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Heart in his throat, Ryder fell to his knees beside Anne-Marie’s pale unmoving body. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered. “Anne, goddamn it, Anne-Marie!” Warm blood seeped through his jeans. “Anne-Marie? Can you hear me? Oh, come on, come on!”
He felt for a pulse and found it, heard the soft sound of her breathing. He felt a bit of relief. It wasn’t too late. She was still alive. “Hang in there. You . . . hang in there.”
Yanking the phone from his pocket, he dialed 9-1-1, but it was a futile call. They were too far out of town to wait for an ambulance and no helicopter could fly in the storm. “Come on,” he said to Anne-Marie as the operator answered.
“9-1-1. What is the nature of—”
“Listen! I have a woman near death. Dying. Her wrists slashed. I need help!” Ryder didn’t hesitate.
“Is the woman alive?”
“Yes! Yes! I said so.”
“Sir, I need your name and your location.”
“We’re off a county road in the mountains, twenty miles north of Grizzly Falls, maybe fifteen miles west of Missoula, I’m not sure, but I’m bringing her in. To the hospital in Missoula. Northern General.” God, this is taking too much time.
All the while Anne-Marie was bleeding out.
He set the phone down and found a roll of gauze in an emergency first aid kit, probably Anne’s, and probably where she’d kept the damn scissors she’d used to try and end her life. Heart thudding, operator yelling at him, he quickly unlocked her cuffs, stuffed them into his pocket, then pried her blood-stained hands apart. As he’d learned in the Army, he wrapped the wounds, binding them, hoping to stanch the flow of blood as the 9-1-1 operator still yelled at him, her voice squawking instructions as he worked.
“Sir!” she yelled. “Are you still there? Keep this line open. Officers are dispatched and—”
He ignored her instructions. “Come on, Anne-Marie,” he said, forcing himself to remain calm, to go into that zone he’d learned long ago. But it wasn’t working. Not with her, the only woman he’d married no matter how false it had been. “Hang in there, honey.” His voice cracked a little.
Why hadn’t he paid attention to her desperation?
Hadn’t she said she’d rather die?
She was on the brink of death by her own hand, her choice, because he’d run her to the ground. Guilt tore at him as he looked at her, the woman who had been so full of life, such a brilliant, careless liar, the only woman he’d ever met who could hold her own with him in a verbal sparring match or while making love. His damn heart wrenched and he realized he’d been kidding himself. It had been a lie when he’d convinced himself that he didn’t care for her and never had. She’d gotten to him, burrowed under his skin and into his damn soul.
The reason he’d agreed with her bastard of a father to bring her back to New Orleans wasn’t about justice or even money. It was about seeing her again, having his day of reckoning.
Well he was having it.
In spades.
As for her old man, the devil with whom he’d partnered, Talbert was nearly br
oke. No way would Ryder have gotten paid. He’d known that from the get-go. Had done a little research. The old man had probably hoped that with his notorious daughter’s return, he could somehow capitalize on her capture, figure out a way to make some big cash. Maybe a tell-all book? A movie of the week? Or even a reality television series. Who knew? The man had grandiose opinions of himself.
Stupidly, Ryder had wanted to see Anne-Marie again and yes, to take her back to New Orleans to clear up the mystery. He had outwardly been Talbert’s willing pawn.
Ryder had told himself he had to be the one to bring Anne-Marie to justice, to make her face her sins. Oh, yes, his own motives had been far from altruistic.
Well, no longer.
That whole returning to New Orleans thing was over. At least for him.
He would take Anne-Marie to the hospital and hope beyond hope that she survived. That was all that mattered. How they dealt with the rest of their lives was of little concern. Once she was healthy again, he would help her prove that she was innocent of any crimes and that her husband, the bastard of a doctor who had severed her finger, was the true ungodly culprit.
What was it she’d said? That she’d worried the women killed recently in Grizzly Falls had been targeted because of her? Killed to terrorize her.
That, of course, had to be her own fears taking flight.
Right?
But the thought gnawed at him as he worked over her, and he wondered if it was possible. Was she crazy? Or singularly perceptive where Bruce Calderone was involved? As he tucked the final end of the gauze strip around her bandaged arm, she moaned. Gently he tried to rouse her. “Anne-Marie? Honey. Anne? Come on. Hang in there. We’ve got to go now.”
