Gage rolled his eyes as Felicia stormed off. He turned around and kicked a rock in frustration. She was right, he had been acting like a huffy, teenage girl, but dammit, that was the best sex he’d had since...well, since the last time he’d made love to her.

It wasn’t his fault that he’d read more into it than had really been there. Usually when a woman fucked him, she was at least partly emotionally involved. Guess that wasn’t the case with her.

Dammit!

But even as he cursed and fumed, the lassitude and pleasure of really great sex had settled low in his groin. He’d missed just how much she satisfied him in every way.

He closed his eyes, savoring for a moment just how good it had felt to be inside her again. He groaned. Fuck, he’d missed her. He couldn’t lose her now. He squared his shoulders, finished dressing, and took off at a fast jog, hoping to catch up with Felicia before she made it to the parking lot.

He caught a glimpse of her, but when he yelled and began to run after her, the hiker turned in surprise. Dammit that was a guy. It was hard to see his expression since he wore a hoodie and large, oversized sunglasses, but he took off at a sprint.

Nice.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else,” Gage called after him, but he was already long gone. Fuck. Not only had Gage run off his girl, but now he was terrifying perfect strangers in the middle of the forest.

He slowed down, just so someone didn’t call the police about the unhinged hiker in the woods.

But Felicia must not have been worrying about that, because he never caught up with her. When he arrived in the parking lot, he only saw the taillights of an old Ford Bronco leaving the parking lot. It looked like the one he’d wanted in high school...black with sunset trim. He hadn’t seen one of those in decades. Even when he was in high school, most of them barely drove. It was probably a collectible now.

Just another thing he’d missed out that he’d wanted, but he wasn’t going to give up on Felicia so easily. He climbed into his Jeep and took off down the mountain pass.

He didn’t spot her for a good twenty minutes of the drive, but just as they came off the mountain, he finally spotted her old Dodge truck about half a mile in front of him. He stomped on the accelerator, hoping there were no cops around, although at this point, he’d just follow her home.

As the road came off the mountain, it made a wide curve and then crossed an intersection. The cross traffic had a stop sign, but the road from the mountain didn’t. From higher up the hill where he was, he could see the disaster about to happen. Felicia had no idea.

His heart raced in panic.

He screamed as the old Bronco from the parking lot flew through the light, hitting Felicia’s truck just behind the driver’s side door, sending it spinning. Felicia’s truck hit the edge of the pavement and tumbled and rolled, picking up speed down the steep incline of the shoulder of the road.

Her truck rolled three times before finally coming to rest on its roof in the ditch.

Gage couldn’t take his eyes off that flipped truck, its wheels spinning in the air and smoke coming out of the undercarriage. Oh, god. How hurt was she?

She couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.

How upset had she been when she left the parking lot? Had she put on her seat belt?

Please be okay, he prayed. All the things that could have gone wrong spun through his head. He barreled his Jeep down the road to where she’d come to rest, sliding to a stop on the shoulder, not even knowing how he’d arrived there.

He jumped out of the Jeep.

“Felicia!” He slid down the embankment of the shoulder of the road, the high brush scraping at his arms as he flailed to maintain his balance on the loose soil.

In the truck’s tumble, the driver’s side door ended up the farthest away from him. Running to get to her felt like trying to wade through molasses. He couldn’t move fast enough to reach her.

The smell of gas filled the air and heat from the engine clicked ominously, although a quick glance didn’t reveal a fire...yet.

His knees slammed on the ground as he dropped beside the driver’s door. The cab roof had caved in a good foot, so there wasn’t much of a hole to see into. The glass was gone, so Gage reached in, touching her shoulder. He couldn’t see her face. “Felicia, can you hear me?”

She moaned.

As relief flooded him, blood flowed back to his extremities. She was still alive. “Come on, baby. Talk to me. Are you okay?”

With the way the cab was collapsed, it was impossible to tell anything about how badly injured she might be. All he could see was part of her shoulder and the backside of her head, which appeared to be twisted slightly.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice low and scratchy with confusion.

“Someone hit you, and your truck flipped. Can you tell me what hurts?”

She made a small choked sound, and he could see her trying to move.

“Don’t move, baby. I don’t want you to hurt something.”

A man came up behind him. “I called nine-one-one. Is the driver okay?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. I can’t see enough to tell for sure, but she’s conscious.”

“Gage, don’t leave. Help. Please...” The sound of her distressed voice killed him, although she sounded stronger so that was a good sign.

He reached for her, touching her back lightly, trying to soothe her. “Help is on the way, Doc. Just hold still. Not too much longer. Listen. Do you hear the sirens? They’re coming.”

As soon as the paramedics and fire crews arrived, they tried to move Gage out of the way.

“No,” Gage argued. “I’m not leaving until you get her out.”

A fireman tugged hard on his shoulder, forcing him to stand. “Sir, unless you move, we won’t be able to do that. Come over here and talk to the police about what happened.”

A policeman took over and pulled Gage to the side to get his statement, and the firemen rushed in to see to Felicia. “You saw the accident happen, sir?”

“Yes, a Bronco...an old one...black with sunset trim, 1985 or ’86 model.” He shook his head. It had looked like the same Bronco he’d seen at the top of the mountain, but that wasn’t possible. It shouldn’t have been coming from that direction. But what were the odds of seeing two identical vehicles like that—when it had been years since he’d seen even one of them—on the same day?

After that, he had no idea what he told the police as he watched the activity around the cab of her truck. He focused all his energy on the glimpses he got of Felicia, praying that she was okay as they worked to get her free.

Finally, she was free, and he broke away from the police interrogation to rush to her side. A large brace encircled her neck, but thank fuck, she was alive and looked mostly okay. She waved everyone aside as the paramedics loaded her onto a stretcher.

