Watch Me (Last Stand #3)(2)
Author: Brenda Novak

No wonder his dogs had been going crazy.

“Son of a bitch.” He should’ve come sooner. Maybe he could’ve saved her.

Setting his gun on a nearby log where he could get it in a hurry, he commanded his dogs to get out of the way and knelt beside her. Her limp wrist felt small and fragile in his hand. Thick black hair had fallen over her face; he could see, even in the darkness, that it was matted with fresh blood.

What must she have gone through? Who was she? And why had this happened?

Cain was so sure she was already dead the faint fluttering of her pulse surprised him. But it was there—thank God, it was there.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he silently begged her to hang on while he tied his gun to Koda’s collar so the black-and-tan could drag it home.

He had to get this woman some help. Fast. But there was no time to put her in his truck and drive seventy miles to the closest hospital. She’d never make it.

Lifting her gently, he carried her to the clearing near his house and animal clinic. He’d have more room for her in the clinic, an easier place to wash her up. But as clean as he kept it, he couldn’t imagine putting a human being where he’d been nursing sick and injured dogs, cats, horses and the odd coyote, deer or bear. Opting for the house, he shoved the front door open with his shoulder, then brought her to the spare room, where he laid her on the bed.

Her head lolled to the side, smearing blood on the bedding, but the mess didn’t matter. He’d never seen anyone so close to death. Except Jason, one of his stepbrothers.

Ordering the dogs who’d followed him in to stay out of the house, he hurried to the living room and called for emergency services. A helicopter would never be able to land in the wooded area where he lived, but he could meet the airlift at the Jensen farm just outside of town, like he had for that camper who’d had a heart attack two years ago.

It only took a moment to arrange it, then he tried to contact Ned Smith, Whiterock’s chief of police, but the dispatcher didn’t know where to find him.

“Want me to wake Amy?” she asked, offering him an alternate.

“No.” Cain didn’t even hesitate. Amy was also a cop, but she was Ned’s twin sister—and Cain’s ex-wife. He definitely didn’t want Amy in the middle of this. She had no experience with violent crime. Neither did the other two officers on Whiterock’s small force, which was why he didn’t suggest the dispatcher continue down her list of available officers. Cain wasn’t sure Ned would be any better, but he was chief of police. “Just get hold of Ned and tell him to meet me at the hospital in Knoxville. As soon as possible.”

“The hospital?”

Cain didn’t have time to explain. “That’s right.”

Afraid the woman he’d found in the forest might die before he could reach the helicopter, he hung up and went back to the spare bedroom to get her. “You’re going to be fine,” he told her. Carefully he smoothed the tangled hair out of her face, wiped away the mud and blood—and realized, to his shock, that he knew this woman. It’d been twelve years since he’d seen her. But he’d slept with her once. Right before she’d gone to Rocky Point with Jason.

2

When the hospital paged him to the nurses’ station, Cain thought the county dispatcher had finally located Ned Smith. But it was Owen Wyatt, the older of the two stepbrothers he had left, trying to get hold of him. Cain had called Owen from the hospital as soon as he’d arrived, at least forty-five minutes after the emergency helicopter had transported Sheridan. Someone back home needed to know what had happened. And, as the only doctor in town and the family member Cain liked best, Owen was the most likely candidate for helping him deal with the situation in Ned’s absence.

“I got your message,” Owen said.

“Let me call you from a pay phone.”

“Wait—what’s going on?”

Cain glanced at the nurses trying to work around him. “I’ll call you back.” He didn’t have a cell. At times like this he regretted it, but he didn’t get good reception where he lived and worked, so it wasn’t worth the expense.

Five minutes later, he stood in the lobby, leaning against the wall closest to the pay phone, and had Owen on the line again. “Where were you?” he demanded, almost before his stepbrother, who was four years his junior, could say hello.

“What do you mean?”

“It was three-thirty the last time I tried you. I expected to drag you from your bed. What, were you on a house call?” It should’ve surprised Cain to hear his answer. But it didn’t.

“I was on a house call, all right. Robert came home drunk and drove into Dad’s gardening shed. I had to help get him out of his old Camaro and stitch the gash over his temple.”

Cain’s other stepbrother had a drinking problem and was always in some kind of trouble. He was the youngest in the family, but at twenty-five he was old enough to take care of himself. Instead, he lived in a trailer on his father’s property, spent every waking hour playing online games rather than trying to hold down a job, and when he wasn’t gaming, he partied. Cain had no sympathy for him. Maybe Cain had been a hell-raiser in high school, but he’d been on his own since he turned eighteen. He’d put himself through college and had never expected anyone else to clean up his messes. “Why didn’t you answer when I tried your cell?”

“I left it in the car. You should’ve seen Robert.” He made a noise of disgust. “What an idiot.”

“Nothing new there.”

“No. So…what’s going on?”

The adrenaline that had fueled his mad race to the hospital was dwindling, allowing fatigue to set in. “Someone attacked Sheridan Kohl a few hours ago and left her for dead.”

A short pause followed. “Did you say Sheridan Kohl?”

“That’s right.”

“I’d heard she was coming back to town, but I hadn’t realized she’d arrived. And…who would do such a thing?”

“I have no idea.”

There was another pause. “How do you know about it? Her being hurt, I mean.”

“I found her. Whoever attacked her dumped her near the old cabin at the far edge of the property.”

Owen surprised Cain by cursing. Generally the straitlaced type, he used big words, not cuss words.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“This makes me uncomfortable.”

That was an understatement, and understatements were far more typical of Owen. “You’re telling me.”