Alaskan Mountain Pursuit Elizabeth Goddard (best short novels .TXT) 📖

his weapon and grabbed her, spotting a hole in her coat. He tugged it off her shoulder and down her arm.

There, red spread across her shirt. A lightning bolt of pain struck Will’s heart.

“Oh, no, please, no...”

He tugged the shirt open and found the gunshot wound through her shoulder, blood gushing out. His whole body shook at the sight. Ignoring the cold, he tugged off his coat and then shirt, pressing it against Sylvie’s wound. He prayed the bullet hadn’t nicked an artery, but this heavy bleeding told him otherwise.

I have to stop the bleeding.

“Sylvie, please don’t die on me, please don’t die.” Bile erupted in Will’s throat.

God, where is the rescue helicopter? Please, don’t let me down.

But Will had let Sylvie down. He told her that he’d protect her and keep her safe but his shots had been too little and too late. Her life poured from her, the shirt he’d used saturated with it. His hands were covered in her blood. Emotion burning behind his eyes, his heart tripped up, tumbled over.

She wasn’t going to make it.

EIGHT

The world spun around him—the trees and sky swirled, the brook trickled too loudly from a distance—then time seemed to slow along with the whop of rotor blades from the helicopter hovering above him.

Panic crawled over Will.

Was it their help arriving at last? Or the enemy helicopter? Will grappled with the sound, trying to recognize the kind of bird, but his focus was shot. His hands slicked with Sylvie’s blood, he grabbed his weapon, ready to protect her, defend her. But his head told his heart he was too late. He’d already failed.

Two men lowered from the helicopter. Faces he recognized. Cade Warren and a paramedic whose name failed him. He couldn’t comprehend their words as they pushed him back and away from Sylvie.

“No, stay away from her!” He yanked Cade away. But what was he doing?

Cade gripped Will’s shoulders, pinned him against the tree and removed the weapon from Will’s grasp. “We’re here to help. Get a grip, man. You’re in shock.”

Compassion eased into Cade’s expression. “Are you good?”

Stunned at the words, the truth of them, Will squeezed his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m good. Just save her. Save her...”

He prayed that the world would quit tilting on him. “God, save Sylvie.”

I thought I could save her. That I could protect her. She was right next to me, behind me, practically. Behind the tree. And still, I let her get shot, and now she’s fighting for her life. How...how did this happen?

The next thing Will knew, they hoisted a basket holding Sylvie to the helicopter. Cade remained behind. Another man—a police officer—stood nearby, his gun drawn. How or when had he gotten there?

“Is she going to make it?” Will hung his head, seeing the blood-stained moss at the tree’s base. Would he ever forget that image? When Cade didn’t answer, Will lifted his gaze.

His expression grim, Cade said, “I don’t know.”

“When gunfire erupted, I returned fire. I wasn’t aiming to kill. Not yet. Just trying to hold out until you guys arrived. But the man never fired back. There was no movement. I need to know if I killed him. Or...if he’s injured.” Will should have thought of that and already informed Cade. He was failing miserably. “There was another helicopter that fired on us earlier—that killed John Snake, the man who gave us shelter last night. That’s why I pulled my gun on you. There could be more men. I can’t be sure.”

“We don’t have much time.” Cade signaled the Mountain Cove officer. “Chief Winters sent one of his men in lieu of the troopers. He was afraid we wouldn’t get here in time if we had to wait.”

And they almost hadn’t anyway. Will pushed away from the tree and hurried to the place where the man had been shooting from, Cade and the officer on his heels. There was nothing, no one, next to the tree. Will hadn’t seen anyone coming or going. What use was he in protecting Sylvie? None. He let his gaze roam the area. The rescue helicopter must have sent the man running.

“And Snake. His body is in the cabin. We need to get it.”

Cade shook his head. “Don’t worry, we’ll come back for Snake. This woman’s life is on the line. We need to go and now!”

Cade led the way back to where the helicopter still hovered, and the three of them were each lifted into the craft. As the helicopter flew over the forest, Will looked outside, searching the woods for their attackers. He looked anywhere but at Sylvie, where two medics worked on her. Isaiah Callahan, Cade’s brother-in-law, flew the helicopter. Will almost wished he would have stayed to find who had done this. Or that the police officer would have stayed to search for evidence. They could have done Sylvie more good on the ground.

But it was too late now. There was nothing left to do except pray. Will squeezed his eyes and hung his head, trying to shove aside his own guilt in what happened, and his concern and worry over Sylvie.

Just have a little faith.

Hadn’t he told her the same?

Cade nudged him. “Sorry it took us so long, man.”

Will didn’t want to hear excuses. Angry with them, angry with himself, he couldn’t respond. Time stretched on and took far too long to get to the nearest hospital where Sylvie could get the blood she needed to survive and a hyperbaric chamber to resolve the decompression sickness.

“Who is she?” Cade asked.

“Sylvie Masters.” It hit him then. He sucked in a breath, pulled his gaze from the terrain below and stared at Cade.

He doesn’t know that she’s his half sister.

Cade didn’t realize. Oh, Lord, help me... Will didn’t want to betray her trust—the promise she’d extracted from him—but Cade needed to know.

“What is it?”

God, what do I do? Do I tell him? Will Sylvie speak to me again?

Will pressed the heels of his palms in his eyes. “Okay, this isn’t for