High-Risk Affair Page 12

  "The Diastat appears to have stopped the seizure. At this point, I think his unresponsive state is just postictal."

  "What does that mean?" the man asked.

  "After a big seizure, the brain sometimes decides to take a little holiday to recover for a while," Lucero explained as they moved slowly toward the light.

  "A patient can fall into what appears to be a deep sleep and be hard to rouse. Not really unconscious, but close to it," he went on. "I would say the seizure on top of everything else the kid has been through in the last thirty-six hours was just too much for him and he's shut down on us for a while. I can't imagine what it would be like to be trapped in this darkness for a day and a half. It would be too much for most grown men I know."

  Cale's hands tightened on the litter and he was astonished by the wave of tenderness washing through him for this child, a boy he had never even met.

  "We managed to get the ambulance about fifty feet away from the mine entrance but that was as close as we dared go in the steep terrain," one of the other rescuers explained as they made the final turn. Light poured in through the entrance, and Cale decided that sunlight playing over the ground of the mine was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  "You boys okay carrying the litter the rest of the way or do you want somebody else to take over?" Lucero asked.

  "I'm good," one said. "We've made it this far. I'm in for the distance."

  "Davis?"

  "Let's get him out of here," Cale answered. They moved the last few yards to the opening, then emerged from the mine.

  An exultant cry went up from the crowd of searchers and rescue workers gathered there.

  He blinked, disoriented by the rapid shift from Stygian darkness to the brilliance of an August afternoon in the Rockies. His eyes hadn't adjusted yet, but he was still aware of a small shape disengaging from the crowd.

  "Stop," Cale ordered the other rescuers carrying the litter. They froze as Megan rushed to the litter, sobbing tears of relief.

  "Cam! Oh, Cameron!" She grabbed his hand, clutching it to her breast tightly.

  It had taken them at least an hour to get the boy out of the mine and he had been unresponsive the entire time. At the sound of his mother's voice, though, Cameron's eyes fluttered open.

  "Mommy?" he croaked.

  Megan gave a sobbing little laugh. "I'm here, baby. I'm here."

  The boy's features lifted into a smile, then he closed his eyes again.

  "He's postictal, ma'am," Lucero explained. "And probably plain worn out."

  Megan didn't seem to mind. She held his hand I ight, wiping away tears with her other hand. The men carrying the litter started down the hill toward the waiting ambulance.

  It was a little tough going with Megan still clinging to her son's hand, but Cale didn't think any of the rescuers minded.

  He certainly didn't mind. She was only a few feet in front of him and he couldn't help thinking she seemed different from the fragile, heartsick woman he had met during the last day and a half.

  This woman glowed from the inside out. She was so beautiful he couldn't look away.

  The adrenaline carried all of them through the ten minutes it took to carefully transport the litter on a steep angle to the waiting ambulance. At last they lifted Cam into the ambulance. Megan started to climb in, then she paused on the step, surveying the rescuers.

  Though her gaze encompassed all of them, she seemed to stop on Cale. A warmth kindled there, a subtle, tensile connection between them and he wanted desperately to pull her into his arms.

  "Thank you. Words can never be enough to express my gratitude for what you have all done. Thank you." She swiped away tears, and Cale saw more than one big, burly rescuer doing the same. She gave them all a tremulous smile then climbed in after her son.

  He stood and watched the ambulance drive down the mountain. The sides of the road were thronged with cameras and news vans and the hundreds of volunteers who had turned out to help look for Cameron. When the ambulance passed, everyone started clapping and cheering and hugging each other.

  As he watched Megan ride away with her son, the hard, bleak knot around his chest seemed to break free, and he sucked in what felt like the first clean, pure breath of air in weeks.

  "Hey, Davis, you're bleeding," Lucero said, a con-cerned note in his voice. "You get caught on a rock or something?"

