It's Always Complicated (Her Billionaires Book 4) (20 page)

He wasn’t going to think about that.

“My leg. Might be broken. Tried to crawl.” Shining the flashlight on the ground around the prone body, Mike saw the evidence, the groove of a man’s dragline in the sand where the water hadn’t reached.

“How long you been here?”

“It was daylight when I fell.”

Mike checked his phone. 9:58 p.m. Damn. That meant a few hours at least. His mind raced to process it all, and then he remembered the tiny emergency kit duct-taped to the inside of his kayak.

“Back in a second,” he said, sprinting to the boat, peeling back the sticky tape. As his fingers fought for purchase, he felt the soft push of the tiny folded rectangle, a relief. He grasped the emergency kit and ran back, grateful.

He had something that would help. Ripping open the plastic
w
rap, he unfolded the thin mylar emergency blanket before he reached Pine.

“You sure it’s broken?” He focused the light next to Pine’s head, trying not to blind him. As he opened his mouth to answer, Mike saw his lips peel away from each other, a sure sign of mild dehydration. He couldn’t offer clothing, but in the emergency kit he had water and a protein bar.

“Not sure. Might have broken my pelvis or sprained something. It all hurts, but don’t know what the injuries are.”

Mike cringed. Shit. He looked down at his phone and put a reassuring hand on Pine’s shoulder. “Give me a sec. I’ll call for help after I get the basics settled.”

He began to wrap the man in the mylar blanket, the crinkling sound like warmth in the form of noise. Time was increasingly of the essence. He quickly found water and
a
protein bar, and as Pine took small sips of water and made a sound of gratitude, he started to dial the campground.

His phone rang before he could punch the contact.

“Hello?”

“Mike! Where have you been?” Lydia barked into the phone. “We need you!”

“I can’t help with candles or flowers or tablecloths right now Lydia. I have an—”

“It’s an emergency!” she cut in. “Mike Pine is missing.”

“Missing?” He looked at Pine. His left arm lay limp and crooked against the shells, a streak of dark blood on the exposed skin. His other arm seemed fine, hand grasping the water bottle and holding it to his lips, drinking greedily at first and then slowing down, resting with a sigh against the cold shore.

“Disappeared while he was running. Dylan and Laura think he got a few miles away.”

Speedy calculations flipped through Mike’s mind.
Try nine miles
, he thought. By shoreline.

That had been one hell of a run.

“Listen, Lydia, I—”

“We need you to come back and help with the search party. The guy has no food, no water, maybe a wallet, and—”

“I know.”

“You
know
?” She made a sound of frustration. “This isn’t the time to be all know-it-all, Mike. Hold the mansplaining for later.”

“I mean ‘
I know’
because I found him.”

“You
found
him?”

Gasps and murmurs filled the echo behind her as he sat on the cold sand and began gently rubbing Pine’s unbroken limbs.

“Yes. He’s here.”

“Where?”

“About nine miles up from Escape Shores, at that little bay where the big cliff is.”

Stunned silence greeted him.

“He’s
where
?”

“I just found him. Looks like he fell off the cliff.”

“HE FELL OFF A CLIFF?”

“Yes.”

Pandemonium poured through the cell phone, with screams and shouts of joy and horror. And then it all died down to a stunned silence.

Lydia’s voice shook. “Is he...is he alive?”

A moan of pain filled his head, and he pulled away from the phone to look back at Pine, who was silent, his chest rising and falling, his eyes tight with agony. But that sound hadn’t come from him.

It had come from the background on Lydia’s end.

“Yes. He’s alive.”

Cheers of joy and shouts of relief filled the phone, the sound so loud it might as well have been New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Mike had to pull the phone away from his ear.

“How did you find him?” Lydia asked, her voice too loud and grating, her tone dripping with relief and incredulity. His throat tightened at the emotion in her words, because he knew why she asked. If he were the one missing, she’d be shredded by fear.

“Just kayaking. Thought he was a bear.” He kept his answers brief, fighting his own internal turmoil.

Pine snorted and rolled his eyes. Good. The guy was going to be fine, but—

“Where exactly are you? I’ll get an ambulance there.”

