“The ambulance will be there soon. They’re two minutes out.”
She nodded even though the dispatcher wouldn’t be able to hear her reaction. Everything was okay. Jacob was breathing. He wasn’t dead.
“What were you doing here?” she snapped, her voice tight.
“Pardon?”
Hallie ignored the woman on the phone and reached toward Jacob’s face. Her tone softened and the tears kept coming.“What were you doing here?” she whispered again. Her fingers slipped through the hair at his temple. Sweat had dampened the strands, but they were as soft as silk. His hair glided through her fingers, feeling every bit how she’d imagined. Soft and supple and so very different from the no nonsense cowboy she’d grown to care about so deeply.
He moaned but his eyes never opened.
Sirens drew closer and she scooted back when the ambulance came to a stop near the fence. They cut through the wire fencing and brought in a stretcher.
She watched with a mixture of anxiety and terror as they got him strapped to the board and flung question after question in her direction.
During all of it, a cowboy she didn’t recognize drove up on an ATV. She avoided looking at him. He probably owned or worked this property. Was he going to sue? Charge her with trespassing?
Hallie ducked her head as she moved past him and headed for her truck. Jacob’s truck was parked behind hers. She’d make sure to call one of her cousins to come get it because there was no way she wasn’t going straight to the hospital.
Jacob would need to see a familiar face when he woke up.
Shoving aside all anxiety, and promising herself that everything would be okay, Hallie drove to the hospital. They wouldn’t let her back into his room or wherever they’d admitted him. Instead, they forced her to stay in the waiting room.
So that was where she spent the next couple of hours.
Pacing.
Waiting.
Demanding answers to questions.
When she was told it would be best to leave, to come back during visiting hours, she refused. No matter how long it took, she wouldn’t give up.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jacob didn’t remember fallingasleep. He barely remembered anything except pain. And when he opened his eyes, that pain came back with full force. Along with all the memories of what came before.
He immediately attempted to sit up, but a man in scrubs rushed to his side and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Best not to move until we know everything we’re dealing with.”
There was something thick and hard around his neck, preventing him from looking anywhere but at the ceiling. He winced as he gingerly reached up to touch it. Everything hurt when he moved. There wasn’t a muscle in his body that didn’t scream in protest.
Heck, even blinking took a toll on him.
“What happened?” he rasped, his eyes darting to the side where he’d last seen the man. He could hear the clacking of a keyboard and the distinct beeping sound of a heart monitor. The ceiling looked like any ceiling in a commercial setting, but he knew from the smell and the bed he was in a hospital room.
He screwed his eyes shut and forced himself to remember. He’d needed to talk to Hallie. Her cousin had seen her heading up a dirt road adjacent to Sagebrush property and he’d taken a chance.
The field.
The bull.
Hallie caught in its crosshairs.
Jacob muttered a curse under his breath. Hallie could have been seriously hurt and for what? Some pictures? He groaned and opened his eyes once more.
At least he hadn’t lost his memory.
He shifted and the pain in his leg made him see stars.
