Happy in Their Love [Men of the Border Lands 10] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  After he had recovered enough to travel, Russell had said good-bye to his son and the people he’d called friends for so many years. Without Jill, he was like a ship without an anchor. He needed to go.

  It dawned on him that the damn bear had moved on. He couldn’t hear it anymore. Not that it really mattered now anyway. He didn’t have the energy to go anywhere. Still, he should at least make an effort to flag where he was in case someone did happen along. Maybe they would find his body and give it a proper burial instead of leaving him for the scavengers.

  Even though he was weak from blood loss and stiff from passing so many hours in one position, Russell managed to shove the empty backpack through the crevice he’d squeezed through to escape the bear.

  The last thing he thought about as he closed his eyes was to hope the fucking bear hurt as badly as he did.

  Chapter Two

  “Damn deer. They were here earlier.”

  Abe stood up from where he’d been crouched, waiting for the mule deer to return along the path they had been using the last few days. Why had they changed their pattern?

  Stretching to relieve his cramped muscles, exasperation had him muttering curses under his breath. Nothing had gone right the over the last week. The fucking tractor had broken down before he’d finished tilling up the garden for the winter, and he’d had to reshoe his horse. Then there’d been the fence down that had taken all of a day to repair.

  “I’m going to kill a damn deer today if it’s the last fucking thing I do.”

  He grabbed his light pack and eased through the woods in search of something to shoot at. Right about then, he would have been happy with killing Bugs Bunny.

  The smell of blood hit him first. No wonder the deer hadn’t followed their normal trail. Something was dying or dead close by. He tried to pinpoint the direction of the wind to determine which way to go. Finally he chose north and walked with his rifle at the ready. The ground began to change to a slight incline as the trees began to thin. A muted grunt had him stopping in his tracks. He looked around before noticing a massive lump on the ground ahead of him in the shadows.

  The lump made a noise again that sounded like raspy breathing. Abe slowly moved toward it. When he was within fifteen feet, he could tell it was a grizzly. It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done and could easily be the dumbest if he lived to tell about it, but Abe picked his way closer to the beast. He could easily hear gurgling now. Whatever had happened to it, a lung was involved. Something had managed to do enough damage that it was bleeding into its lungs.

  Taking another step closer, he nudged it with the barrel of the rifle, ready to shoot if the bear moved. It didn’t. The bubbly noises grew fainter. It was dying. He wondered what had gotten the best of the massive grizzly. Short of man, they didn’t have a lot of natural predators.

  Abe walked around it and followed its path to see if he would find another dead or dying animal wherever the original fight had taken place. Instead, he found more blood and a trail that led toward a cropping of rocks. Cougar maybe? They would have gone to higher ground if injured.

  As he eased closer to the area, something that didn’t belong grabbed his attention. A cloth bag of some kind was stuck between two boulders. When he was able to see it better, he found it was what was left of a backpack and was covered in blood. That didn’t bode well for whoever had been carrying it. The blood trail let straight to the rocks, but other than the smears all over the bottom boulders, he didn’t see any additional blood on the rocks above to suggest that they had managed to climb to safety.

  He crouched down and pulled the bag out of the crevice, exposing a bloodied hand that had probably been gripping it. Peering deeper into the opening, Abe could barely make out the shape of a man.

  “Fuck!” He reached in and touched his fingers to the man’s wrist to check for a pulse.

  Fully expecting not to find one, the weak flutter startled him into action. The crevice widened at the top, allowing him to crawl up and into the opening so that he could reach the stranger. It was a tight fit, but he managed to rearrange the man so that he could check where he was hurt. With the sun going down, seeing became an issue. The best he could tell, there were four deep furrows down the man’s back and over his right shoulder as well as cuts on his arm and the upper portion of his chest. It looked as if he’d lost a lot of blood as well. Thankfully, the wounds were no longer actively bleeding. He was afraid that once he started moving him, that would change.

  Abe climbed back out and gathered just the supplies he’d need from his pack and returned to dress the worst of the wounds. Then he hoisted the unconscious man up and onto the top of one of the massive rocks. After shoving what was left of his supplies and the stranger’s rifle through the opening, he climbed out and carefully lowered the man off the rock. He had no choice but to carry him back to the lodge over his shoulder.

  By the time he made it home, he was all but staggering from the added weight of the big man along with his own pack. He didn’t bother checking his safety measures before stumbling into the building. Abe carried the man to the couch in front of the massive stone fireplace and sank to the floor on his knees. It took several minutes for him to catch his breath and manage to stand again. If the stranger was going to make it, he had to hurry.

  Thanks to the previous owners, there were plenty of first aid supplies to choose from. After starting a fire in the fireplace to warm the large room, Abe gathered what he needed and got to work.

  “Don’t know why the hell I’m bothering. He’s not going to make it anyway. He’s lost too much blood.”

  Two hours later, the man still breathed, and Abe was taping the last section of bandage. It had taken an untold number of stitches to close the wounds that he felt comfortable sewing shut. The others he’d left to drain and close as they healed. It wouldn’t do to close infection up to fester. It was a miracle the lucky bastard was still alive.