Mike looked around their location. This little bay was like two-thirds of a fishbowl, the cliff a large slope. He imagined Pine had dropped and hit sand, then tumbled down, the sheer force of speed and size making him end up close to the water. As shadows revealed large logs and rocks, he wondered how the guy had managed. He must be scraped up and in an enormous amount of pain.

“An ambulance won’t cut it unless they can haul him up a thirty-foot cliff. The way the hillside is angled makes it damn impossible.”

“What about a helicopter?”

He looked out at the water. Maybe a body basket, designed for this kind of rescue?

Wind whipped sharply, as if summoned by a trickster trying to make rescuing the injured guy harder.

“We could try. You having the kind of wind we’re seeing here?”

“Yeah. It’s not that bad yet.” But her voice said otherwise.

“He thinks he broke something. Leg or pelvis,” Mike said softly, trying not to let Pine hear him.

“Oh, God,” she muttered. The phone went silent. He assumed she was relaying information.

“I can move,” said Mike Pine, his voice clear and strong. “Looks like my pelvis just
felt
broken.” Mike watched as Pine sat up gingerly. He walked carefully over the shore debris and crouched next to Pine, his insides going liquid, the relief like a witness, a third person who stood by with a relieved grin.

“I pulled something in my leg, though, and fuck!” Pine lost his balance as he sat up. Mike moved on instinct, broken shells scraping his knees as he lunged, catching Pine before he twisted and landed on his side. The phone went flying and an ominous breeze shook the trees along the top of the cliff.

Bad storm coming. Of all the lousy timing.

“Mike! Mike!’ The wind carried Lydia’s voice toward the concave sandy wall leading up to the top of the cliff, and the weight of Pine on top of him made Mike appreciate how hard the past few hours must have been for the guy. A few scrapes and a little pressure on him was bad enough to bear.

Hours outside, exposed to the elements and in pain must have been hell.

And then there was the wondering. Mike’s throat tightened as he empathized.

“Sorry,” Pine muttered. “I think something in my left arm is broken.” As Mike wiggled free, careful to somehow precariously balance holding the larger guy up while getting himself into a sitting position, he realized how true Pine’s words really were. The left arm elbow bowed out, the soft skin of the joint protruding, veins bulging.

“You may have dislocated your elbow,” Mike said, struggling to keep his voice even.

“Look at my hand.”

If The Exorcist had included a hand that spun around like that little girl’s head, it would have looked like Pine’s wrist.

“Holy shit, man....”

“Mike!’ The sound of Lydia’s frantic cries made him pivot, propping Pine up just enough to move away, grab the phone, and reconnect with the crowd at the camp store.

“We’re fine. Just had a problem. Looks like he’s fractured his elbow and wrist. His arm looks like a bunch of sticks in a long bag. Not sure what else, but he can sit up, so we don’t think his pelvis is broken.”

“Okay.” She sounded winded. “Look, we need to get someone down there. Where exactly are you?”

Mike pulled up their coordinates on his GPS and read them off to her. He shivered, gooseflesh pebbling his skin, as another gust of wind made the sweat on his body chill. He wasn’t imagining the temperature dip. A cold front was pushing through, and the wind meant some kind of rain was coming. He eyed the water. A bad enough storm and they’d need to move further inland.

“You really are nine miles away!” Lydia gasped. Clearly, someone punched in the coordinates.

“Yep.”

“How did he run so far?” before he could ask, Lydia continued. “Miles is on his way. He says he knows where you are. He’s coming in a F-150 and has a tow winch.”

“What the hell is he planning to hook that up to?” One look up the cliff and he grimaced.

“I don’t know, but he’s already out the door. Can we get to you by boat?”

“Maybe the Coast Guard could.” He had to raise his voice to be heard above the wind now. “But I wouldn’t chance having Pete or Adam try it.” Both were accomplished with a motor boat, but this was starting to look grim.

He wasn’t worried about basic survival, but Mike Pine had lost some blood, was chilled
(
but warming
)
, and their only fresh water was that small bottle.

“Can he stand? Can he walk?” she asked. Then, before he could answer, she added, “Miles says he’ll be there in fifteen minutes. The forest’s thick and he might need to switch to a four-wheeler.”

The vision of the truck bed filled with a four-wheeler made Mike smile. Leave it to Miles to think of everything. The guy could be a hermetic, sarcastic pain in the ass, but in a crisis, he was the person you wanted on your side.

