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And Alexia was on the ground, a long knife handle projecting from her abdomen.
The strands of hair blowing across her face didn’t conceal the pain slicing through her features.
“Alexia!”
The killer standing over her twisted toward him but reached for the knife. She grabbed the handle, mouth working.
Tripp dived for him.
The guy made a run for it, vanishing into the thick woods in seconds. Tripp didn’t give a damn. He hit his knees in front of his beloved.
“I’m here. Jesus, Alexia. I’m here, princess.”
“Bryson…”
“Don’t pull out the knife.” She’d bleed out in seconds if she did. The wave of helpless terror washing over him was one he never, ever wanted to feel again. He couldn’t lose her.
“Get the…killer!” she cried.
“No—get you!”
Her gaze burned into his. “What if it’s the guy who killed your niece? You promised that you’d get him. I promised I’d help you too.”
With one arm around her to support her upright position, he put out the SOS to his team. “She’s been stabbed in the abdomen. We need a rescue now! The killer escaped into the forest.”
He searched Alexia’s pale face. Her eyelashes looked odd, as if they were clumped together from crying.
“They’re coming, my love. Ollie’s good—he’ll find a place to land and get you out of here to the hospital. He’s a medic too. Goddammit, Ollie, get your ass down here!”
“He’s doing his best, Tripp. Hold tight. Keep her stable.” Rafe’s calm tone instilled a small measure of the same in Tripp.
He cradled her against his chest. “I’ve got you, and I’m always going to have you. I love you, Alexia. When this is over, we’re not wasting time getting to know each other. We’re going straight into a relationship. A real relationship. The kind that scares most guys. But I’m not scared.”
Only scared of losing you.
She lifted a hand and skimmed an ice-cold finger across his jaw right before her eyes rolled up in her head and she passed out.
A rough cry broke from his throat. He wrapped her in his arms, careful to keep the knife from moving even a millimeter. He could not risk causing more damage to her internal organs.
The next minute or two he focused on transferring his body heat to her and talking to her even in her unconscious state. He knew she could hear him. Shehad tohear him.
When the violent wind from the chopper blades washed across the yard in front of the cabin, he knew Ollie had done his job. The next few minutes were a blur as the pilot leaped out of the cockpit and raced to Alexia in full-on medic mode.
Ollie looked at her and then at Tripp. “I’ll do my best. We need to stabilize her in the air. You have to do everything I say while I fly the bird. Got it?”
“Anything. I’ll do anything.” He just needed her safe and whole again.
ChapterTwenty
She was stabbed. Then airlifted out. Bryson told her that she had surgery to repair the damage of the knife wound.
Every detail in between was fogged over for Alexia. She remembered nothing but the moment her captor grabbed her.
She shook her head as she tried so hard to recall the details as she viewed them as though through somebody else’s eyes. The MT Ops team was gathered around her in the hospital room, listening intently to her recounting.
“All I remember is reaching for the knife in his hand. We struggled. Then I don’t remember anything until I woke up here to Bryson’s face.”
He slipped his warm hand into hers. The feel of his callused fingers tenderly stroking her knuckles swelled her heart with even more love for him.