  Without antibiotics to prevent infection, Abe was reduced to mixing up some herbal remedies he’d learned from some of the books he had found there at the compound. He managed to force some of one of the liquids down the man’s throat and applied a poultice to the open wounds. All he could do now was watch and keep his patient warm and dry. If he got a fever, he’d try to cool him down, but there wasn’t much more he could do.

  “Guess time will tell if you live or die.” He shook his head and walked away to take a shower and change clothes.

  After ridding himself of the stench of blood and sweat, Abe raced through his chores and settled for a meal of dried meat and fruit before settling down to watch over the injured stranger. Normally he slept upstairs in one of the rooms, but with his patient on the couch in front of the fire, he decided he better stay close by. He covered up with a blanket and reclined in one of the lounge chairs for the night.

  Every few hours, he got up and forced water and more of the homemade medicine down the man’s throat. Around two in the morning, the stranger’s fever went up enough that he was mumbling incoherently and thrashing about on the couch. Abe spent the next two hours bathing him in cool water and keeping him from further injuring himself.

  All during the night and early morning, the deathly ill man mumbled and called out over and over about someone named Jill as well as the names Sandy, Will, and Janice. Abe figured it was the names of his family members who were more than likely dead. It reminded him of his own losses, triggering his anger.

  “Fucking bastard will drive me crazy taking care of him, and then he’ll die anyway. Don’t know why I’m wasting time on him.”

  * * * *

  Russell felt as if he were being burned alive. Pain tore through him with each rise and fall of his chest. So this was hell. He should have known there was no way God would have allowed him into heaven to be with his family, considering he hadn’t been able to protect them to begin with. Eternal pain and that unending fire licking at his skin like a hungry lover would be his punishment.

  No matter
how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to escape either one as he tried to find a more comfortable position. It dawned on him that he couldn’t see anything because his eyes were still closed. When he attempted to open them, they wouldn’t budge. Where they sealed shut? Would endless blackness be part of this horrific torture?

  Time passed as he floated in agony, but he had no idea how much. His only companion was pain and more pain. Slowly, the heat seemed to change. Suddenly, the searing sensations that had bubbled along his skin flipped to those of a burning cold that would surely freeze him to solid ice. He’d never heard of hell being cold, but then that old saying when hell freezes over seemed appropriate now. Maybe it had.

  To add further misery to his abused existence, it felt as if someone was bathing him in icy water. He fought the invisible ministrations in hopes he could make it go away, but after a while, he stopped fighting. He was too tired and soul weary. Let the little demons do whatever they wanted to him. He’d give them no further pleasure fighting them.

  After a while, he drifted some more, and Russell realized that he no longer seemed to hurt as badly and the devastating heat and breath-stealing cold had disappeared. Was this a new kind of torture? Would he float there, always wondering what would happen next, waiting for the next round of torment to start?

  Take the reprieve for what it is, Russell. I don’t need to bring more pain on myself by trying to anticipate the next round of assault.

  For what seemed like forever, Russell floated in a sea of nothingness with occasional bouts of fire that blistered his skin and cold that burned his lungs. Sometimes he felt as if someone was torturing him, but most of the time, he felt completely and utterly alone. Not even thoughts of his family seemed to penetrate his existence at those times. True despondency settled over him like a skin-tight leather suit. It filled every nook and cranny, leaving behind no room for hope of any kind.

  Out of nowhere, something jerked his eyes open to a blinding bright light. His eyes watered at the suddenness of it. Without thinking, he tried to cover his eyes with his hand and yelled out at the intense pain that caused. His right arm and shoulder felt as if he’d ripped it off his body.

  “What in the hell are you trying to do? If you bust those stitches open, I’ll kill you.”

  Russell snapped his eyes to the left and the image of a huge bear of a man stared back at him from less than four feet away. Confusion clogged his head with splintered memories of what had happened to him. All he could remember was burying his sweet Jill and traveling on foot to get away from the pain. From the feel of it, he’d only managed to find more pain. What the hell?

  “Who are you?” he finally asked.

  “Abraham Waverly. Call me Abe.” His voice was gruff and deep.

  Russell just closed his eyes for what he thought had only been a second, but when he opened them again, the man was gone. He took advantage of being along again and studied the room around him. From what he could tell from his position on the couch that felt like good leather, he was in a rather large room that had a massive stone fireplace and hearth. The mantel was a large, rough-hewn slice of wood.

  There were built-in shelves on each side of the stone chimney that stretched to the top of the vaulted ceiling. They were filled with books. He couldn’t see anything more than what was in front of him from his limited vantage point. The room felt massive around him. Judging from the height of the ceiling, it was huge.

  “I see you’re finally awake again.” The stranger appeared next to the couch. He picked something up and walked closer, where he knelt down in front of the couch and held a cup to Russell’s lips. “Try to drink some water. If you can take this and keep it down, I’ll give you some broth later.”

  His seemingly reluctant host stood up again and walked out of his range of sight. He kept waiting for him to return, but after several minutes, Russell gave up and closed his eyes again. The water had been a blessing. Maybe the stranger would return soon with the promised broth. He was hungry.

