Holiday Homecoming. Jillian Hart

phone. “I’ve got dispatch to make this a priority.”

      Kristin didn’t need to ask. She could see the truth in his eyes. The young college girl could be seriously injured. “What do you need me to do?”

      “The car is stable. I’m not worried about it rolling any farther down the ravine. The trees here are pretty sturdy. How do you feel about climbing in the back seat?”

      “Sure.” Kristin slipped the cell into her coat pocket, struggling with the stubborn door. Ice cracked around the handle and she slipped into the rapidly cooling interior of the compact sedan.

      The beam of the flashlight danced eerily around the silent passenger compartment, as Ryan wedged it into place on the dashboard. The golden stream illuminated a beaded cross hanging from the rearview mirror, a small stuffed puppy tucked into the middle console next to an insulated coffee cup with the name Samantha and the Greek symbols of a sorority printed on it. And then she saw the college girl’s thick and beautiful brown wavy hair matted with blood.

      Kristin shivered all the way to her bone marrow. The only time she’d seen anyone seriously hurt was after the private plane went down, when Allison had died. Her sister Kirby had also been in the plane, but had survived.

      Kristin had been a freshman in high school, and with all the time that had passed since, it felt so long ago. But the images returned as crisp and clear as if they’d happened an hour ago. The fear for her critically injured sister, the beep of machines, the frightening reality of death as they all waited for Kirby to regain consciousness, terrified that she’d slip away into an irreversible coma and death.

      Kirby had survived.

      Please, Lord, help this young woman. She was too young to die.

      “I need your help,” Ryan said, fracturing her thoughts, working quickly as he dug through the first-aid kit with one free hand. “Hold her head and neck steady from behind while I try to stop this bleeding.”

      “Steady, huh?” That’s the last thing she was. Kristin stared at her quivering hands. She took a deep breath. Willed the fear to stop.

      “Like this.” He guided her hands. “Cradle her as still as you can. She could have a neck injury, and this will minimize any further damage while I work. All right?”

      Kristin knew he meant how important this was. The difference between paralysis and movement, between life and death. Her hands had to be rock steady. She made sure of it.

      Ryan was unbreakable steel. Checking vitals, applying pressure and bandages, assessing for further injuries. As he worked, he talked low and reassuring.

      “Can you hear me, Samantha? I’m a doctor, if you can believe that. And that’s Kristin, in the seat behind you. Say hi, Kristin.”

      “Hi, Samantha.”

      The injured woman murmured, but nothing more. Kristin felt the slightest of movements beneath her fingertips, the drum of a very slow pulse and the flex of muscles, as if the girl was trying to awaken.

      “Hold her steady.” Ryan’s grave gaze said everything.

      Samantha was seriously injured. Without mercy, the storm raged, the snow pounding like rain. Could help even make it through the blizzard in time? There was so little Ryan could do here, with few supplies. She didn’t dare say the words aloud. She’d never felt so helpless.

      But Ryan looked confident. In charge. He was amazing. Hope seeped into Kristin’s heart as she watched his skilled hands working to stanch the flow of blood from several gashes along the girl’s hairline. Blood seemed to be everywhere, but he worked on, composed and sure. She saw on his face the dedication she expected a doctor to have. The seriousness.

      And something more rare. Compassion.

      When he was done, he seemed to give a sigh of relief. He checked his patient’s pulse using his wristwatch, frowned and asked for his cell. Shivering and seeming to be unaware of it, he made another call to the county dispatch.

      “They’re almost here.” Ryan handed her the flashlight. “Or so the operator says. It’s hard going for them, and with this poor visibility, they could drive right past the Jeep and miss us. Would you mind going up to flag them down?”

      “Sure.”

      His fingers moved into place between hers, supporting Samantha’s head and neck with extreme care. She read the fear he held for the young college woman in his shadowed eyes. She remembered when her sister Kirby had been in intensive care. She knew exactly what hung in the balance. A life. She knew all that meant, truly meant, unlike so many people who went around living lives they took for granted.

      All it took was a split second for everything to change. For life to never be the same again. Would Samantha live? Would she be in a wheelchair or on crutches for the years to come?

      Holding on to hope for the best outcome, Kristin scrambled up the slope, fighting the wind and snow driving at her back and the brambles grabbing at her feet. The shadows she saw in Ryan’s eyes stayed with her as she fought to the top. Shadows of grief that broke her heart as she burst onto the lonely expanse of country road, where no other soul stirred on this cruel night. And so she waited, shivering and alone, for help that felt as if it would never come.

      The rumble of the fire truck’s engines, muffled by the snow, faded into the distance. Although the taillights had long faded, Kristin watched. She couldn’t get the injured college student out of her mind.

      Ryan marched toward her, swiping snow out of his eyes as he crossed in front of the SUV’s headlights. Burnished by light, surrounded by darkness, he looked more myth than man as he yanked open the passenger door for her.

      Woodenly she eased into the seat, stiff with cold, but not feeling anything but a horrible void. Tepid air breezed out of the vents in the dash and she couldn’t feel it. The clock glowed the time—not thirty minutes had passed since they’d nearly followed Samantha Fields off the road.

      Snow drifted inside with Ryan as he collapsed in the seat and slammed the door. He filled the seat, slumping with his head rolling back against the headrest. His presence made the passenger compartment shrink. “I was able to get through to Tim, a friend I used to work with. He’s one of the best surgeons in this area, and he’s agreed to meet Samantha at the hospital. He’ll take excellent care of her.”

      “You took the time to do that?”

      “Sure. Helping people is what I do. It’s why I studied all those years. Why I’m in debt for a few hundred grand.” Although exhaustion lined his face and bruised the skin beneath his eyes, his wink was saucy.

      She had watched while he worked tirelessly alongside the medics stabilizing Samantha’s neck and spine so that she had the best possible outcome, in case of a spinal cord injury. All in a day’s work for him, maybe, but she’d never seen anyone like him.

      She pulled off her mittens, now that the heater was kicking out a decent hot breeze. “Let’s trade places. I’ll drive and let you sit here and warm your hands. You’ve got to be half frozen.”

      “The cold never used to bother me. I’ve been away from Montana too long. It’s the Phoenix weather. It’s thinned my blood. Now I turn into an icicle the second it snows. It’s not manly. It’s embarrassing.”

      “I’m embarrassed for you.” She’d never met a better example of what a man should be, but he seemed unaware that he was that and more. “Move. Go on. I can’t drive from over here.”

      As if too exhausted to lift his head from the seat back, Ryan swiveled his eyes to focus on her with a disbelieving look. One eyebrow crooked with obvious skepticism. “You’d really drive? You’re not just saying that, right?”

      “Right.”

      “You’re not afraid to drive in this stuff?”

      “Do I look as if I’m shaking in my boots? No.”

      “But