Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Hunter shifted. Pain shot through his entire body. His temples throbbed. His eyes felt glued shut. He groaned.
“I think he’s coming around again. Maybe this time he’ll stay awake,” his sister’s voice sounded in a whisper.
Was she talking about him?
“Thank heavens,” Mom said. Relief laced her tone.
Why relief?
“It’s about time,” his brother replied.
“Hunter. Can you hear me?” Dad asked.
“Dad,” Hunter replied in a voice so raspy he hardly recognized it as his own.
He fought to open his eyes, and his dad came into focus. Mom stood at his side. Her eyes were watery.
“Yeah. I’m right here. Welcome back,” Dad said.
“Back?”
Mom leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “You had us worried. You were in surgery for a long time.”
“Surgery?”
“Don’t you remember what happened?” she asked.
He thought for a moment. He recalled working—guiding the three ladies.
Today, they would hike to Lover’s Leap Falls.
Hannah. Sweet Hannah. He recalled her lovely emerald eyes and those luscious lips of hers.
He planned to kiss her at the top of the falls today.
That kiss they’d shared in the small cave and the hotter one they’d shared at the campsite had his juices flowing.
Everything was fine. Wait! Why did he have surgery?
Why did he feel like he got hit by a semi? His brain felt jumbled.
After refocusing on Mom for a beat or two, he glanced around the room. When he tried to sit up, pain shot throughout his body, and when he attempted to use his right hand to help lift himself, something restricted it.
Mom placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. Even that hurt.
“You need to lie still. Rest. I’ll raise the bed a bit for you.”
He eased back down, and she depressed a button on the bed, causing it to rise, lifting him into a more seated position.
The cast on his arm seemed a mystery to him, and he studied it for a few seconds before returning his attention to his family.
“You’re going to be just fine. Do you remember what happened?” Mom asked.
He thought for a moment. His mind was blank. Yet here he lay in a hospital bed, so something surely happened, and it wasn’t good.
Thankfully, she told him he’d be fine because between the throbbing headache and the pain in his shoulder, he wouldn’t have drawn that conclusion.
He cleared his dry throat.
“Do you need some water?” his sister asked.
He nodded.
There were two bottles of water on the side table. She opened one and poured it into a glass.
When he lifted his left hand to take the glass from her, his arm felt heavy, as if a twenty-pound weight was strapped to it.
What in the hell?
Mom grabbed the glass from Cici and brought it to his lips as if he were a tiny child who couldn’t do it himself.
The cool liquid soothed his scratchy throat.
“Hannah?” was all he could muster before his throat went desert dry again.
He took another sip of water.
“So, you do remember,” Mom said.
“I was guiding three ladies. We were going to Lover’s Leap today. Where are they?”
Mom pinned her bottom lip between her teeth and locked gazes with Dad. Cap and Cici stared at the floor. What in the hell happened?
Dad leaned toward him. “Hunter, you were shot today. In the shoulder.”
Adrenaline coursed through his veins as his gaze flew to his shoulder. But his arm was in a cast.
“What? Why?” was all he could mutter.
Mom’s eyes watered. There was more.
“We don’t know why. Chief Ricco is hoping you can shed some light on this. It looks like it has to do with one of the women you were guiding.”
Hannah. Dread coiled in the pit of his stomach, making him nauseous.
“Are they okay?”
Again, his parents shared a glance.
“One of the ladies was shot as well...she didn’t make it,” Dad said.
Hunter’s nerves rattled, and a quiver rocked his body.
He squeezed his eyes shut. A vision of Alyssa’s face came into focus.
Her big, dark eyes widened as her body fell forward, landing hard on the unforgiving rock formation.
He flinched as he recalled the gunshots that rang out. His eyes popped open.
“We jumped over the falls.”
“Yes. You remember,” Dad affirmed.
“Where is Hannah? What about Bianca?”
“They are both with Chief Ricco.”
“So, they’re okay?”
“Yes.”
Relief washed through him. Suddenly, question after question bombarded his weary brain.
“Who did this?”
Dad shook his head. “We don’t know yet.”
“How did I get here?”
Cap stepped forward. “Hannah saved you. She’s one tough cookie, that one.”
“Of course, you saved her first,” Mom beamed proudly.
“Huh?”
“To get away, you leaped over the falls with Hannah tucked in your arms,” Mom said.
Yes. He remembered now.
“That’s how you wound up with a broken arm and four broken ribs. Not to mention all the cuts and bruises.”
“Ya hit your head pretty good, too. But I’m sure with as hard as that is, there’s no damage there,” Cap joked.
Cici punched Cap in the arm.
“I remember jumping. It seemed like the only way to get away. To not be so exposed standing on top of the falls. But the last thing I recall is running with Hannah to get more distance between us and the shooter. I don’t recall making it to the road.”
Hunter closed his eyes. A vivid picture of him and Hannah climbing out of the pool of water below the falls came into view.
Despite the pain from his body slamming against the rocky ledge of the falls, adrenaline carried him as he and Hannah ran through the woods.
That’s it. Running through the woods was the last thing he could recall before waking up in this hospital bed.
“Hannah stashed you. You lost too much blood and were in so much pain that you passed out. Hannah hid you and found the road you instructed her run to. She ran all the way to town and got Chief Ricco,” Dad informed him.
He didn’t recall giving her instructions, but obviously he had, or she probably never would have made her way out of the woods. Well, with as smart as she was, maybe she would have figured it out.
Hunter swung his gaze around the small hospital room.
“So, how did I get here?”
Cici and Cap both grinned.
“We saved your ass,” Cap said as he pointed between him and Cici.
“Huh?”
“Hannah led us to where she stashed you. Well, us and Chief Ricco. Luckily, the shooter didn’t find you again.”
