but his lungs were burning from the exertion. So were the muscles in his arms and legs. He had to fight to hold on to his breath. The air held the sickening smell of things that were never meant to be burned.
He lay Marin and Noah down on the dried winter grass beside him, but Noah obviously intended to be with Lucky. He clamped his chubby little arms around Lucky’s neck and held on, gripping him in a vise.
“You’re okay,” Lucky murmured. And because he didn’t know what else to say, he repeated it.
To protect Noah from the wind and cold, Lucky tucked him inside his leather jacket and zipped it up as far as he could. Noah didn’t protest. But he did lookup at him, questioning him with tearfilled eyes. That look, those tears broke Lucky’s heart. It was a look that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“Your mom’s going to be all right,” Lucky whispered.
He prayed that was true.
Lucky pulled Marin closer so his body heat would keep her warm, and used his hand and shirt sleeve as a compress. He applied some gentle pressure against her injured head, hoping it would slow the bleeding. She didn’t move when he touched her, not even a twitch.
He heard the first wail of ambulance sirens. Already close. Thankfully, they were just on the outskirts of Austin so the response time would be quick. The fire-fighters wouldn’t be far behind. Lucky knew the drill. They’d set up a triage system, and the passengers with the most severe, but treatable injuries would be seen first. That meant Marin. She’d get the medical attention she needed.
“You’re going to stay alive, Marin,” Lucky ordered. “You hear me? Stay alive. The medics are on the way. Listen to the sirens. Listen! They’re getting closer. They’ll be here in just a few minutes.”
Noah volleyed uncertain glances between Lucky and his mother. He stuck out his quivering bottom lip. For a moment Lucky thought the little boy might burst into tears again, but he didn’t. Maybe the shock and adrenaline caught up with him, because even though his eyes watered, he stuck his thumb in his mouth and snuggled against Lucky.
It wasn’t a sensation Lucky had counted on.
But it was a damn powerful one.
What was left of his breath vanished, and feelings went through him that he’d never experienced. Feelings he couldn’t even identify except for the fact that they brought out every protective instinct in his body.
“What are your injuries?” Lucky heard someone shout. He looked up and saw a pair of medics racing toward him. They weren’t alone. More were running toward some of the other passengers.
“We’re not hurt. But she is,” Lucky said pulling back his hand from Marin’s injured head.
The younger of the two, a dark-haired woman, didn’t take Lucky’s word about not being injured. She began to examine Noah and him. Noah whined and tried to bat herhands away when she checked his pupils. The other medic, a fortysomething Hispanic man, went to work on Marin.
“She’s Code Yellow,” the medic barked to his partner. “Head trauma.”
That started a flurry of activity, and the woman yelled for a stretcher.
Code Yellow. Marin’s condition was urgent, but she was likely to survive.
“I need your name,” the female medic insisted, forcing his attention back to her. “And the child’s.”
Lucky’s stomach clenched.
It was a simple request. And it was standard operating procedure for triage processing. But Lucky knew it was only the beginning of lots of questions. If he answered some of those questions, especially the part about Noah being a near stranger, they’d take the little boy right out of his arms, and the authorities would hold on to him until they could contact the next of kin.
The very thing that Marin didn’t want to happen.
Because her parents and her brother, Dexter, were Noah’s next of kin.
Some choice.
As if he understood what was going on, Noah looked up at him with those big blue-green eyes. There were no questions. No doubts. Not even a whimper.
But there was trust. Complete, unconditional trust.
Noah’s eyelids fluttered down, his thumb went back in his mouth, and he rested his cheek against Lucky’s heart.
Oh, man.
It seemed like some symbolic gesture, but it probably had more to do with the kid’s sheer exhaustion than anything else. Still, Lucky couldn’t push it aside. Nor could he push aside what Marin had asked of him when they’d been trying to stay alive.
If I don’t make it, get Noah out of here. Protect him.
And in that crazy life-or-death moment, Lucky had promised her that he would do just that.
It was a promise he’d keep.
“Sir,” the medic prompted. “I need you to tell me the child’s name.”
It took Lucky a moment to say anything. “I’m Randall Davidson. This is my son, Noah,” he lied. He tipped his head toward Marin. “And she’s my fiancé, Marin Sheppard.”
In order to protect the frightened little boy in his arms, Lucky figured he’d have to continue that particular lie for an hour or two until Marin regained consciousness or until he could call her friend in Fort Worth. Not long at all, considering his promise.
He owed Noah and Marin that much.
And he might owe them a hell of a lot more.
Chapter Three
Marin heard someone say her name.
It was a stranger’s voice.
She wondered if it was real or all part of the relentless nightmare she’d been having. A nightmare of explosions and trains. At least, she thought it might be a train. The only clear image that kept going through her mind was of a pair of snakeskin boots. Everything else was a chaotic blur of sounds and smells and pain. Mostly pain. There were times when it was unbearable.
“Marin?” she heard the strange voice say again.
It was a woman. She sounded real, and Marin thought she might have felt someone gently touch her cheek.
She tried to open her eyes and failed the first time, but then tried again. She was instantly sorry that she’d succeeded. The bright overhead lights stabbed right into her eyes and made her wince.
Marin groaned.
Just like that, with a soft click, the lights went away. “Better?” the woman asked.
Marin managed a nod that hurt, as well.
The dimmed lighting helped, but her head was still throbbing, and it seemed as if she had way too many nerves in that particular part of her body. The pain was also affecting
