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I made it to the bakery in three minutes and flew through the back door. “Indie!” The bakery was silent as I walked in, but I was stopped by a pile of cooling racks blocking the way. I heard a strange sound and paused. It was a moan. “Gumdrop?”
“Lance?” she moaned and my heart went to my throat. I could hear her, but I couldn’t see her.
My eye caught a flash of white apron just as another metal cooling rack was ready to fall onto her. I grabbed it and tossed it out of the way, then carefully pulled another one off her. I knelt next to her and rested my hand on her chest. “Don’t move. I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“Lance?”
“Yes, baby, it’s me. You’re okay. I’m going to get you help.”
Her forehead was bleeding and starting to swell. Her eyes were glassy and I wondered if she’d lost consciousness when that rack fell on her.
“Don’t move. Your neck might be hurt.”
“My wrist hurts.”
I glanced down and what I saw had me talking to my phone. “Call 911.”
“Calling 911.”
“Don’t move your arm, Gumdrop. Just keep your eyes on me.” I held my hand on her chest and waited while the phone rang. The fact that she wasn’t arguing with me about calling an ambulance told me she knew there was a problem. I relayed the information to the operator, and they promised to get a rig out to us.
I hung up the phone and stuck it in my pocket. “What happened, Gumdrop?” I asked, my gaze holding hers.
“Brenda.”
“Brenda?” I asked, confused. “Was Brenda here?”
She nodded, and I noticed she didn’t grimace, so that was a positive thing. Her neck didn’t hurt.
“She attacked me, Lance.” Her words were filled with terror and pain. I fell to my butt and stroked her cheek, wiping away the blood that was running down it from her forehead.
“Brenda came into the bakery and attacked you?”
“Drunk and shoved me. The rack. It was caught on the other one,” she said, blinking again. “I think it fell.”
“It certainly fell,” I agreed. “I can hear the ambulance. They’re coming to help. Just hang in there.”
“My hand, Lance.”
I swallowed around the terror in my gut when I glanced at her wrist twisted at an angle a wrist should never be at. “Just don’t move it. There’s something wrong with it but we need to let the EMTs look at it, okay?”
“I’m sorry, Lance.”
I smoothed her hair back and shook my head. “No, you don’t have anything to be sorry for, honey. I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things and then run away before we could talk about it. I was scared of losing everything I loved and being alone again. I love you, baby, so much, don’t ever doubt that no matter what my messed-up brain tells my mouth to say, okay?”
“I didn’t,” she said, her tongue working around her lips as though her mouth were dry. “I didn’t tell Ivy.”
“Shh,” I whispered, holding my finger to her lips. “I know. I talked to Ivy. I have my job back and everything’s okay. Just relax.”
“Lance!” A voice yelled from the back door and I recognized it immediately.
“Gabe! We’re in the storage room!”
In ten seconds, Gabe was kneeling next to Indie, assessing her injuries. He was dressed in his cop uniform but he was also an EMT for Bells Pass. “What happened?” he asked, glancing up at me.
I pointed at the rack. “That one fell on her. She says Brenda attacked her.”
“Is that true, Indie?” Gabe asked the woman I love.
