For Catie, Tonia and my Brony, who came up with the name for this hero. Thanks for helping me create a memorable hero.
And to all the girls out there. If there’s one lesson I want you to have from this story, it’s that love will find you—sometimes you just have to wait.
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Preston Worth might very well die this time. Liam Casek stripped off his shirt and tore away a wide strip with an efficiency born of too much experience—he’d patched up Preston more than once. But tonight might be the last time. He pressed the wad of cloth to the gash in Preston’s chest, alarmed by its location so near a lung and alarmed by the size of the crimson spread. It was too much for a mere strip of linen to staunch.
‘Case!’ Preston groaned with hoarse urgency, frantically grabbing at his arm to make him listen. ‘Leave me, they might be back.’ ‘They’ being the ambushers who’d come upon them on the road at dusk. There’d simply been too many to fight off, yet they had succeeded, at the price of Preston’s wound. It might have been Preston’s wound that saved them. The ambushers had retreated, perhaps convinced the natural course of events would finish off their prey.
‘Be still,’ Liam growled, all gruffness as he tied another strip around Preston’s chest to hold the bandage in place. ‘We have to get you stitched up.’ But the bleeding had to stop first. He racked his brain for a plan. The nearest town was two miles back. ‘Cover the bandage with your hand and press hard.’ Liam got his hands under Preston’s armpits. ‘We’re going to get you to the verge.’ He hated moving Preston, but the middle of the road was no place for a wounded man in the dark. It made an easy target for careless carriages and returning thugs.
Preston grunted against the pain as Liam hauled him to the side, no easy feat considering Preston was as tall as he was—a few inches over six foot, and nearly a dead weight—hopefully not about to become more dead. Liam propped his friend against a sturdy tree trunk and examined the bandage as best he could in the fading light. It would be entirely dark soon. Damn winter! There was never enough daylight and Liam desperately needed some now. He could feel rather than see the blood soaking the bandage.
‘I hurt, Case,’ Preston admitted and