  He spent another long while of floating, thinking over the new turn of events at finding that he wasn’t dead and suffering in hell after all. Who was the man who was grudgingly helping him? No doubt he had his own sorrowful tale. No one who lived through the horrific year of catastrophes was without sorrow and loss. No doubt Russell’s presence was an irritant to the big man.

  He figured Abe to be about six and a half feet tall and weigh a good two hundred seventy pounds. He was solidly built without an ounce of fat on him, from what little he had seen of the man. His shaggy black hair and bushy dark beard covered his face, but dark piercing eyes sealed his perception of the man as being unsociable, even unapproachable in his demeanor. Why had the man bothered with trying to save him in the first place? It had to have been a long shot at best. Hell, he could still die of pneumonia or a wound infection.

  The sound of boots scraping across the floor pulled him back from his musings. He opened his eyes again. Abe walked into view with a bowl in his hands. He set it on the table by the couch then disappeared for a second before returning with a straight chair in tow. He plopped it down in front of Russell, and after retrieving the bowl from the table, sat down and stared at him.

  “Hope you’re hungry. I’m not a great cook, but it’s edible and filling.” He stirred the contents of the bowl before spooning up some and offering it to him.

  Russell struggled to drink it while lying flat on his back. Some of it dribbled out of his mouth.

  “Fuck. I need to sit you up some. Hold on.” He got up and set the bowl back on the table with a sigh.

  The next thing Russell knew, the big man had pulled him up on the couch like he weighed nothing. For a few seconds, he couldn’t think, much less curse due to the pain that robbed his ability to draw a complete breath. When it finally eased some, he gasped for breath and glared at the other man now sitting back in the chair with the bowl in his hands.

  “Hell, fire, and damnation! Did you have to be so rough?”

  Abe frowned before speaking. “Uh, sorry. Guess I wasn’t thinking past getting you up so you could eat.”

  He pushed the spoon of broth at his mouth. Russell continued to scowl at the man as he opened his mouth and swallowed the broth. After a few seconds of silence as the man fed him, Russell realized that while a little bland, the broth was pretty damn good, but then again, he hadn’t had anything to eat in a while, either. He wondered how long it had been since he and the bear had met up.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “’Bout three days. Surprised the hell out of me that you lived.” Abe spooned the last of the liquid from the bowl into Russell’s mouth.

  “Uh, thanks for helping me.” Russell looked down at his hand. His other arm was pretty much bandaged to his chest.

  “Not out of the woods yet.” Abe got up and took both the chair and the bowl with him when he walked off.

  Russell sighed. The other man didn’t seem to have much to say, and he was chock-full of positive thoughts. Not that it hadn’t been what he had been thinking earlier anyway. It just seemed a little harsh coming from someone else.

  A few minutes later, Abe returned to the living room and added a log to the fire. He turned around and leaned against the mantel with one arm. He just stared at Russell for a few seconds as if trying to make up his mind about something. Finally he let out a deep breath and spoke up.

  “You’d probably like to know that you managed to get a killing blow in on that bear you tangled with. Hit his lung. I found him a little ways into the woods, drawing his last breath.”

  “Well, hell. Figured all I did was piss him off more. Did you get anything good out of him before the scavengers got to him?”

  Abe shrugged. “Didn’t bother with the meat since by the time I made it back from sewing you up and tending to things around her, it had been too long. I did skin him though. Got his hide stretched out in the barn.”

  “Well, thanks again for bothering with me. You live here alone?” Russ
ell figured he did, since he hadn’t seen anyone else around when he’d been lucid.

  “Yep. Not many folks venture this deep in the woods or this far north. Like it fine like that, too.”

  “I understand. That’s why I headed this way, myself. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I get back on my feet.”

  “So long as you don’t make a nuisance of yourself, there’s no hurry. Besides, winter is about here. You won’t make it without somewhere to hunker down.” Abe’s gruff words surprised him.

  Before Russell could say anything, the big man stomped off. A few seconds later, a door behind him slammed shut. He guessed as far as welcomes went, he’d just gotten his.

  Chapter Three

  The wind grew colder with each step Celina Berry took, and the weight of the oversized backpack seemed to increase as well. She had no idea where she was or even if she was heading in the right direction. She glanced up at the darkening sky and prayed she would find shelter soon. She would never survive out in the open at night with the cold wind and dangerous animals roaming about.

  She refused to break down and cry while she needed to concentrate on staying upright. When she found somewhere safe to rest, she would let her heart weep for all that she had lost. Celina continued to keep the river on her left in sight and followed it as close as she was able. It was the only constant landmark she could remember from the map. Too bad it had been covered in blood and made worthless.

  Her mind wondered as she trudged on. Memories of she and Roger clinging to each other during that horrifying year where the world as she’d known it had ceased to exist, teased her mind. They’d been twenty and newlyweds, giddy with love and proud of their two-bedroom rental house in Knoxville, Tennessee. Then everything blew up on them. The killer storms with multiple tornadoes that left little behind. The rain had led to floods that led to disease. The earthquakes buried what the tornadoes had toppled. There had been so little left of the bustling city they’d both grown up in.