Wyoming Christmas Ransom. Nicole Helm

we can discuss tomorrow.”

      Laurel nodded. “Fair enough. Just one little piece of advice. Either cut all of it off for good, or accept you’re going to be a part of it. Don’t sit here in a back-and-forth. Make a choice and stick with it. You’ll feel a lot better.”

      “Aren’t you going to tell me which choice?”

      “You two look far too serious for a party,” Grady said, coming up to them and taking Laurel’s hand in his. “On your feet. You’re going to dance with me.”

      “I’m a terrible dancer,” Laurel returned with a laugh, but she let Grady pull her to her feet. She left her beer bottle, grinning as Grady gave her a little spin toward the small throng of people dancing to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

      But Laurel smiled over her shoulder at Gracie. “You pick the one you can live with,” she called over the crowd and the music.

      One she could live with. Gracie frowned. That was the worst advice she’d ever been given. She couldn’t live with either possibility. She had told him she couldn’t help him anymore because she was afraid she was making him worse. She meant that choice, but it didn’t make it easy.

      She cared about Will. Had even said it to his face and watched him blanch outside this very bar. As if care was some kind of horrible disease she’d foisted upon him.

       You decided to cut him off, so cut him off.

      She nodded, willing herself to hit the voice mail button, which she did. Then willing herself to hit Delete without listening to a second. For that act, she paused.

      She’d cut him off. He didn’t want a friend. He was allergic to emotion and she was no therapist, so she couldn’t possibly fix him. She couldn’t go after him and make things right because he was too closed off, too obsessed, too...

      She hit Play, then berated herself. She wasn’t going to listen. She was not going to listen or get dragged into helping him with things that weren’t any good for him.

      “Gracie.”

      Oh hell, she had to listen.

      “I need your help.” Said in a breathless, gritty voice, as if he was straining against something. Some horrible screeching noise went on in the background, so loud she could barely hear his voice over it.

      “Laurel,” she yelled, already on her feet, already heading for the door. “Who’s on duty at county?”

      * * *

      WILL THOUGHT HE heard sirens. Which was weird. He couldn’t hear sirens in his cabin. He couldn’t hear anything except bird song, and the occasional rumble of an engine on Fridays.

      Gracie. Always Gracie.

      It registered, vague and faint, somewhere in the recesses of his brain, that he was cold. And uncomfortable.

      No, not uncomfortable, on fire. Painful fire, frigid cold. It didn’t make any sense and he couldn’t seem to open his eyes.

      Well, this was bad.

      Something like panic fluttered in his chest, but everything in his body was throbbing with pain. He wasn’t at home in his cabin. He wasn’t on his mountain. He was somewhere... Somewhere.

      He couldn’t open his eyes, and he couldn’t move without a fiery agony spreading through his body. Things were digging into him and one arm was at an uncomfortable angle tangled up in something hard.

      He could still hear sirens, but it was all so far off he wondered if it had anything to do with him or if it was just all in his head.

      Then they stopped. Just stopped.

      He was going to die, wasn’t he? Something had gone wrong with his car. He didn’t quite remember what, but everything had gone wrong and he’d crashed and he was going to die.

       Just like Paula. Exactly like it.

      “Will? Will!”

      He must be hallucinating. There’d be no reason Gracie would be out this way. Certainly no reason she’d be his saving grace. Gracie. Grace. He might have laughed if he didn’t think his head would roll right off.

      “Will? Oh my—I found him!” she shouted, and he could almost hear her or someone or something next to his ear.

      “Will. Oh God. Will. Please.” When she touched him he groaned, because everything hurt, even Gracie’s very welcome touch.

      “You’re alive. You’re alive.” She whispered it over and over, her hand still on his chest. He felt the gentle brush of her fingertips across his forehead. Finally a part of his body that didn’t hurt.

      “Say something, Will. If you’re awake. If you can hear me. Say something. Please.”

      He heard footsteps and a murmur of someone else, but Gracie was talking to him and her fingers were on his face. She sounded desperate and afraid, and he didn’t want that for her. No.

      He tried to open his eyes again, and this time they went a little. Everything was dark though there was some kind of light, but he couldn’t see right. He could tell that. Nothing was right.

      His Jeep had malfunctioned. He’d crashed. And he couldn’t believe that was an accident.

      His vision cleared a little, and he could just barely make out Gracie’s face hovering above him. The world around them was dark but some light swathed her face, and he could see every feature.

      He had the oddest urge to reach out and touch her face. Touch her hair. Anything to assure himself she was real and here, and that all that worry and fear on her face was for him. Him.

      I care about you, Will.

      Turns out even half-dead after a car accident those words could still haunt and chill him.

      “Will, an ambulance is on the way. Don’t try to move. But, can you talk? Say something?” She leaned closer, the wisps of her hair sliding across his cheek, which felt like it had been ripped off.

      “Say something to me, please,” she whispered, and he thought he saw a few tears slide down her cheeks.

      Say something. He had to say something. Make all this stop. She could cry when he was full dead instead of just half.

      “Believe me now?” he rasped.

      A pained expression crossed her face and she looked up, her face turning into a flashing red light.

      “The ambulance is here,” she said quietly. “I’m going to go flag them down. Don’t—”

      But he gripped her arm with the one hand that was functioning and didn’t feel like it was being stabbed by a machete. “Don’t go.” He had the panicked thought that if she left he would die, and he found he wasn’t quite interested in that prospect.

      “I’ll get them.”

      Will didn’t know whose voice that was. He only knew it was male and Will didn’t particularly care for it. Had she been on a date?

      But he didn’t have time to dwell on that uncomfortable thought as footsteps and voices surrounded them. Then he was being touched and prodded and moved, and he tried to bite back groans of pain, but he couldn’t manage it.

      Then he was on a stretcher, being moved and jerked into an ambulance.

      “Gracie.”

      “I’m here,” she said, and though he couldn’t see her with the paramedics looming over him, a slim, cool hand slid into his.

      More voices, more movement, a door slam. And through it all, Gracie’s hand held his. Like she’d been doing for the past two years. The only person he’d come to rely on.

      “What happened?” she asked gently as a paramedic shined a light into one eye and then the other.