  Cale looked down and was baffled to see blood soaking through his shirt. Not just a little blood, either. He drew in another breath as the adrenaline high began to seep away and he suddenly became aware of jagged pain radiating from his shoulder, pain he must have suppressed during the rescue.

  Damn. He must have broken through his stitches.

  She couldn't seem to let go of her son.

  Megan sat with Cameron's small, battered hand clutched tightly in both of hers in the tastefully decorated treatment room at the small Moose Springs medical clinic while Dr. Maxwell finished her exam.

  Cam had only opened his eyes a few times in the hour since he'd been pulled out of the cave and hadn't said anything beyond the few words when he had seen her.

  She was trying not to worry about his continued un-responsiveness, but it wasn't easy.

  The doctor pulled her stethoscope away from her cars and draped them around her neck before she pulled the warm blankets back up around Cameron.

  "You've got a tough kid there, Megan," Lauren Maxwell said as she made a notation on his chart.

  She had always known he was strong—he handled the tests and special diet and hospital stays due to his epilepsy with patience and equanimity. But she had to think Cameron had reserves she'd never even guessed at to survive such an ordeal.

  "He's still so out of it. You think he's still postictal or is there more to it?"

  "That's my guess. All his vitals look great, especially after we started the IV fluids. We don't know how long he was seizing before the rescuers found him. I think the combination of that nasty seizure and the ordeal he's been through must have sapped the last of his strength. We're just fortunate they found him when they did."

  She shivered. A few more moments and the tunnel' Cameron was in would have collapsed while he was suf-fering a major seizure. Sheriff Galvez had been by already and told her in more detail what had happened, that Cale and another searcher had risked their lives to pull her son out of the darkness.

  She couldn't bear thinking how close she had come to losing her little boy forever, to never knowing what had become of him.

  "I'm confident he'll start coming back to us," Lauren went on. "All he needs is a little time to rest and recover."

  "I hope so."

  The doctor looked at her out of concerned blue eyes. "I would give the exact same prescription to his mother. Believe it or not, that chair you're sitting on folds out into a bed. It's about as comfortable as sleeping on a concrete slab, but 1 imagine right now you wouldn't even notice."

  It was silly, she knew, but she didn't want to leave Cam's side, even to stretch out on a chair a few feet away.

  "I'm all right," she assured the doctor, thinking how much she liked and admired the other woman.

  Though she had heard whispers about Lauren's past from a few malicious people in town in the few months she had been in Moose Springs, Megan didn't pay much attention.

  She preferred to judge people by their actions and behavior and the doctor had been wonderfully kind to her and her children. She seemed to be an excellent doctor who cared deeply for her patients. Megan put more credence in that than in any rumors.

  "Let my nurse know if you change your mind," Lauren said. "I'll be busy for a while stitching up one of the rescuers, but I'll come back to check on you and Cam later. I'd like to see you both sleeping."

  Her attention caught on the first part of the doctor's statement. "Oh, dear. I hadn't heard one of the men had been injured during the search. Is he all right?"

  Lauren's elegant features pulled into a frown. "Only stubborn and thickheaded. H
e wasn't in any condition lo be in that mine in the first place, not when he was nursing a pre-existing injury. During the rescue effort, apparently he broke through some stitches and just needs to be sewn back up. He should be fine, though."

  "Stitches?" She suddenly felt cold, and her hand clenched around Cameron's. Her mind flashed to her conversation with.Gage McKinnon, and somehow she knew. "From a gunshot wound?"

  Lauren's gaze narrowed. "Yeah. How did you know that?"

  She mustered a smile, though she ached inside to know Cale had been hurt again on her son's behalf. "Because I know the stubborn, thickheaded man in question. If not for him, Cameron wouldn't be here. Please take good care of him."

  Lauren's mouth quirked into a lopsided smile. "All right. Since you asked so nicely, I guess I won't sew him up using dirty twine and a used needle."

  Too late, she realized how her words must have been construed. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

  "Megan, I'm joking. It's okay. Cale is a friend. I promise, I would be gentle with him even if he wasn't the hero of the hour."

