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He had to have help, but there was no way she could throw him over her shoulder and carry him up to the house. She stood, scanning the dark sea again to make certain she hadn’t missed anything, but the expanse of water was empty. She would have to leave him here, at least for as long as it would take her to run up to the house and back.
Once the decision was made Rachel didn’t vacillate. Bending, she grasped the man under his shoulders and dug her heels into the sand, grunting with the effort as she pulled him far enough out of the water that the incoming tide wouldn’t lap around him before she could get back. Even in the depths of unconsciousness he felt the pain she caused him by tugging on his wounded shoulder and gave a low, hoarse moan. Rachel winced an
d felt her eyes burn momentarily, but it was something she had to do. When she judged that he was far enough up the beach she let his shoulders down on the sand as easily as she could, muttering a breathless apology to him even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. “I’ll be right back,” she assured him, touching his wet face briefly. Then she ran.
Normally the path up the beach and through the stand of pines seemed like a fairly short one, but tonight it stretched endlessly ahead of her. She ran, not caring about stubbing her bare toes on exposed roots, heedless of the small branches that caught at her shirt. One such limb was strong enough to catch her shirt, halting her flight in mid-step. Rachel threw her entire weight against the fabric, too frantic to pause to untangle it. With a sodden ripping sound the shirt tore, and she was free to resume her wild plunge up the slope.
The welcoming lights of her small house were a beacon in the night, the house an oasis of safety and familiarity, but something had gone very wrong, and she couldn’t shut herself inside its refuge. The life of the man on the beach depended on her.
Joe had heard her coming. He stood on the edge of the porch with his hackles raised and a low, rumbling growl issuing from his throat. She could see him silhouetted by the porch light as she sprinted across the yard, but she didn’t have time to calm him down. If he bit her, he bit her. She would worry about that later. But Joe didn’t even glance at her as she bounded up the steps and slammed the screen door back on its hinges. He remained on guard, facing the pines and the beach, every muscle quivering as he placed himself between Rachel and whatever had sent her flying through the night.
Rachel grabbed the phone, trying to control her breathing so she would be able to talk coherently. Her hands were shaking as she fumbled through the telephone book, looking for an ambulance listing, or a rescue squad—maybe the sheriff’s department. Anyone! She dropped the book and swore violently, leaning down to grab it again. Rescue squad—they would have paramedics, and the man needed medical attention more than he needed a police report made out on him.
She found the number and was punching it out, when suddenly her hand froze, and she stared at the phone. A police report. She didn’t know why, couldn’t logically explain it to herself right then, but abruptly she knew she had to keep this quiet, at least for now. The instincts she had developed during her years as an investigative reporter were sending off steady warning signals, and she obeyed them now as she had obeyed them then. She slammed the receiver back onto its hook, shaking as she stood there and tried to force her thoughts into order.
No police. Not now. The man on the beach was helpless, no threat to her or anyone else. He would have no chance at all if this was more than a simple shooting, an argument that had gotten out of hand. He might be a drug-runner. A terrorist. Anything. But, dear God, he might not be any of those, and she was the only chance he had.
Even as she dragged a quilt from the top of her bedroom closet and bolted from the house again, with Joe right on her heels, jumbled scenes from her past kept skittering through her mind. Scenes of things that weren’t quite right, where the glossy surface was accepted and neatly filed away, the real story forever hidden from view. There were other worlds beyond the normal, everyday life that most people lived, layers of danger and deceit and treachery that were never even suspected. Rachel knew about those layers. They had taken B.B.’s life. The man on the beach might be victim or villain, but if he was a villain she would have time to turn him in to the authorities long before he could recover from his wound; on the other hand, if he was a victim, the only time he had was what she could give him.
He was lying just as she’d left him, the tide swirling just inches from his feet. Gasping, Rachel fell to her knees in the sand beside him and put her hand on his chest, shuddering with relief when she felt the steady up and down movement that told her he was still alive. Joe stood beside her, his head lowered and his ears laid back as a low, continuous growl came from his throat, his eyes never leaving the man.
“It’s all right, Joe,” she said, automatically giving the dog a reassuring pat, and for once he didn’t shy away from her touch. She spread the quilt on the sand, then knelt once again to brace her hands against the man’s limp body. She rolled him onto the quilt. This time he didn’t make a sound, and she was grateful he couldn’t feel the pain she had to cause him.
It took her a few minutes to get him positioned; then she had to rest. She stared uneasily at the sea again, but it was still empty. There was no one out there, though it wasn’t unusual to see the night lights of passing boats. Joe brushed against her legs, growling again, and she gathered her strength. Then she leaned down, gathered the two corners of the quilt nearest the man’s head and dug her heels into the sand. She grunted with the strain; even with her entire weight thrown into the effort, it was all she could do to drag him a few feet. God, he was heavy!
Maybe when she got him off the beach and onto the slippery pine needles it would be easier. If it got much harder she wouldn’t be able to budge him at all. She’d known it would be difficult, but she hadn’t realized it would be almost beyond her physical capabilities. She was strong and healthy, and his life depended on her. Surely she could drag him up to her house, even if she had to do it an inch at a time!
That was almost what it amounted to. Even when she managed to get him off the beach, although the pine needles were slippery and the quilt slid over them more easily, her path was uphill. The incline wasn’t steep, and she normally walked it easily, but it might as well have been vertical for the effort it took her to drag a two-hundred-pound man up it. She couldn’t sustain her forward progress for any length of time at all. She lunged and lurched, falling to her knees several times. Her lungs were pumping and wheezing like bellows, and her entire body was one big ache before she had him halfway up the slope. She stopped for a moment and leaned against a pine, fighting the inevitable nausea of overexertion. If it hadn’t been for the tree supporting her, she might not have been able to stand at all, because her legs and arms were trembling wildly.
