A Billionaire's Redemption - By Cindy Dees Page 0,76
that he loved this woman, age difference or not, parentage or not, social status or not. And most important of all, whether or not she returned his feelings.
He had given her his love without any expectation of payment in kind, and the notion shocked him. Was this that selflessness people talked about when the subject of true love came up? He’d always rolled his eyes at those sappy souls. Love was about bargaining like everything else in life.
Lord knew it had been a coldly calculated deal between him and Melinda. I help your career, you help mine. I boost your social standing, you boost my image. It had been purely a business deal between them, but they’d both been either too jaded or too damned ignorant of what love was to know they hadn’t gotten it right at all. Hell, in retrospect, he doubted Melinda had ever loved anyone in her entire life. For that matter, neither had he. Until now.
He grunted and groaned, straining for every inch of progress up that damned cliff, carrying Willa along with him. As painful as it was.
* * *
They had almost reached the top when she roused again.
Disoriented, she tried to push up to her hands and knees and succeeded in causing a mini-avalanche that slid them a dozen heart-stopping feet back down the cliff before he was able to dig in hard enough with his heels to stop the plunge toward death.
“Don’t move,” he grunted as he gripped her tightly against him with both arms. She struggled weakly and he tried again to get through to her. “Willa. It’s Gabe. I’ve got you. I need you to relax and trust me. Let me do all the work.”
Whether she heard him or not, he couldn’t tell. But she subsided against him once more and he went back to work climbing that damned cliff bit by painful bit.
Finally, his head cleared the slope. He pushed once more and his shoulders reached the edge of the road. One more big push and he was able to roll onto his side, laying Willa on the road’s shoulder. Breathing hard, he dragged himself up one last time by the rope and landed on the flat road beside Willa. Panting, he pushed to his feet. His arms were in so much pain, he barely registered the gravel grinding into his palms and scraping them raw.
Exhausted, he summoned the strength to lift Willa in his arms. He laid her in the back of the SUV, climbed in the vehicle and carefully U-turned on the narrow road to point it down the mountain. Driving as fast as he dared, he headed back to Vengeance Hospital.
Most of the news crews had left, along with the fire department and their barricades. He pulled up in front of the emergency-room door and raced around to the back of the Escalade. He picked up Willa, who was still unconscious, and hurried into the emergency room with her.
The same nurse Melinda had snapped at took one look at the two of them and ordered, “This way.”
He followed her into the examining room across the hall from Melinda’s and laid Willa on the bed there. He wasn’t surprised as another nurse and the doctor who’d treated Melinda shoved him aside. But he was surprised as a third nurse took him by the arm and led him into the next room.
“She’s the one who’s hurt. Not me,” he protested.
“Have you looked at yourself in a mirror?” she asked.
“No.”
“How does your back feel?”
Now that she mentioned it, his back did burn a bit. “I guess it hurts a little.”
“What happened to you? It looks like a mountain lion attacked you.”
Oh. All of a sudden, his entire body felt like raw hamburger. “That would be the stones, I suppose. I had to carry Willa up a cliff. It was so steep I had to lie on my back and push us up the slope.”
“I’m going to cut off your shirt, Mr. Dawson. And then I’m going to clean out your cuts and see if any of them need stitches. This might sting a little.”
He yelped as the nurse’s idea of a little sting hit his skin. Acid wouldn’t have hurt much more, he reflected as he tried to distract himself from the fire on his back. The next several minutes were spent in grim silence while the nurse worked, and he gasped periodically.
Finally, she announced, “All done. Mostly scratches and contusions. It’s going to be uncomfortable for a few