Page 73 of Saving the Rain (Crimson Ridge #4)

I f hell had an image, it would surely be reflected in my bloodshot eyes. It would live in the burn that lines the back of my throat.

This place is nothing but a prison, a hellscape I’m trapped in because there’s no way I won’t stay by his side. Not when he’s lying in that bed covered in tubes and equipment, and I don’t fucking know if he’s going to make it back to me.

Machines beep, and fluorescent lighting burns my retinas, while Raine remains in that terrifying post-surgery void where even the doctors simply don’t know .

Abdominal trauma. Risk of sepsis. No exit wound.

I’ve hardly been able to concentrate on anything other than studying his slack features.

Searching for a flicker of an indication that he’s gonna wake up.

There’s hardly any capacity to take in the information doctors give me during their rotations through the wards.

They talk to me like I’m a child. Attempting to spell it out for me in the simplest terms possible, I can tell.

“He’s stable, Mr. Wilder. However, a projectile from a firearm can damage anything in its path.

The severity of a gunshot wound like Mr. Rainer suffered may vary according to bullet caliber or the trajectory of the object.

Below the skin, those layers of tissue can be inflicted with trauma that is harder for us to identify. ”

Then there are other snatches of conversation that I honestly feel like I’m gonna hurl every time I hear their whispers. Rapid response time. Blood transfusion. CPR administered en route. And possibly the worst of all... Luck.

The fate of the man I love beyond all reason cannot fall to luck. There’s no way that someone as strong as him, who walks this earth like he’s my goddamn steadfast, solid rock, could be lingering in a place where only luck is gonna successfully bring him out the other side.

Squeezing my fists into balls, I dig them into my eye sockets and lean forward on my knees.

Sitting here, I feel more useless than ever, clinging onto hope with all the desperation of every bronc I’ve ever ridden, rolled into one.

Raine is my rope, and I’m doing everything I can to keep him secure inside my grasp.

All while stuck in this stupid chair at his bedside.

Watching him, waiting for him to find a way to return to me, while we linger in this holding pen of doom.

I feel like I’ve been pacing the same three feet of linoleum for endless tortured hours.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

It leaves me replaying events in my mind’s eye. Unable to escape the horror of that moment when Raine burst out and played the goddamn hero. Hearing that fateful shot, a sickening pop and echo like the whole mountain was about to crumble beneath my feet.

I knew it had hit him. There was no way it could miss at such close range.

The medevac arrived after I was able to get a radio call out using the handset in my truck.

I didn’t want to leave him for even a split-second to make that call, knowing that the more blood he lost, the worse his chance of survival might be.

But it was either watch him die in my arms or get an emergency signal out.

I had to go into survival mode. To put that onslaught fear and of emotion to one side and do what needed to be done. For him.

What followed was a blur, but the helpless misery of waiting for someone to arrive still tightens my throat and strangles me with tendrils of panic.

The minutes spent hunched over his figure, that agonizing trickle of time, not knowing how long it would take for the air ambulance to get to us.

I don’t know how many times I told him to just hang on a little longer, to be as strong as I know he always is, to stay with me.

Applying as much weight as possible in an effort to stem the bleeding, covering the site of him hemorrhaging beneath my fingers, soaking through every bit of fabric I could tear off my body and use along with the first aid kit from my vehicle.

My shirt, my thermal, my hoodie, gauze—maintaining pressure over the wound while he bled out in the middle of the yard.

The rapid whomp of that helicopter cresting above the tree line has never been more of a relief to hear. Still, I didn’t know if it was too late.

God. He was so pale by the time they took over.

As quick as they landed, he was gone.

They had him loaded onboard and whisked away amid rotors whirring and the efficient bustle of flight doctors. Taking him from me before I knew it.

Having to watch on while they loaded him on board was gut-wrenching. I didn’t even have a chance to hug him or kiss him or tell him he’d better fucking fight this because I don’t want to consider a world where he’s not in it.

All that was left to prove he’d been there was his blood covering my hands and clothes.

Sheriff Hayes wasn’t far behind, arriving with his team and the EMTs to handle the man who I couldn’t fucking care less about—couldn’t have given a shit if he’d passed out from blood loss in the meantime.

Everything was numb, a waking nightmare beyond that. My statement was taken. An arrest made. Evidence collected. The entire time, all I wanted was to get in my truck and start driving. To get to Raine as fast as possible.

As for his father, Ezekiel Rainer is gonna be behind bars without bail. With any luck, he’ll lose that leg in the process, too.