“We don’t know who or why someone shot at you guys,” Cici said.
“Yeah. About that. What in the hell? Who would do this?” Hunter asked.
“Chief Ricco is investigating this. The girls don’t seem to have a clue as to who did this. It’s rumored it could be Hannah’s ex-boyfriend.”
“Yeah, I guess he’s a piece of work,” Hunter replied.
Hunter shifted and pain ripped through his shoulder. His mother’s eyes watered at his grimace.
“Do you need something for the pain? I can go get the nurse,” Mom offered.
He drew in a long breath. “No, I’m fine.”
He shifted on the bed, trying to sit up straighter. The pain was no less this time than it was a few seconds ago. The good news was that when he stopped moving, the pain subsided, except for the throbbing in his head. That stayed constant and hurt enough to be distracting.
“I want to see Hannah. Cap, can I use your phone?”
His brother pulled his phone from the holder on his hip. “I’ll call City Hall for you and see what’s going on and ask about Hannah. I’ll be right back,” his brother said as he quickly ducked out of the room.
Why wouldn’t he just let him use the phone? Was there something more going on?
“Hannah’s okay, right?” he asked Mom.
“She’s fine, dear...”
“Then why...”
“Just let your brother do this for you. You need to rest. In fact, you should probably just lie back and close your eyes. With your concussion, your brain needs to rest.”
Concussion. That would explain the pounding in his head. Mom hadn’t mentioned a concussion before. Or, because of it, did he not recall all of what she said? Was there more wrong with him?
“Concussion?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else I should know about besides the shoulder, ribs, and concussion?”
Mom and Dad shared a glance. A lump the size of a golf ball clogged his throat. It was the kind of glance where he knew something was wrong and they didn’t want to tell him.
He choked down the lump. “What...what’s wrong?”
“It’s not that bad,” Mom said as she reached forward and placed her hand softly on his forearm.
Oh God, that maneuver made him worry more.
“What is it?”
“Your hair. They had to shave your hair to stitch up two nasty cuts on your head. It’ll be fine. It’ll grow back.”
His hand flew to his head. Bald. He was bald.
“I know how you feel about your hair. It’s just a matter of time, and your full head of hair will be back.”
Oh man, not his hair. He loved his hair. Women loved his hair.
“Oh, for God’s sake, you’re worried about your hair. You’ve been shot, your arm and ribs are broken, your head is stitched up, and your face is the color of an eggplant. Your hair will be fine,” Cici said with a roll of her eyes.
“Eggplant?”
His sister pulled a small mirror from her purse and held it in front of his bloodshot eyes. She wasn’t kidding. His skin couldn’t be more purple. Why that surprised him, he didn’t know, as he recalled tumbling and crashing into the rocky surface on his way down the falls.
“So, Hannah wasn’t hurt at all?”
Mom smiled warmly. “A couple of bumps and scratches. She said you wrapped around her, shielding her from taking any brunt of the fall. You probably saved her life. The doctor said if you weren’t in such great physical condition, your injuries would have been much worse.”
“And if your head wasn’t so hard,” Cap roused.
His brother had stepped back into the room during this conversation. He didn’t mind his brother’s joking. That was how he dealt with things. It meant he loved him.
“Hannah’s fine. She’s still at City Hall talking with the chief. That’s all Mandi said,” Cap informed them.
Hunter lifted his good arm. Well, he thought it was his good arm, but the deep muscle pain let him know he’d thought wrong. He stilled and then lifted it further to press the tip of his fingers to ease the hammering in his temple. It didn’t work.
“Damn, the throbbing.”
“That bad?” Mom asked.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them. “It’s okay,” he whispered.
“I can see that. I’ll go talk to the nurse to see if they can give you anything more for the pain,” Dad said.
“Well, now that we know you aren’t going to die on us, Cici and I need to get back to camp. We’ve got guests to reschedule. That is, if Chief Ricco gives the go-ahead,” Cap said.
Hunter’s pulse ratcheted up. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. What if the shooter is still out there?”
“That’s why we need to talk to Chief Ricco.”
“Don’t risk anything. Just cancel the trips. I’m sure Uncle Lee will be fine with that,” Hunter urged.
The last thing he wanted was to put his brother and sister in danger.
“Uncle Lee has said to do what we think is best. He’s on his way home.”
“None of this makes any sense. Who would do this?” Hunter asked rhetorically.
Cici and Cap exited the room, leaving just him and Mom. The worry lines she wore were blatantly visible.
“I’m fine, Mom. No need to worry any longer.”
She nodded as she lifted her hand and placed it lightly on his cheek. Her touch was loving.
“I know, but still.”
“I want to get out of here. See Hannah. Make sure she’s okay.”
The corners of Mom’s mouth lifted upward. “You like her?”
His face heated, and he wondered if she could see him blush through his eggplant-colored skin.
Mom’s eyes probed for an answer.
“Yeah.”
“The doctor will check on you during rounds. He thought maybe you’d be released tomorrow.”
“Let’s call City Hall again and see if Hannah can stop by here. I don’t want her to leave town without talking to her first,” Hunter said.
“I’ll make that call in a minute. Right now, I think you need to close your eyes and rest until the doctor comes in to check on you,” Mom mothered.
Where was Dad with word on a pain reliever?
Mom lowered his bed, and he shut his eyes.
His last thought before nodding off was of Hannah.
Thinking of her bright emerald eyes with gold flecks comforted him.
The thought of touching her milky white cheek with his fingertips warmed his hands.
He needed to see her. Get to know her. His heart rate kicked up a notch.
How could he like someone—feel so strongly about a woman he’d just met? He didn’t know, but he did.