“We can make it through fifteen minutes,” Mike said.

“Hey,” Pine interrupted. “Is Laura there? Dylan? Can I talk to them?”

Abashed, Mike looked at Pine with astonishment. Jesus. Why hadn’t he thought to offer up the phone sooner?

Because he was in crisis mode. That’s why.

Holding up one finger to Pine to buy him a few seconds, he asked Lydia, “Can Mike talk to Laura? He’s asking if she’s there.”

He heard muttering and then the high, breathy voice of a very, very scared woman. “Mike? Mike? Is that you?”

Mike chuckled. “Wrong Mike. Just a second. I’ll put him on.” He held the phone out to Pine, who reached for it with his good hand. Mike sat down next to the guy, holding him up. Sitting that close to a person made privacy impossible, but there was no other option. If he moved, Pine would topple over and injure himself more.

He had to hear every word, every sob, every choked apology, every expression of love and fear and hope and distress.

And damn if it didn’t almost have him in tears.

“I know. I’m sorry. I just—no! No! It’s a stupid story,” Pine said, his voice shaking with emotion. “I was running at a full sprint and saw a clearing in the woods and thought it was a field. Turned out it was a cliff to the ocean,” he explained with a self-deprecating chuckle.

Mike heard the gasp of horror on the other end of the line.

“How far?” Pine looked up the hill.

“About thirty feet,” Mike answered for him. Their eyes met. Pine blinked hard, more of the whites of his pale eyes showing, then fading as he calibrated himself. He gave a curt nod, then lowered his voice to continue talking.

Mike felt the guy shivering, and realized it might not be from cold. A few hours alone, with broken bones and scrapes, in the dark and cold was bad enough. As the emotional impact of the last few hours kicked in, while on the phone with his almost-wife, Pine was probably having a delayed shock reaction.

And that meant medical attention was all-the-more important.

He didn’t want to take the phone away from the guy, so he stood slowly and whispered, “Put it on speakerphone.” Pine did, and Mike set the phone on his leg, then stood slowly as Pine braced himself on his good arm. As Laura jabbered into the phone and he watched Pine wince with pain, but relax with relief from talking to his woman, Mike canvassed the area, taking in his surroundings with an eye toward the easiest way to get Pine either up the steep cliff, or onto a boat that could take him to a better landing position to get into a vehicle that would deliver him to a hospital.

After two minutes of surveying, he came to a single, elegant conclusion:

They were fucked.

Pine couldn’t have picked a worse place to run off a cliff. On balance that wasn’t quite true—he’d picked the best place to land, because the sand cushioned his fall. Forty feet in either direction and he’d have hit jagged rocks. But in terms of an exit strategy, this little bay was so sheltered, it would be damn near impossible to get Pine out if he couldn’t walk.

Walking remained to be seen.

The low, ominous sound of thunder rumbled through his bones before the sound caught up to his ears. He ran a shaking hand through his unruly hair and stopped, hand frozen in place. He hadn’t worn his hair this long since...never? Raised in the
M
idwest, he’d been clean-shaven and short-haired his entire late adolescence and early manhood. Only since being forced out of his own corporation by the board of directors after his and Lydia’s sex scandal, and settling here at the campground, did he allow himself to grow out his hair and a beard.

Two months of beard had been enough for Lydia, who nixed the idea. But the longer hair had grown on him—pun intended—and as he fiddled and fidgeted, his mind speeding through contingencies and protections for helping keep Pine out of danger, he heard the unmistakable sound of a truck engine in the distance.

Good old Miles.

“Someone’s here,” he heard Pine say to Laura. “I’ll hang up. We’ll let you know what happens.” His voice went soft, and he added, “I love you, too.” Then Pine ended the call and handed Mike his phone back, giving him a look of white-knuckled pain, his eyes filled with a raw look. The guy’s broken bones must be screaming, and the road rash from that long tumble was probably pounding blood through him like a jackhammer.

A gust of wind tickled Mike’s skin, making him shiver as if a ghost
had
tickled his spine. He ministered to Pine and found him shivering uncontrollably, teeth chattering, the big guy clutching the bottle of water in one hand and pitched to the side in a funny contortion.