There were a number of outstanding warrants against Zeke.

He turned up at the ranch, coming after the money he claimed my mom owed him.

His cut. After feeding her addiction for god knows how many years, he’d been profiting off her sickness and forever mounting debts.

Evidently, he’d been associated with the same dealers who my mom was always getting herself into trouble with, and when she finally paid those assholes directly and checked herself into rehab, he lost his shit.

A rotten maggot of a human, through and through.

My shoulder is jostled, and when I blink at the person swimming into focus through my bleary, exhausted vision, I see one of the nurses. She gives me a sympathetic look. “Go grab yourself a coffee. Try eating something. He’s not going anywhere, and he’s stable.” Then she carries on her way.

Shifting my weight forward, I lean on the edge of Raine’s hospital bed and link my pinky finger with his.

The deepest, darkest ache settles inside my chest when there’s still no response.

But I hold on to that small glimmer of hope that he’s in recovery, he survived surgery, he’s in the best place possible.

“Don’t leave me. Don’t you dare,” I whisper and keep our little fingers hooked. “I’ve never known what it’s like to love this wholly. Every part of me is attached to you. If you go somewhere without me, I’m coming straight after because I don't want to do any of this without you.”

I swallow the painful lump in the back of my throat and place a kiss on his knuckles beside the drip line in the back of his hand.

Then unfold myself from the chair, proceeding to make my way through the maze of corridors and hospital levels until I reach the cafeteria.

I’m like a zombie. I don’t know what time of the night it is.

I don’t know anything beyond this no-man’s land we’re stranded in.

As I load up a shitty coffee with sugar and creamer, I can hear his steady voice. That day when he convinced me to get on the back of a horse for the first time since my accident, the memory of it barrels into my awareness.

“Ride with me.” He repeats those three little words, taking in the sight of my immediate hesitation.

That onyx gaze dances, with gentle creases forming around the corners of his eyes.

He’s so breathtaking. So handsome. I don’t know how to handle it when he offers me that sort of tenderness that is so uniquely his to give.

My stomach lurches with unease. Getting on the back of a horse feels unfathomable, impossible. It’s such a huge part of my life, but at the same time, this one thing I’ve always done without a second thought now seems like yet another thing I’ve ruined.

Once more, Kayce Wilder breaks something good.

“What if—” Swallowing hard, I have to wipe my clammy palms on my jeans, juggling the halter he just handed to me.

“You won’t. I’ve got you. I’m gonna be right by your side the whole way.” He steps closer, all masculine scent and security in his warm presence. “This is you. Riding horses is as much a part of who you are as being the rodeo cowboy, snowflake. I’m not gonna let you fall.”

God, it felt so good. Riding with him at my side. I was able to shed so many doubts, finally ridding myself of the terrible cloud of dark thoughts I’d been smothered by.

He gave me something that day I wish I’d been able to thank him for.

Raine showed me I could trust myself. That I was strong enough to do something on my own, and he wanted to be there to see me do it.

I absently rub over the center of my chest as my footsteps lead me back to the room he’s laid up in.

As I reach the doorway, a low voice pierces my awareness.

Blood drains from my face; at first, I think it’s Raine, and I’m riddled with guilt for not being at his side the moment he woke up.

But in the next frantic heartbeat, I realize it’s not his voice.

It’s not him at all. On reaching the doorway, I stop dead in my tracks.

“...you looked after him when I wasn’t there. For that, I’m forever in your debt.”

“Dad?”

Colton Wilder. My dad. He’s here. There’s no possible way he’s here in this hospital, when he’s supposed to be damn near on the other side of the world. With jet lag and sleeplessness clinging to his expression, his broad frame strides over to me without pause. He encircles me in a fierce hug.

I fucking lose it. I’m shaking, leaving sodden tracks of silent tears on his shoulder .

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I croak. With my head turned to the side, through the wetness clinging to my lashes, I take in Raine’s figure where he lies dreadfully still. Unmoving. Machines surrounding him, monitoring his vitals.

“Hayes got in contact. I got on the first flight I could.”

“You didn’t have to.” But as I say the words, it hits me like a landslide that I’m so unbelievably grateful he did.

“There has been so much of your life I haven’t been there for.

Times when I should’ve been a parent and wasn’t.

” He rubs one palm back and forth between my shoulder blades and cradles the back of my head with the other.

“I’m gonna be there for every fucking thing you need, son.

And I know it might be too little too late, but tell me what I can do, whenever, and I’ll be there. ”