Naked Edge (2 page)

"She's alive! Are you getting a lat and a long on me?" Gabe hoped the signal from his phone was strong enough to give dispatch a solid GPS reading.

The answer came in a burst of static--and then the call disconnected.

Damned cell phones.

He pocketed the phone, hitched her pack over his shoulder, and ran uphill through the trees toward the sound.

She screamed again.

He adjusted his direction, quickened his pace.

And then he saw her.

Her jeans torn and muddy, she was crawling, or trying to crawl, her right leg dragging behind her, probably broken. She inched forward, crying out as her injured leg dragged across the damp forest floor. Then she sank onto her belly, whimpering. But before he could call to her to let her know help had arrived, she pushed herself up again and struggled forward another few inches, her scream catching behind clenched teeth.

She was heading toward the trail, he realized. She was trying to rescue herself, trying to get to where help could find her. Lucky for her, it already had.

He hurried toward her. "I'm Gabe Rossiter with Boulder Mountain Parks."

She looked over at him with a startled gasp, turning over as if to sit, the movement making her moan in pain. She sank onto her back, breathing hard.

"Easy, there." He walked to her side. "Just lie still. I'm here to help you."

The first thing he noticed was her eyes. An unusual shade of hazel green, they watched him warily as he knelt down beside her. Agony was etched on every feature of her pretty face, a streak of mud on her bruised cheek, pine needles in her long, dark hair, the other turquoise earring dangling from her left earlobe. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, no taller than five-five and small-boned--a red flag when it came to fractures. There were deep scratches on her arms and hands, but no obvious bleeding.

"The rocks ... They fell." She spoke with just a hint of an accent.

American Indian?

"I saw. Last night's rain must have eroded the ground beneath them." Because he couldn't seem to help it, he looked into her eyes again, relieved to find that her pupils weren't dilated. "What's your name?"

"Katherine James."

"How old are you, Katherine?"

"Twenty-six."

"Do you know today's date?"

She shivered, cold sweat on her forehead. "It's Sunday ... August twenty-sixth."

In shock, but coherent. Probable broken leg. Scrapes and bruises.

"Help is on its way." He kept his voice soothing. "In the meantime, I'll do what I can for you. Can you tell me where you hurt?"

"Everywhere."

"I'll bet." He dug into her pack. She wasn't carrying a first-aid kit, but she had brought a sweater. He draped it over her. "I'm a paramedic and a park ranger. If it's okay with you, I'm going to check you to see how badly you're injured."

She eyed him suspiciously, still shivering, her gaze dropping to his bare chest, with its chalk marks, to the chalk on his hands, to the climbing shoes on his feet.

Okay, so he looked like some kind of half-naked freak to her. Fair enough. "I'm off duty. I was rock climbing nearby and saw you fall. Let me help you."

She seemed to measure him, then nodded, wincing slightly with her next breath.

Broken ribs. Possible internal bleeding.

He put his hand on her shoulder, tried to reassure her. "I'm going to feel on the outside of your clothes, and you tell me where it hurts, okay?"

"O-kay."

He stood, walked around to her other side and started with the obvious, sliding his hands over her jeans along the length of her right thigh. "Does it hurt here?"

"No."

Thank God it wasn't her femur. He'd seen more than one woman bleed out from a severed femoral artery, dead before help could arrive.

He slid his hands past her knee and heard her gasp just as he found the bulge on her shin. "Your tibia is broken."

Not quite a compound fracture, but bad enough.

Her right ankle was tender and swollen, as well, either broken or sprained.

But of more concern to him than the broken bones was the fact that she was beginning to fade, slowly lapsing into unconsciousness, her dark lashes now resting on her cheeks, her eyes closed. A few times she'd muttered something in a language he didn't understand, and once she'd asked him something about a coyote. He'd bet his ass she had some kind of head injury. With a fall like that, she wouldn't need to hit her head to injure her brain.

"Stay awake, Katherine. Stay with me."

STAY WITH ME.

Kat thought time was playing tricks on her. He'd just spoken those words a moment ago, and yet it seemed like hours. She forced her eyes open, saw him watching her, a worried look on his face, his hands moving gently over her, seeming magically to find all the places she hurt most--her right leg and ankle, the ribs on her left side, the deep scratch on her left arm.

As if through a fog, some part of her noticed that he was a very attractive man, rugged and tall, with deep blue eyes. His square jaw was covered with dark whiskers, his temples trickling sweat, his thick, dark hair curling at his nape. There were calluses and chalk on his fingers and scrapes on his knuckles and his left shin. He was wearing only shorts and strange shoes, and although Kat had seen many men without their shirts, she'd seen very few men who looked like he did--all lean muscle from head to toe, as if an artist had carved him from marble and then brought him to life.

Strange that she should notice such an unimportant thing right now.

His callused fingers worked their way gently along her collarbones, over her shoulders and into her hair. "Did you lose consciousness when you fell?"

She tried to think. She'd heard the rocks scrape, felt the ground give way, felt herself falling, and then ...

The next thing she remembered was looking up at the sky, her right leg hooked over a rock, her entire body wracked with pain. "I think ... I must have."