When she spotted him, her expression morphed from a mix of annoyance and fear into relief. She reached out to him. “Gage, please tell them I’m okay. You can take me home, right?”

Gage glanced at the paramedic standing behind her, who slightly shook his head. The paramedic said, “I’ve been trying to explain to her that she needs to get that bump on her head checked out.”

Gage zoomed in on the small cut and blood seeping from a bump high on her temple. He lightly kissed the other side. “Let them do their job, Doc. I’ll take you home just as soon as the hospital clears you. Come on. You have medical training. You know how important it is to be sure. Besides, you had a concussion a couple of weeks ago. It would be better to be safe.”

The paramedic straightened. “You had a concussion recently?”

“Yes, but...”

“No, no ‘buts.’ Your friend is right. At a minimum, you need a CT scan and probably twenty-four hours observation. We’re taking you in.” The paramedic looked up at Gage. “You want to follow us to the hospital?”

Gage nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

He took off toward his Jeep, but the policeman stopped him. “I need to get the rest of your statement.”

Gage impatiently shook off the officer’s hand. “I’ll be in the ER with my friend. You can find me there.”

The back doors of the ambulance closed, and a stab of panic struck Gage in the middle of his gut. He didn’t want to let Felicia out of his sight. He had no idea what might happen, but his nerves jangled in warning. There was something going on that had put her in danger. She’d had way too many close calls, and he had no plans to let whoever was doing this get any closer.

The accident happened not far from the local hospital, so it took less than ten minutes for the ambulance to turn into the ER entrance. Gage parked in the first parking spot he found and took off at a run toward the ER doors.

He didn’t even stop at the reception area; he just barreled back to the curtained area where the patients were and immediately spotted Felicia. She was so pale and fragile looking.

A nurse called, “Sir, you can’t be back here.”

“It’s okay,” Felicia called out. “He’s with me.”

For a moment, the nurse in the maroon scrubs looked like she still planned on pushing him out, but she glanced back at Felicia with a sigh. “Okay, but only because things don’t look too serious with her condition.” She stared him down. “Don’t make me regret my lenience, though.”

“I won’t. Promise.” He strode over and grabbed Felicia’s hand. “Hey, you. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, seriously, I’m fine. There’s no reason for me to be here.” She was so pale, and her hand shook within his grasp.

With blood still trickling slowly down her forehead, Gage would believe that when a doctor said she was fine. “Let’s see what the doctor says. You’ve had a terrifying half an hour, and the adrenaline can hide a lot of aches and pains in the moment.”

A young doctor who looked to be barely out of medical school brushed through the curtain, looking down at a chart. “Felicia Parks?”

“Yes. That’s me.” Felicia’s grasp on his hand tightened like she needed some reassurance.

The doctor leaned forward and poked at the wound on her head. “You were in a car wreck?”

“Yes,” Felicia said.

“Her truck rolled over three times,” Gage added. He needed the doctor to know how serious her injuries could be after being tossed around that much.

The doctor’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?” He squinted his eyes and tilted his head at Felicia. “Is anything else hurting?” He gently palpitated her abdomen and listened to her breathing and heart rate. 

“I’m sore, but I think it’s just bruising and sore muscles.”

“Which is to be expected, but let’s do a thorough examination to make sure. What do you drive?”

She winced. “Well, I used to drive a 2004 Dodge dually. I don’t think I’ll be driving it anymore after today.”

The doctor nodded sagely. “Okay, now your condition is making more sense. Those old trucks didn’t have the best safety equipment like side airbags, but they made up for it in all-around durability. You were lucky.”

As they’d been talking, he’d been slowly working down her body, checking her joints and movement. She winced when he got to her right knee. He gently pulled up her jeans leg to expose a large, black bruise on the inside of her knee.

He lifted the joint and rotated it a few times. “I think this is probably just a bruise. The odds are good that your other knee has a matching one where your legs banged together. I’m going to order an x-ray just to make sure and a CT scan of your head.” He wrote something down in her file. “I think everything is okay, but I’d rather be safe so that you don’t have to come back in later tonight with an aggravated injury, because we didn’t catch something.”

Felicia nodded. “Okay, that sounds good.”

Since she didn’t seem to be too forthcoming with her history and possible complications, Gage said, “You should know, she took a blow to the head recently and was already dealing with a concussion.”

“That I’m fully recovered from,” Felicia corrected.

The doctor frowned and glanced back over her chart. “Hmm, no, that’s something I needed to know. When did this happen?”

“A few weeks ago, and I’m fine now...from both the accident today and from the blow to the head then. Believe me, I’ve gone to medical school—”

“Veterinary school, which does not qualify you to self-diagnose,” Gage interjected.

Felicia glared at him.

He raised his eyebrows in challenge. When it came to her safety, he had no intention of backing down.

“No, he’s right,” the doctor said. “It’s important that we know that. Repeated concussions can have severe complications, so let’s see how quickly we can get you in for that CT scan.”

“If you insist,” Felicia said on a sigh, but then she focused on Gage. “There’s no reason for you to stick around for this. Thanks, but I’m fine.”

“If you think I’m leaving, then you took a harder blow to the head than any of us realize.” He swallowed, not wanting to say the next part, but knew he couldn’t ignore it. “Do you want me to call Steven?”

Her gaze dropped to her lap, and she paled a bit more.

Damn. He didn’t want her feeling guilty about what they’d done in Snowcroft.

“No, we aren’t together anymore. Don’t call him.”

His heart soared. After the events of this morning in the forest and now this news, he might actually have a chance with her, despite the fact she’d run off this morning. But first, they had to make sure she was okay.

He nodded and kissed the top of her head. “Whatever you need, Doc.”