To The Rescue. Jean Barrett

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СКАЧАТЬ on the road. By the time she reached the castle, it might be too deep to permit any effort to rescue him.

      Besides, Jennifer knew she couldn’t bring herself to leave him here. He needed immediate attention and shelter from a temperature that had become dangerously frigid. Her destination could provide both.

      No choice about it then. She would have to take him with her. But how on earth was she to achieve that when he was unconscious? She couldn’t carry him to her car. He was much too heavy for that.

      What was her chance of rousing him just long enough to coax him to shift himself under his own power into her car? Maybe not good, but it was all she had.

      Sliding back into the Ford at the side of the road, she spent a few precious minutes positioning it on the shoulder as close to the ditch as she dared and with its passenger door directly opposite the back end of the SUV. He’d have only steps to go. Providing, that is, he could exert enough energy to climb out of the ditch.

      Making sure the passenger door was wide open and ready to receive him, Jennifer eased herself down the slope that had now grown slick with snow. She eagerly hoped he would be awake when she arrived back at the driver’s side of the SUV. He wasn’t.

      Bending down to scoop up a handful of snow, she leaned into the vehicle and rubbed the stuff over his face, thinking its icy wetness might revive him. There was no reaction.

      All right, if an application of snow wasn’t going to work, then it was time to try something less gentle. Seizing his arm, she shook him vigorously, shouting into his face. “Come on, hear me, whoever you are, and open your eyes!”

      To her joy, he groaned, but his eyes remained closed. She didn’t know what else to do, except to get tough. With the palm of her hand, she began to slap him across his beard-roughened cheeks.

      Success! He stirred at last, cursing angrily and batting at her hand. “You try that again,” he growled, “and I’ll—”

      “I will slap you again if you don’t listen to me. You have to come with me. I’m going to put you in my car and take you to a place where there will be someone to help you.”

      No reaction.

      “Do you understand? You’ve had an accident. You need to get out of your car and into mine. It’s only a few steps away. Can you manage that much if I help you?”

      He mumbled something she didn’t comprehend. He was obviously dazed, perhaps in a bad state of shock, but her urgency must have reached him on some level because he began to drag himself out of the car.

      He was weaving when he finally came erect beside the SUV. “Hurts,” he complained, pressing a hand against his chest.

      Another concern, she thought. He must have injured more than just his head. There was no time to question it.

      “We have to move. You can rest once you’re inside my car.”

      “Yeah,” he said gruffly. She wondered if he had any idea at all who was speaking to him.

      The next few minutes were difficult ones. Not only as solid as stone, he was tall, easily six feet or more in height. Supporting that weight, with her arm flung around his waist and his own arm draped over her shoulder, was a challenge she undertook but never wanted to repeat. Somehow, stumbling and staggering, they fought their way out of the ditch with the snow driving into their faces at a furious pace.

      Jennifer was winded by the time they reached the Ford. She was able to deposit him in the passenger seat where he immediately collapsed, lapsing back into unconsciousness.

      Although she wanted nothing more than to get them away from this place as quickly as possible, she spared another moment to trudge back to the SUV. The engine must have stalled when he smashed into the boulder, but the key was still turned on in the ignition and the headlights burning. She switched off the lights, pocketed the key, then trained her flashlight into the back. There was a suitcase on the seat.

      Taking the piece of luggage with her, she went back to the road where she shoved it into the trunk of her car next to her own suitcase. Once behind the wheel of the Ford again, she leaned over him to fasten his seat belt in place. He might be in no state to care, but she did.

      “No more risks,” she informed him.

      She got no response.

      THE SNOW AND THE WIND had been bad enough down in the glen. But once they were out on the high moors again, the conditions were fierce. The howling gale alone made the car, which trembled under its force, difficult to handle. The snow made it all the worse.

      There were moments when Jennifer could barely see the road. And when she could see it, she was alarmed by the drifts that were building along the shoulders, spreading ridges onto the pavement itself.

      She didn’t dare let herself imagine what would happen if the road became impassable before she reached her objective, if the car was no longer able to plow through those growing white swells. All she could trust herself to do was to stubbornly pursue the route, even though it carried her straight into the teeth of the raging storm.

      From time to time, Jennifer glanced at her silent passenger sprawled in the seat beside her. He hadn’t stirred since they’d left the scene of the accident. His eyes remained closed, his body inert.

      How bad was he? she wondered. And what good did it do to worry about him when she had done all she could by rescuing him from the crippled SUV? At least he was out of the cold now.

      Since they were still wearing their coats, both of them were snug with the heater humming away, releasing a blessed warmth. But if they should become trapped out here, run out of gas and the heater quit on them—

      What are you doing? Stop thinking about that. Just drive.

      There was no other choice. But as the ribbon of road endlessly dipped and turned and rose again, Jennifer wondered if she had misjudged the distance. Or was it the blizzard that seemed to lengthen the miles?

      They were in the very heart of the moors now, in its most isolated depths. It would be easy to miss the turning to Warley Castle now that it was dark and snowing so hard. She might already have passed it.

      And then suddenly, unexpectedly, as she rounded a bend on the brow of a hill, the castle was there in front of her.

      As if by a deliberate magic, the wind dropped at the same time the shroud of snow momentarily lifted. The clouds overhead briefly parted. Halting the car, Jennifer found herself looking across a valley at a steep-sided, craggy peak. The last faint light of day streamed down on the summit where, looking as though it had been carved out of the rock itself, the castle perched, like a great sailing ship in a turbulent sea.

      No introduction to that medieval pile could have been more dramatic.

      Sitting there, gazing at the structure, it seemed inconceivable to Jennifer that such a formidable fortress could contain anything so benevolent as a monastery. But that’s exactly what the castle housed, and had for centuries.

      Guy had told her how Warley had come to be occupied by the brothers, but she didn’t want to remember the story now. The very thought of Guy awakened the shock of his death, and with it a rush of fear and anguish.

      As though triggered by those dark СКАЧАТЬ