  She had a difficult time picturing Cale in social situations. Did he lose that bleakness in his eyes when he was around friends? she wondered. Did his smile reach those eyes? She hoped so, for his sake.

  After Lauren left, she shifted position in the chair, trying to find a comfortable spot. Her entire body ached from the sleepless night and the long, torturous hours of worry.

  She owed Cale so much. He had worked doggedly to find her son. She knew he had tracked down lead after lead. He had sat beside her in the night, had comforted her and lifted her when she was beginning to feel as if all hope were lost.

  He was the only person to think of asking Hailey about her brother's whereabouts.

  And he had gone into that mine despite his own injury and had been willing to lay down his life to bring her son home.

  Megan owed him everything.

  Her chest ached with a combination of gratitude, awed respect and soft, poignant tenderness.

  She stiffened, her fingers tightening around Cameron's. Tenderness? How had he become so vitally important to her in such a short time? A few days ago she hadn't even met Caleb, so how could she possibly feel as if her life would be terribly empty without him?

  This was ridiculous. She had no business feeling anything for a battle-scarred lawman like Cale Davis.

  "Mommy?"

  She pushed away the terrifying feelings and shifted attention to her son, exactly where her focus should be. "I'm here, Cam. Right here."

  His pupils were still large, and he blinked at her like a baffled little bird. "It's not dark anymore."

  It was the most he had said since he had been carried out of the mine, and she had to work hard to keep the tears from her voice. "No, baby. You're safe now."

  He frowned, tugging at his blanket with restless little motions. "I have to tell..."

  He closed his eyes as Megan waited for him to gather the energy to complete the sentence. After a moment, she realized she would likely be waiting for a while as he had apparently fallen asleep again.

  She smoothed the blond hair from his eyes, her heart tight and achy with love and relief..

  "Just rest, sweetheart," she murmured, in the same voice she used when he was a baby falling asleep in her arms.

  She knew he was already asleep and couldn't hear her words of comfort, but she said them anyway. "I'm not going anywhere. You can tell us everything when you wake up."

  He shouldn't be here.

  Cale stood outside Cameron Vance's room at the clinic, wondering if he ought to just catch a ride back to the city and put this whole thing behind him.

  His job was done in Moose Springs. The boy was safe and sound in his mother's arms, and a rogue FBI agent on his acting boss's hit list should probably be hustling back to work, trying to preserve whatever was left of his career. Not hovering in the hallway working up the nerve to go inside and say goodbye to a woman and boy who had changed everything.

  Yet here he stood.

  He let out a breath, then winced at the pinch in the new sutures Lauren Maxwell had just put in so carefully.

  Trouble was, the job didn't feel done. Yeah, Cameron was out of the mine, but Cale knew he was far from safe. The boy had seen Wally Simon's murder. Cale would stake his life on it.

  Cameron was a witness, a witness who would be in grave danger if he could identify the killer.

  Even if he couldn't identify the killer, he was in danger. The shooter wouldn't know whether Cam had seen him or not.

  Word was already out that the missing boy had been found in the mine. With national media coverage on every station, whoever whacked the meth cook would have to connect the dots and figure out the boy had gone missing at approximately the same time as the murder had occurred.

  He needed to warn Megan, to give her all the information at hand so she could be prepared to protect her son from any possible threat. That was the reason he was standing out here, he told himself.

  It had nothing to do with this fierce need inside him to see her soft, fragile features one more time, to make sure for himself that she and Cameron were both all right.

  Cale sighed. Right. Who was he kidding? Not himself, certainly.

  He raised his hand to knock on the door but before he could, it opened and startled green eyes flashed to his. The surprise in them quickly changed to something else, ajumble of emotions he couldn'tbegin to sort out.

  "Cale!" she exclaimed. Her voice was pitched low and over her shoulder he could see Cameron sleeping peacefully in the bed.

  "Hey."

