Or if not from the beginning, for long enough.
Dale was aware of Trask at his back, and Hazel. He was aware of the woman he loved, bleeding into the purple sand of the cave floor.
And over it all, he was aware of a growing red haze, anger at the people and the greed that had changed his life once before and wanted to ruin him again.
Then Frankie stood over Tansy’s limp body and leveled her weapon.
And Dale broke.
“Damn it, no!” he yelled. He dove for Churchill’s corpse and scooped up the gun the old man had dropped in his death spasms, hoping against hope the bullets weren’t spent. Not caring whether Frankie
shot him, caring only to protect the woman he’d sworn to save, Dale squeezed the trigger over and over again.
There were two shots, then a volley of clicks as the hammer fell on empty chambers.
Blood sprayed from Frankie’s thigh, and she staggered backward, onto the smooth sand at the cave’s mouth. She leveled her weapon at Dale and fired. Her leg buckled, and a scream of anguish stretched her mouth as she overbalanced and toppled backward.
Out of the cave and down the almost-sheer rock face.
Her scream ended with a horrible gurgle, and the occupants of the cave stayed frozen for an endless moment. Then Hazel scrambled to Tansy’s side, took one look at her and barked, “Come on, Dale. Help me over here. I need you. Tansy needs you.”
“God. Oh, God.” But for once it wasn’t a curse. It was a prayer. Dale dropped to his knees beside her and slid her limp form onto his lap. He was careful of the ribs that grated as he moved her, and lifted her slightly so her wounded shoulder was above the level of her heart. “Through and through,” he muttered when Hazel joined him. “Looks clean.”
It would be a simple fix, they both knew, with a few basic supplies. But there were no basic supplies in Churchill’s cave, and the blood was welling too fast, too thick to be ignored.
“We have to get her to the motel,” Hazel said qui
etly, a tremble in her voice betraying the stress of the last half day. “If we don’t…”
“We will,” Dale snapped. “Nothing’s going to happen to her.” He raised his voice, hating the sharp echoes of the cave, hating everything about it. “Trask, get over here. We need to carry Tansy down.”
The older man was up to his knees in rubble, pushing rocks aside with his bare hands. “In a minute. I’ve almost reached her.”
The rawness in his voice was no more wrenching than the look of defeat on Hazel’s face, but Dale would hurt for them later. Tansy was his priority right now.
She always had been. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
“No,” he said quietly, but there was an underlying power that gave his uncle pause. “I need you now.”
Trask stopped digging, then sighed, nodded and stood. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” And it seemed that he included Hazel in the apology.
They snapped curved branches from the trees outside and bound them together with Churchill’s tie and strips torn from his fine linen shirt. Dale saw the monograms at the collar and cuff, and winced, then put the old man out of his mind as they carried Tansy down the cliff and across the storm-swollen river. She surfaced to shallow consciousness once or twice during the four-hour trek back down to the beach.
Each time her eyelids fluttered, Dale gripped her hand and leaned close to her ear to whisper. “I love
you. Do you hear me? I love you. Stay with me. You can do it. Hang tough.
I love you.
”
But he was never sure that she heard the words. The blood kept seeping through the crude pressure bandages, and as they neared the end of their trek, her color faded to pale, then near-white.
Then they reached the beach, and were greeted by chaos.
“What the hell happened?” Cage snapped, charging halfway up the path to meet them. “You said she was fine.”
“She was,” Dale answered faintly, trying to decide if the HFH helicopter on the beach was an exhausted delusion or not.
“Get her in the chopper. There are first aid-kits on board. We can have her at Boston General by nightfall.”
Without thinking, Dale shook his head. “No. She stays here.” He turned back to the makeshift litter, which they’d placed across the back seat of Trask’s waterlogged jeep, and found Tansy conscious. Her eyes were blurred with pain, but her lips twisted in a faint smile.
“I thought you didn’t want me here.” Her words were faint but clear.
“I didn’t,” he replied automatically, then stopped and closed his eyes. “I didn’t,” he repeated, “but I do now.” He opened his eyes and glanced from Hazel to Trask, then out to the water, where the curve of the lobster’s tail could be seen across the misty white
caps. He took a deep breath and gathered all the courage he could never seem to find before.
“I don’t have much to offer you,” he said with a small smile, “besides a burned down house and a dead tree.” Then he sobered. “And myself.” He took her hand and winced at the stain of fresh blood on the pressure bandage. “Never mind. We can do this later, after you’ve been seen to.” He tried to step away and wave the others in to apply their first aid.
But she wouldn’t let go of his hand. “No way, Metcalf.” Her voice was strong, her eyes brighter than they’d been moments before. “Keep going.”
Dale was suddenly aware of the crowd that had gathered around the jeep. Mickey was there with his family—they must have led the HFH helicopter to the beach. A number of other islanders had followed, and they stood on the shifting sands amid the HFH doctors Cage had brought with him. And almost every one of the islanders was related to Dale in one way or another.
They were his family.
And at that realization, it was as though the steel band that had been wrapped around Dale’s heart for so many years finally let go, carrying a gush of emotions with it. He bowed his head and, incredibly, felt a huge grin split his face.
I love you,
whispered a voice in his heart. Then, in case she hadn’t heard the words, Dale lifted his eyes to hers and said, “I love you.”
A single tear slid down her cheek. “And what else?”
What else. The message was clear. Tansy wasn’t going to accept half measures from him anymore. Well, that was fine. He wasn’t giving them anymore. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his mother’s ring, held it up to the light.
A second tear glittered down to join the first.
“I love you,” he repeated, “and I want to marry you. I want to rebuild my parents’ house with you, and I want us to help bring Lobster Island back to life. A new clinic. A new school. Whatever it takes.”
Without a word, she held up a trembling left hand. Dale slid the ring onto her third finger, where it fit snugly, as though it never intended to let go.
Well, that was fine because neither did he.
“Is that a yes?” he asked, knowing from the love shining in her eyes that it was, but needing to hear the words as much as he needed to say them.
She nodded and gave him a watery smile. “That’s a yes.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before Cage’s paramedics descended upon the jeep, packing and stabilizing her wound and preparing her for transport—not to Boston General, but to Hazel’s motel clinic.
When they arrived at the clinic, Hazel stood aside with Trask and didn’t join the rush to treat Tansy. Dale paused, and Tansy held up a hand to stop them from carrying her inside the room where they’d saved Eddie’s life.
“What’s wrong?” Dale finally asked.
“I’m going with Trask,” Hazel answered firmly. “We’re going to do some digging.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but determined.
“No,” Trask demurred. “We’re going home.”
When Hazel turned to him, he grinned crookedly. “You and me, we’re going to have ourselves a yard sale. A really big one.” His grin faded and his eyes found Tansy and Dale. “When Tansy’s feeling better, we’ll all go up the mountain and dig. It should be a family affair.”
And Dale heard his mother’s voice whisper in his heart.
Family.
He lifted Tansy’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the diamond-and-ruby ring. Then he followed her into the shabby motel room.
It was time for people to start living on Lobster Island. Again.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3247-1
BODY SEARCH
Copyright © 2004 by Dr. Jessica S. Andersen
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