An owl hooted somewhere close by, and the crickets chirped on undisturbed; the events of the night meant nothing to them. Joe hadn’t left her side, and every time she stopped to rest he crowded against her legs, which was totally unlike him. But he wasn’t pressing against her for protection; rather, he was protecting her, putting himself between her and the man. Rachel took a deep breath and steeled herself for another effort, patting Joe on the side and saying, “Good boy, good boy.”
She reached down to take hold of the quilt again, and Joe did something extraordinary; he caught the edge of the quilt between his teeth and growled. Rachel stared at him, wondering if he’d taken it in his head to prevent her from dragging it any farther. Cautiously she braced her shaky legs, then leaned back and pulled with every ounce of strength left in her. Still growling, Joe braced his legs and pulled, too, and with his strength added to hers the quilt slid forward several feet.
Rachel stopped in amazement, staring at the dog. “Good boy,” she said again. “Good boy!” Had it been a fluke, or would he do it again? He was a big, strong dog; Honey Mayfield had estimated that he weighed almost eighty pounds. If he could be coaxed into pulling with her, she could have the man up the slope in no time.
“Okay,” she whispered, taking a better grip on the quilt. “Let’s see if you’ll do it one more time.” She pulled, and Joe pulled, that low growl still rumbling in his throat, as if he disapproved of what she was doing, but would help her if she was determined to do it.
It was much easier with the dog’s help, and soon they were out of the pine thicket, with only the dirt road and the small yard to cross before they reached the house. Rachel straightened and stared at the house, wondering how she would ever get him up the two steps to the porch. Well, she’d gotten him this far; she’d get him in the house, one way or another. Bending, she began tugging again.
He hadn’t made a sound since that one groan on the beach, not even when they pulled him across exposed roots or the loose rocks on the dirt road. Rachel let the quilt drop and bent over him again, crouching on the cool, damp grass beside him. He was still breathing; after what she’d put him through, she didn’t suppose she could ask for anything more. She stared at the two steps again, a frown puckering her forehead. She needed a conveyor belt to get him up those steps. A growing sense of urgency gnawed at her. Not only did he need attention, but the sooner she got him hidden inside, the better. She was isolated out here at Diamond Bay, so chance visitors weren’t likely, but anyone who came looking for the man wouldn’t be a chance visitor. Until he was conscious, until she knew more about what was going on, she had to hide him.
The only way she had of getting him up the steps was to catch him under the arms and pull him up them, just as she’d pulled him out of the sea. Joe couldn’t help now. She would have to lift the man’s head, shoulders and chest—the heaviest part of his body.
She’d gotten her wind back, and sitting there in the grass wasn’t going to get anything accomplished. But she was so tired, as if her legs and arms were weighted down with lead; they were sluggish, and she staggered a little when she climbed to her feet. Gently she wrapped the quilt around the man, then positioned herself behind him and slid her hands under his shoulders. Straining, fighting for every bit of leverage, she raised him to a half-sitting position, then quickly propped him up on her legs. He started to fall over, and with a cry Rachel caught him around the chest, looping her arms tightly and locking her hands together. His head fell forward, as limply as a newborn?
??s. Joe worried at her side, growling when he couldn’t find a place to catch hold of the quilt.
“It’s all right,” she panted. “I’ve got to do it this way now.” She wondered if she was talking to the dog or the man. Either was ridiculous, but both seemed important.
The steps were at her back. Keeping her legs under her and her hands tightly locked around the man’s chest, Rachel thrust herself backward; her bottom landed on the first step with a jarring thud, and the edge of the top step scraped a raw strip down her back, but she’d managed to lift the man a little. Hot pain seared her back and legs from the strain she was putting on her muscles. “Oh, God,” she whispered, “I can’t collapse now. In a little while I’ll rest, but not now.”
Grinding her teeth, she got her feet under her again, using the stronger muscles of her thighs rather than her more vulnerable back muscles. Once more she lunged up and back, pushing with her legs, hauling the man up with her. She was sitting on the top step now, and tears of pain and effort were stinging her eyes. The man’s torso was on the steps, his legs still out in the yard, but if she could get his upper body on the porch the rest would be easy. She had to do the agonizing maneuver one more time.
She didn’t know how she did it, where she found the strength. She gathered, lunged, pushed. Suddenly her feet went out from under her and she fell heavily on her back on the wooden porch, the man lying on her legs. Stunned, she lay there for a moment, staring up at the yellow porch light with the tiny bugs swarming around it. She could feel her heart pounding wildly inside her rib cage, hear the wheezing sobs as she tried to suck enough oxygen into her lungs to meet the demand being made by overworked muscles. His weight was crushing her legs. But she was lying full-length on the porch, so if he was lying on her legs, that meant she’d done it. She’d gotten him up the steps!
Groaning, crying, she pushed herself into a sitting position, though she thought the planks beneath her made a wonderful bed. It took her a moment to struggle from beneath his confining weight, and then it was more than she could do to stand. She crawled to the screen door and propped it open, then scrambled back to the man. Just a few more feet. Inside the front door, angle to the right, then into her bedroom. Twenty, thirty feet. That was it, all she would ask of herself.
The original method of catching the edge of the quilt and pulling it seemed like a good idea, and Joe was willing to lend his strength again, but Rachel had precious little strength herself, and the dog had to do most of the work. Slowly, laboriously, they inched the man across the porch. She and Joe couldn’t get through the door at the same time, so she went first and knelt to reach for a new grip on the quilt. Growling, his husky body braced, Joe pulled back with all his strength, and man and quilt came through the door.
