before I could argue, he angled his body close. One arm slipped behind me, strong and stabilizing, holding everything together.
I let out a shaky breath, and without a word, he let me lean into him. My body sagged into the space he created, curling toward the only place that didn’t hurt.
Then his hand slid up, just slightly, searching for a better hold beneath my shoulder.
“Ah…” The pain bit hard, and I jerked instinctively.
His hand paused midair, not pressing, just reading the recoil.
“That hurt?” he asked gently, already knowing.
I gave the smallest nod.
“Dislocated?”
“Feels like it,” I muttered.
His jaw flexed as he scanned my shoulder, assessing.
“All right. We’ll handle that after I get you locked in.”
He guided the webbing of his harness around me, quickly but carefully, settling the straps across my waist and thigh.
The pressure suddenly hit the wrong spots, and I gripped the front of his shirt and buried my face in his side. He didn’t try to pull away. He simply held steady as if telling me: Take what you need. If I’d clawed at him, he would’ve let me.
“You’re all right,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
And he did.
Not just with the harness. With all of it. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt a support I could actually lean into.
“Let’s take a look at your leg.”
Then, he peeled off his overshirt.
Underneath was a snug black tee, damp at the chest and clinging to every cut of muscle. His nipples poked through like they’d RSVP’d early. Was this man trying to kill me with competence and pecs?
Show pony.
Why did I complain? I was probably the one who encouraged him.
But then he did something I didn’t expect.
He turned his overshirt into a makeshift harness.
One sleeve was looped around the tree stump I’d been clutching for dear life, while the other was tied around his belt. It wasn’t for climbing, not really. It wouldn’t hold a fall. But it didn’t have to. It just had to give him enough counterbalance to stay put while tending to my leg.
I stared at the setup, impressed.
He angled himself downhill from me, his boots firm in the slope, one knee anchoring him as he reached carefully for my leg. Then, his fingers skimmed the skin around the wound, searching and assessing.
I hissed in air. The contact stung like hell. “What is it? Is it bad?”
He cleared the mud around my calf. “I’m gonna roll your pants a bit higher, okay?”
They’d already ridden up from the slide. “Just do what you have to do.”
“There’s a log jammed into the ground,” he said, his voice calm but clipped. “One of the branches caught you. It’s not huge, but it’s sharp enough. It pierced your calf.”
I winced. “So, bad?”
“You’re lucky.” His eyes didn’t leave my leg. “It didn’t hit your bone or an artery.”
All of a sudden, thunder cracked overhead. A deep, rolling sound.
I looked up. The clouds had thickened, the kind of gray that made the sky feel closer.
Lulu barked from somewhere uphill.
Dom unzipped the small pouch clipped to his belt, one of the few things he’d brought down with him. From it, he pulled a roll of gauze, a travel-sized antiseptic, a folded bandage, and a multi-tool that snapped open with a clean flick.
He padded gauze around the entry point. My world narrowed to the pain in my leg and the man trying to fix it.
“I need to cut it down,” he said. “But I won’t be pulling because it’d tear more tissue. I’ll leave what’s inside and secure the rest.”
I gave a quick nod. “Do it.”
He braced the branch and set the blade under my calf. “I’ll do it quickly.”
The first tug of the saw vibrated through me, then a brutal jolt ripped a reaction out of my leg.
Dom’s hand clamped above the wound. “Almost there, Autumn.”
I ground my teeth. “Dom…”
“You’re doing good. Stay with me.”
The blade sawed back and forth. Even with my leg immobilized, the pain seared deep.
My face turned into the side of his thigh, where his pants were damp and streaked with dirt. I didn’t care how close it was. I just needed something solid, something that could soak up the tears. My good hand groped for a hold, my fingers bunching into what had to be his pocket.
He didn’t move, as if my grip was something he welcomed. “Hang in there for me,” he said.
The sawing stopped, and warmth settled over my palm. It was his hand. I exhaled as if someone had drawn a bath just for me.
“That’s it, Autumn,” he murmured.
He pulled his shoulders wide, chest open, easing me up inch by inch. Nothing yanked me back. My left leg was free.
I didn’t waste it. I dragged myself higher until my head found his chest.
God. After a night face-down in dirt with grit biting into my cheek and every breath filled with dust, this…this was heaven. The give of his body beneath me, the absence of pain in my face, and the faint thump of his heart, right where my ear landed.
I was still sobbing, but the pain had started to let go.
I looked for his eyes, but he was already studying my shoulder.
While he worked out what to do, I took stock. My calf was bandaged, so my blood slowed. The branch was still inside me, but it wasn’t flailing, tearing, or killing me.
Dom glanced over, his brows pulling together. “What the hell were you doing out here?”
I huffed a bitter breath. “Believing I was Superwoman.”
The ridiculousness of it hit me all at once. I had outrun a criminal and found a trail without a compass. And yet, I still managed to get decked by a tree. All because I needed water.
Frustration burned under my skin.