Page 71 of Guarded Hearts
“Carson…” Nothing but a weak squeak emitted from her.
“Jesus Christ!” The roar came from feet away. Peering up through the curtain of blood covering her face, she saw Carson sprinting toward her.
“Oh fuck! Layne! What the hell happened?”
She tried to answer, but her mouth only opened and closed.
“Don’t talk.” He scooped her off her feet and took off running. The orders he bellowed at Colt hardly registered in her dazed and confused brain.
“Get her to the ER. Fuck! I’m going back inside the barn, Carson.”
“Call for backup. Be careful. Shoot to kill.”
Those words sent a wave of fresh, icy fear through her body. Then he shoved her into the truck. When he gunned it down the driveway, she slumped in her seat, suddenly aware that she had a cloth pressed against her bleeding face. When she glanced over at Carson, he was shirtless.
Her stomach heaved, and she was pretty sure she blacked out for most of the ride because she didn’t remember anything more until he pulled her out of the truck and carried her into the hospital in his arms.
“We need help! Now!” His roar rocked her already-fragile skull. More nausea rose up her throat.
Questions ricocheted all around her from doctors and nurses, but she couldn’t answer any of them. All she was aware of was Carson beside her. Her hand in his.
Chapter Seventeen
The small room felt suffocating. With the doctor and nurse on either side of her hospital bed with Carson’s big body taking up the space the medical equipment didn’t, there wasn’t even room for Layne to breathe.
Her neck was beginning to ache from tilting her head upward for the emergency room doctor to examine her face.
Could the lights be any brighter? The harsh fluorescents made tears form in the corners of her eyes. Even blinking hurt her, tugging the ragged skin of the wound she still had no idea how she got.
The doctor, a woman with kind brown eyes, gently probed the gash on Layne’s face. Then she dropped her hands and moved to the sink to wash them.
As soon as she vacated the spot, Carson took her place at Layne’s bedside. His big hand enveloped hers, and he pressed her fingers lightly.
“Are you going to stitch her?” His voice grated, in opposition to the tenderness in his gaze when he looked at her.
When the doctor stood at the foot of the bed, she wasn’t smiling. “The cut isn’t uniform. If it were, I’d stich it right now and send you home with pain medication. But I don’t think you’d be happy with that outcome, as it would definitely leave a prominent scar. I’m going to call in the plastic surgeon.”
Layne barely registered the words.
“How soon can they get her patched up? She’s still bleeding.”
It was Layne’s turn to squeeze Carson’s fingers in an attempt to soothe him. He sounded ready to pound the pulp out of anybody in this hospital who failed her.
“I’ll call for the surgeon right now. I believe Dr. Patel is already in the hospital for another patient.” She patted Layne’s foot under the thin, almost useless blanket that was spread over her. “Don’t worry—he’ll fix you up right. He’s the best.”
The doctor left the room with instructions for the nurse to reapply a bandage to Layne’s face. As soon as the young woman left her alone with Carson, he seemed to deflate.
All the air left him, and he bowed over her. “You’re going to be okay, doll. The surgeon will do what he promises or I’ll bury him in a shallow grave.”
She might have giggled at his threat if she weren’t still nauseated and chilled with shock. Her body couldn’t keep up with what happened to her.
He strummed the back of her fingers again. “What were you doing at your ranch? I’m pretty sure I told you not to leave the house without me.”
“I was going to grab some muffin tins for Faye. I knew you were at Golden Horizon, so I took the back way between our ranches.” She searched his face, more aware of the lines carved around his steel-gray eyes, put there by her. “I tried to call you—three times. You didn’t answer.”
He shook his head. “I never got a call. Where’s your phone? Give it to me.”
She fished it out of her back pocket and held it out to him.