Apparently done checking her, he sat back on his heels, looking down at her. "You are one amazing woman, Katherine James. I don't know many people, men or women, who would have been tough enough to do what you just did. You crawled the length of a football field, dragging that broken leg behind you."

But Kat hadn't been brave. She'd been terrified. Once she'd come to herself, she'd realized that no one knew where she was and that unless she could make her way back to the trail where hikers could discover her, she would die right where she lay. Fear had gotten her onto her hands and knees, driving her forward each unbearable inch, the pain excruciating.

Without warning, the full weight of what had just happened hit her. Tears burned her eyes, spilled down her temples, her body shaking uncontrollably.

You almost died, Kat.

The ranger took her hand, held it, his fingers warm. "It's going to be all right. I know it hurts, but they'll be here soon."

She looked up at him. "Y-you saved my life."

He shook his head. "You'd have been all right without me. You'd have made it to the trail eventually. It wouldn't have been fun, but you'd have made it."

But she wasn't so sure.

SHE LOST TRACK of time after that.

The park ranger telling her to stay awake, stroking her cheek, telling her everything was going to be all right. People crowding around her. An oxygen mask over her mouth. The prick of a needle in her arm. A warm blanket.

There was a moment of terrible, sharp pain when they put a splint on her leg, and she heard herself cry out. The ranger's warm hand squeezed hers, his voice deep and soothing. Why couldn't she remember his name?

"It's almost over, Katherine. In twenty minutes you'll be in Denver, and St. Anthony's will take good care of you."

Was he coming with her? A part of her hoped he was.

She didn't really know him at all, but somehow she trusted him.

"She fell from there?" a man's voice said. "Holy shit! Why is she still alive?"

"I can't believe she crawled all that way with a badly broken leg," said a woman. "Just the thought makes me queasy."

"So, you were free-soloing the Naked Edge when you saw her fall. Gee-zus! You have a death wish, Rossiter. One of these days we're going to be rescuing you, only there won't be anything left of you to save."

And then Kat was bouncing along as they carried the stretcher out of the trees toward a helicopter, the ranger walking beside her, his voice her anchor.

"Stay awake, Katherine."

Only after the helicopter had lifted off did she realize that he was gone.

And she hadn't even thanked him.

CHAPTER 1

Three months later

GABRIEL ROSSITER UNZIPPED his pants only far enough to free his cock, then bent her over the back of her sofa and pushed her skirt up over her hips, rubbing his hands over her smooth, round ass, her impatient whimpers urging him on. He slipped on a condom, then grabbed her hips, forced her legs wider apart--and filled her with a single thrust.

Oh, hell, yeah.

It felt so good, so damned good. He let his mind go blank and drove into her hard, allowing himself to feel only the pulsing ache in his cock, holding back just long enough to hear her scream. Then he fell over the edge, orgasm washing through him in a white-hot rush. And for a few blissful seconds, he forgot himself.

But the oblivion didn't last. It never did.

"God, Gabe, you are the best."

He gave himself a moment to catch his breath, her muscles still pulsing around him, the musky scent of sex filling his head. Then he slowly withdrew, walked to the bathroom, and tossed the condom in the trash. He wiped himself off with a tissue and had just started to wash his hands when he heard her footsteps. He looked up to find her blocking the bathroom doorway, wearing nothing but spiked heels and a smile.

Samantha Price had the best body money could buy, from her surgically enhanced tits to her Brazilian wax job to the tips of her red toenails. She ran her pretty fingers through her dyed red hair, her gaze on his chest. "Why don't you stay? We can do that all night long--as many times as you like. I'll even let you tie me up."

He supposed he should take it as a compliment. He doubted Samantha, one of Boulder's most expensive criminal attorneys, invited many men to dominate her. At another time in his life, he'd have been only too happy to oblige. Instead, he felt annoyed. "That's not how it works, Samantha. You know that."

She tilted her head, an attempt at being seductive. "Things can change. We've been together for almost six months now."

"Together?" He turned off the faucet and dried his hands. "Hooking up for a quick fuck now and again doesn't mean we're 'together.' "

He zipped his pants, buckled his duty belt, and pushed past her, adjusting the weight of his sidearm as he went. He'd known it was going to come to this. It always did--the mutual exchange of physical pleasure ruined by delusions of attachment. Sex was just a chemical reaction, love nothing more than a hormonal haze in the brain. Why did so many people try to turn it in to something more than that?

You used to believe in love, Rossiter.

Yeah, and he'd learned his lesson the hard way.

"It doesn't have to be just sex. I know that's what I said at first but--"

"Forget it, Samantha." He retrieved his undershirt from the floor where she'd dropped it, slipped it over his head, then reached for his shirt, buttoning it and tucking it into his pants. "It won't work."

"What makes you so sure?" She picked up his winter uniform jacket, traced a finger over the badge pinned to the front, then began to search the pockets in a cloying display of female nosiness.

"Because I'm sure."

She drew something out of his pocket and held it up. "What's this?"

It was Katherine James's turquoise earring.

Gabe had forgotten to give it to her before the chopper had taken off. He'd meant to track down her address and mail it to her afterward but hadn't. Even he couldn't explain how it had ended up in his coat pocket--or why it had stayed there. Of course, he wasn't about to tell Samantha any of this.