Wyatt couldn’t respond. His mind worked overtime, scrutinizing the situation, recalling the other mine he’d just seen. Considering its age. Potential instability. And the possibility it would go off simply because Violet had stepped on it, instead of waiting for the pressure to release.
Sawyer inched past him. He took Maggie into his arms, then dipped his chin at Violet. His cool blue eyes locked on Wyatt. “I’ll get her away from here. Try not to be too stupid.”
Wyatt flickered a look in his friend’s direction. “Stupid is a matter of opinion.”
“Wyatt.” Violet’s voice was a desperate quivering mess. “Go with her. Stay with her.”
“Give me a minute,” he said slowly. His mind raced through probabilities and calculations. With Sawyer and Maggie out of the way, he had an idea that might not kill them both. It wasn’t a great one, but they were out of time for those.
“Please,” Violet pushed. “Take care of Maggie. I can stand here until I know you’re long gone. She doesn’t have to see, and she won’t remember. It’s okay. Just, please, go. Protect her.”
The pain and sacrifice of her words seared through him. “Remain calm,” he said, inching away.
“She’s going to be orphaned. Just like me. But I’m okay because I was loved. Tanya will take her. Tanya will love her.”
Wyatt paced away, his hardened heart reduced to mush. “Do not shift your weight off that plate.”
“I won’t,” Violet vowed. “Make sure my baby knows I loved her more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything. More than she can possibly imagine.” Tears rushed down her cheeks, dripping over her lips and falling freely from her chin and jaw.
The Jeep’s engine revved to life. “Hey, Stone,” Sawyer called through the open window, his voice clearly carrying over the long distance. “What’s the plan?”
“Take care of my baby!” Violet screamed, hot eyes flashing at Sawyer. “Get out of here!”
Wyatt raised his hand to Sawyer. “Back up about a hundred yards.” He turned to Violet. “Do you trust me?”
“What?” She wiped her tears and watched him with keen curiosity. “What are you doing? Why did you stop? Why aren’t you leaving?”
Wyatt backed up another three steps. “Do you trust me?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
He lowered into a sprinter’s stance. “Then don’t fight the impact,” he said. “Just let it happen.”
Violet’s chin swung left, then right. “No. Get out of here! Protect Maggie!”
“One,” Wyatt said.
“No! You’ll be killed!”
“Two.”
“Wyatt!”
He launched forward on angry, determined legs, propelling himself through the grass at top speed, barreling toward the woman he loved. He would not let her die. Would not let her sweet baby become an orphan. Not now. Not ever. And not on his watch.
He lowered his frame to reduce his center of gravity on impact, planting his hard shoulder into her soft middle and tossing her easily with him through the air. Their bodies collided with the smack and crunch of flesh and bone.
The explosion that followed was teeth-rattling. Wyatt’s ears rang, and dirt and debris rained over them in hunks and patches. Sticks, rocks and chunks of earth pelted them as they bounced against the hard ground and rolled to a stop at the barrier of pine trees.
Violet’s scream was silenced upon impact.
Wyatt’s vision blurred as he struggled to pull his lids open and set the world straight once more. Images of battlefields from his past mixed frighteningly with the one thing that mattered in his present. Violet. He pulled himself into the moment, forcing memories away and his body onto bruised and bloodied forearms. “Violet.” His voice was foreign to his ears, too low and gravelly. The blurry image of her swayed before him. His head pounded and ached. His heart took a deep cutting blow when she didn’t answer. “Wake up,” he ordered, but her arms lay limply at her sides, face rolled slightly away, eyes closed. She was motionless save for the shallow rise and fall of her chest and a blessedly still-beating heart.
Wyatt scrambled to her, forcing his vision to clear and reaching for her sweet face.
A thick smear of crimson covered her exposed cheek and ear. The unmistakable shape of a flat gray stone was visible beneath her head, scattered over with pine needles and long brown hair. “No.” He forced himself onto his knees. “Violet,” he demanded. “Violet!” He’d taken the brunt of the blast with his back as they flew. She should have been okay. Wyatt searched her throat for the heartbeat he needed to feel, slow but strong.
