Page 282 of Track of Courage

“Just keep icing your face, twenty minutes at a time, for the next twenty-four hours. It’s a deep bruise, but it should stop swelling in twenty-four hours. Then, wait a day and get some heat on it. It’ll increase blood flow to the injury and break up the bruise.” He paused. “I loved your last album.”

Oh. She gave him a quick smile. “Thanks.” Her voice emerged scratchy and broken, and she cleared her throat, but that only stuck burrs in it.

“Your voice should clear up too. You just need to rest and drink plenty of fluids.”

She had a list of home remedies, but frankly, maybe her voice was never coming back. Still, she nodded and smiled, then took the ice pack and headed out to the lobby.

No press, but no Dawson either, and stupid her, she had sort of thought...

“Stop being so dramatic.”Truth, because maybe she did live in fairy-tale land. Which might be worse than a Hallmark movie, because there were no villains in Hallmark world.

Except her.

She’d hurt him, and she knew it, and frankly, she didn’t deserve a guy like Dawson Mulligan.“Why don’t you call a pressconference,tell the rest of my secrets.”

She couldn’tbelieveshe’d said that. Sheesh—yep, dramatic.

Outside, the day arched bold and bright, the snow glistening in piles around the medical clinic parking lot. The scent of coffee wound through the lobby and roused a beast inside her. But she needed a phone first, get Goldie to wire her some money.

Arrange a nice safe car to drive her to Anchorage.

A map of the area hung on the lobby wall in a frame, and she walked over to it, staring at it, gauging the distance from here to the Gold Nugget Inn. Maybe Nora and Hal might grant her a phone call, a shower.

“Keely?”

The voice made her turn, and she startled as Donald Cooper emerged from the coffee shop at the edge of the lobby, holding a cup in his hand. He appeared better than the last time she’d seen him, distraught, wounded, desperate—

“Donald.”

Oh, her voice barely sounded. She cleared it and then held up her hand in greeting.

“Still fighting that cold, huh?” He pointed to his throat, then smiled.

Yes, definitely in better spirits. She nodded, shrugged. “How’s Wren?” she whispered.

He leaned close, as if to hear. “She’s better. They had to do a splenectomy.” He swallowed, the memory of it flickering on his face, then he sighed. “She’s upstairs if you want to see her.”

She nodded and stuck her hands in her parka hanging loosely over her. Probably she should return it to Donald anyway.

He walked over to the elevator and punched the button. “Moose got to us just in time. The storm came in after him, and if you’d waited any longer, she might have—” He closed his eyes, blew out a breath, then opened them. “Anyway, thank you.”

She nodded, but wanted to say that it was Dawson, really.

Dawson the hero. Saving everyone’s lives.

Her eyes burned.

She got onto the elevator behind Donald, took it up one flight, and got off, trailing down the hall behind him.

He went into a room with a colored picture of a unicorn taped to the door, and she followed.

Wren sat in the bed, her blond hair a disaster of knots, wearing a pony-imprinted hospital gown, an IV attached to her arm, a congregation of toys tucked around the bed—a Barbie doll, a plastic pony with purple hair, a stuffed bear. Crayons spilled into a kidney tray, and she furiously colored a picture on the bed table.

Keely’s heart just turned over, a rush of relief, maybe.

“Look who’s here, Wren,” her father said.

She looked up. “Keely!”