Read Online Winter's Touch by Janis Reams Hudson - Free Book Online Page A

us, but she took the worst of it.”
    “Both?” Innes demanded.
    “Da?” the woman whispered. “Crooked Oak…was going to kill him.”
    “Aye, I saw. You saved Carson’s life, lassie. Are ye bad hurt?”
    “Aye, I be thinking I am. Hunter and…the girls are…waiting with…the horses. We couldna…find ye.”
    “I’m here, now, lassie. Dinna talk. Dinna be movin’.” Innes’s brogue was thicker than usual. “We’ll take care of ye. Shot you both?” he asked Carson again, his voice quiet but tense. “The arrow went clean through her?”
    Carson glanced down and even that slight movement drew a hiss from between his teeth. “Clean through both of us. She’s pinned to me, and I’m pinned to the tree. But she’s got the worst of it. For me I think it’s just under the skin.”
    In the act of pulling the big knife from the scabbard at his belt, Innes paused and cursed under his breath. At least, it sounded like a curse to Carson. It could have been a prayer.
    “Lass,” Innes said, his voice taut, “if you’ve a mind to pass out, now be the time for it. I’m going to cut the arrow off back here, then pull you off of it. I willna hurt you more than I have to, but it’ll still be bad.”
    Looking down into her eyes, Carson could not fathom why she was still conscious, but she was. She leaned her head against his chest and raised to her eyes to his as she answered her father. “Be gettin’ it done, then, Da.”
    “Aye. Carson, can you hold the shaft steady from your side?”
    With another hissed breath, Carson reached a hand between his side and hers. The arrow that pinned her to him left barely enough room for him to grasp it between their bodies. He was relieved to realize he’d been right. While it hurt like a blue bitch, the arrow had skimmed along the outside of his ribs and lay just beneath his skin. That meant his wound wasn’t serious. But it also meant the arrow would be less stable when Innes started to work. He grasped it as tightly as he could.
    His grip made the shaft move slightly, and the woman pinned to him moaned.
    “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He could feel now where the arrow exited her body. It must have entered her back at her waist, a couple of inches from her side, for it came out just below her ribs. “God, I’m sorry,” he whispered again.
    “Ready?” Innes asked.
    “All right,” he whispered. “Do it.”
    With a soft curse, Innes snapped the arrow off, leaving about two inches protruding from his daughter’s back.
    The girl grunted in pain.
    “All right, lass, here we go.”
    Carson held the arrow as steady as possible while Innes pulled her slowly off the shaft. It seemed to Carson that it took forever. Throughout the ordeal, she never took her eyes from his. Something passed between them in those eternal seconds. A communication, wordless, indefinable. She had been pinned to his chest. They had been joined. Connected. A new connection formed now even as she was being separated from him.
    And he thought, I don’t even know her name.
    As the broken end of the shaft slipped free of her flesh, she let out a soft moan and passed out, falling limp in her father’s arms.
    Innes had his hands full, but Carson had a burning need to unpin himself from the tree before anything else happened. He would have to literally walk himself off of the shaft, but he didn’t relish walking himself off the extra six or eight inches that was sticking out of him. He needed to cut it off. “Pass me your knife,” he said tightly.
    Innes looked up sharply. “Give me a minute and I’ll be gettin’ ye unstuck there, lad.”
    “I’ll do it.” He didn’t want to, but he’d dug a bullet out of his own leg once. This couldn’t be nearly that bad. “She dropped her knife there by your knee. Hand it to me.”
    Innes might have argued, but just then his daughter moaned. He handed Carson the knife and gave the girl his attention.
    Carson gritted his teeth and, using the knife,