“Wyatt?” Sawyer’s voice registered nearby. He appeared then, darting through the trees to Wyatt’s side. Maggie cried on his hip, arms reaching for her mother, but Violet didn’t stir. “Do you want an ambulance out here?” Sawyer asked.
“No.” Wyatt curled a motionless Violet into his arms and pushed himself onto aching legs. “I don’t want the son of a bitch responsible for those mines to know we found his hiding spot. You protect Maggie. I’ll get Violet to the ER, then we’ll come back here tonight, find out what’s hidden in that well.” Wyatt’s long purposeful strides ate up the distance as they tracked through the woods, back to their vehicles, away from the well and the booby traps around it. “We’re going to need help from outside this godforsaken town if we want justice served.”
“You want me to hunt down that deputy?” Sawyer asked. “Santos?”
“No. Take Maggie home and guard her with your life,” Wyatt instructed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Then we’ll figure this out together.”
“Yes, sir.”
The drive to the hospital was excruciating. Every dip in the road and jostle of his frame hurt bone deep. Worse than that, his constant prayer for Violet’s eyes to open wasn’t answered.
He left his truck outside the emergency room entrance, doors open, engine running.
“We need help,” he called as the glass doors parted. Violet’s motionless body lay over his arms. Blood from her head clung to his shirt and skin. “Help us!” he demanded, using the full power of his deep tenor to command attention.
A man in a white coat turned his way, followed by a pair of nurses. The trio snapped into action, rushing to his side.
“What happened?” the doctor asked.
“I’m not sure,” Wyatt lied. He hadn’t taken time to think of a proper story on the drive over, and he didn’t want to tell them about the land mine. He and Violet had escaped the worst of the explosion. Their injuries were mostly a result of their graceless landing. Besides, once the sheriff knew they’d been so close to his well, Wyatt was sure whatever had been hidden there for fifty years would be moved immediately. “We hit our heads when we fell,” he finally said. “She landed on a rock. She’s bleeding.”
The doctor pulled Violet’s eyelids open and shone a light into them while the nurses ran for a gurney. Together, the team strapped Violet down and wheeled her to a station stocked with supplies. A nurse started an IV drip. The doctor checked her vitals. They administered triage to her cuts, scrapes and bruises. The questions came rapid-fire as they worked. “How long has she been unconscious? How far did you fall? Where were you when it happened?”
Wyatt claimed that they had been hiking, enjoying the view from a significant height when the trail gave way along the edge. They fell a great distance, tumbling over rocks, limbs and roots.
Soon, Wyatt was pushed back and a curtain was pulled around them as they worked.
Wyatt collapsed onto an empty chair against the wall. He bent forward at the waist, catching his face in open palms and doing his best to hold himself together.
The sounds and scents of the hospital crept into his scrambled thoughts, taking him back overseas. Flashing memories of other terrifying times. Other injured loved ones. He pressed his fingers hard against his temples, forcing images of war from his mind.
“Looks like a slight concussion.” The doctor’s voice was back. Close again.
Wyatt jerked onto his feet, blinking away the past and pulling the moment at hand back to light. “Will she be okay?”
The doctor hugged a clipboard to his chest. “Sure. She’s suffered extensive lacerations and contusions, but they’ll heal. The bruised ribs will take time.” He grimaced. “It’s as if she hit a tree on her way down. We put something in her IV for the pain and stitched her head.”
“Thank you.” One hot tear blazed a trail over Wyatt’s icy cheek. He took the doctor’s hand in his and shook it hard. “Thank you.”
The doctor kept hold of his hand. “She said not to let you leave without an exam.”
“She’s awake?” He dragged the doctor toward the curtain.
The doctor caught Wyatt’s elbow in his free hand. “Not until I take a look at you.”
Wyatt kept moving. He had nearly a foot and probably fifty pounds on the little man beside him. “I want to see her.” He ducked through the barrier and felt a mound of tension roll away.