  He could drown in those eyes, he thought. Especially when they softened with a sweet concern that took his breath away.

  "How are you?" she asked, holding the door open for him to come inside the room.

  He couldn't seem to take his eyes off her. She seemed different, somehow. He couldn't figure it out for a moment, then he realized that for the first time, he was seeing her free of the paralyzing worry for her son's safety. His heart swelled and he wanted to pull her into his arms. It took all his energy to fight the urge.

  "Doctor Maxwell told me you broke your stitches open during the rescue and she had to sew you up," she said after a pause.

  She pitched her voice low, so he did likewise. "Yeah. She just finished up. It's no big deal."

  "Don't say that. It's a huge deal." She touched his arm, and he could swear he felt the heat of her through the cotton of his shirt. "I feel terrible, knowing you were hurt rescuing Cameron. I'm so very sorry you were hurt again."

  He shook his head. He wasn't sorry. "That mine was exactly where I needed to be today."

  "I'm sorry you were hurt," she said again. "But I can't honestly say I'm sorry you were there, even though I know I probably should. If not for you, Cam wouldn't be here. I can never thank you enough."

  Her chin wobbled a little, and she seemed to be fighting for control. It was too much for him, more than he could handle after the dramatic emotions of the day.

  With a sigh of defeat, he reached for her and pulled her into his arms.

  Chapter 12

  She was perfect in his arms, soft and warm and womanly, all the things he had been telling himself he could manage without.

  With a sigh, she slid her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. Something hard and cold inside him seemed to crack apart, leaving only sweet, healing peace.

  He wanted to close his eyes and hang on for the rest of his life.

  "I owe you everything," she repeated. "Thank you for returning my son to me."

  "You don't have to thank me," he said, his voice gruff. She smelled divine, of vanilla and cinnamon, like hot, sticky sweet rolls just out of the oven, dripping with icing, and he was suddenly starving.

  "Nothing I do could ever repay you for what you have done," she murmured.

  This was a pretty darn good start. He would feel fully compensated if she would only let him stand here holding her for t
he next five or ten years, with her warmth surrounding him and the delicious scent of her filling up his senses.

  "I needed to find him," he admitted after a moment. "I had to be in those tunnels today. I can't explain all the reasons why, even to myself, but I had no choice. In was something I had to do."

  She was quiet for a moment, even as her arms tightened around him. "Because of what happened to the Decker girls?" she finally asked.

  He froze, then let out a ragged breath, grateful she couldn't see the raw-pain he-knew would be obvious in; his eyes. "You know about that?"

  Her soft, gilt-tipped hair brushed his chin when she nodded. "Your partner told me this morning. I'm sorry, Caleb."

  "Five minutes earlier—hell, two minutes—and I could have saved them. Every time I think of those brief seconds, I can't breathe and feel like my heart is being sliced apart."

  He hadn't told anyone that, not even the FBI shrink he'd been ordered to see after the incident. Yet he wanted Megan to know that piece of himself, the depth of his pain and guilt.

  Her arms tightened around him. "Don't do this to yourself. Please don't. I know you, Caleb Davis. I have seen your dedication to your job firsthand. That boy asleep on that bed over there is all the evidence I need. I am one hundred percent convinced you did everything humanly possible to save those girls. Don't spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for something a sick, twisted man did to his own children."

  To his horror, his eyes burned with unshed tears. He blinked them back fiercely, trying to hang on to control.

  How long it had been since he had cried? He couldn't remember. Probably that day he was twelve years old and had to hear about his sister's death in such a cold, public way.

  He tightened his arms around Megan, stunned to his core to feel the darkness begin to lift, to feel the healing touch of light.

  She was right. Absolutely right. Everything Megan said to him had been said by others since he had been shot. By Gage, by the Bureau shrink, even by the girls' mother. After that first wild outcry, she had assured him she didn't blame him for her daughters' deaths. She had come to his hospital room, and thanked him for trying so hard to save them.