“Hey,” she said softly. Her head was wrapped in white gauze. Her arms were spattered with bandages and dark with bruises.
“Violet.” He stroked hair from her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
She batted glossy eyes. “You saved our lives.”
Wyatt lifted her small hand to his face and a hot streak swiveled over his cheekbone.
“Hey.” Violet wiped the single tear away. “We’re okay,” she whispered. “Because of you.”
Wyatt leaned over the silver bed rail, gathering her in his arms and burying his face in her soft brown hair. It wasn’t the right time to tell her that he loved her, but he’d never been so sure of anything in his life, and he would tell her one day soon. What she did with the information was up to her. Nothing would diminish that truth.
Violet peeked over his shoulder, sweeping her gaze through the room. “Where’s Maggie? I want to see her. Is Sawyer in the waiting room?”
“No. They aren’t here, but they’re safe. He won’t let anyone hurt her.”
The doctor cleared his throat. “I’d better have a look at you.”
Wyatt spun around. He’d nearly forgotten they weren’t alone. “Go for it.” He squeezed Violet’s hand, unwilling to let her go. There was so much he wanted to say, but the timing was awful, and the emotions were raw and new. He wasn’t sure where to start. He could see a future with Violet and Maggie. The kind his folks had with him. The kind he’d given up on when he joined the service. A near decade of army life had changed him. Hardened him. But Violet and Maggie were changing him back. Excavating the man he’d started out to be.
Her hand curled over his wrist as the doctor moved into view, flashing his penlight into Wyatt’s eyes. “Will you check on Grandma when the exam is finished?” Violet asked. “Maybe ask Tanya to come down here if she’s on duty? I need to get those transfer papers filled out.” She lifted an apologetic face to him as the doctor stepped away. “Maggie and I can’t stay. It’s just too dangerous to be here any longer than is absolutely necessary.”
Wyatt pressed a kiss to her forehead, inhaling the sweet scent of her and making a memory he hoped would last. “It’s okay.”
He gave the doctor another two minutes to finish his job before shaking him off. “Thanks,” he said then, interrupting the instructions he’d heard a dozen times before. “Aspirin. Ice. Rest. Water. Got it.”
Wyatt rode the elevator to the second floor in search of Violet’s cousin Tanya and a quick visit with her grandma. He focused on his marching orders instead of the fact that accomplishing these tasks meant saying goodbye to Violet and Maggie.
A man in a hospital security uniform leaned his elbows on the nurse’s desk, flirting with a young blonde. The chair outside Violet’s grandma’s room was empty.
“Hey,” Wyatt complained. “Why aren’t you watching room two fourteen?”
The man tented his brows at Wyatt, taking in his battered appearance. “She’s fine. Old Sheriff Masterson’s in there with her.”
Wyatt swore. He hopped into a painful jog and rushed through the door to her room.
Mr. Masterson leaned over the comatose woman, his lips moving near her ear.
“What are you doing here?” Wyatt snapped. “Get away from her.”
Mr. Masterson looked Wyatt over with a mischievous smile. “Well, what on earth has happened to you?”
Wyatt ground his teeth. “Get out.”
Mr. Masterson crossed the room and stopped inside Wyatt’s personal space. The old man was tall and broad. Bold and cocky. “You think I’m old,” he said. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but this is my town, and I don’t miss a thing.”
Wyatt stood firm, squaring his shoulders and locking his jaw. “Stay away from this family.”
“Believe me. I tried.” He tossed a glance in Violet’s grandma’s direction. “Some people just won’t listen.”
“Knock knock.” A smiling man in a gray suit, tie and glasses appeared in the door. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I’m Dr. Fisk. I’ve come to check on our Sleeping Beauty over there.”
“I was just on my way out,” Mr. Masterson said. “I’ve got lots to do today.” He tipped his hat to the doctor, then left Wyatt with a withering smile.
Wyatt turned to face the frail-looking woman in the hospital bed. The clock was ticking, and he had to get her out of there before Masterson had a chance to finish what he’d undeniably started.