“Rocco? Rocco, can you hear me? Are you hurt?”
Rocco floated toward that voice. An angel’s voice. His angel. Perhaps God had heard his prayers after all. She was touching him. She shouldn’t do that-he would soil her, would get Zavi’s death on her. He eased away from her, warning her. She frowned at him as if she didn’t understand.
The irony of that made him laugh. With all of the languages he knew, he still couldn’t speak Angel.
A man shook him. He shoved at the man. The man grabbed him again. Rocco punched him. The man tried to wrestle him down. Rocco didn’t want anyone touching him, but the man wouldn’t quit. They rolled on the gravel, hot metal shrapnel cutting and searing them.
“Goddamn it, Rocco! It’s me. Kit. Open your fucking eyes and look at me!”
“Yeah, bro. It’s me. You hurt?”
“No.”
Kit studied him. “You remembered, didn’t you?”
Rocco dropped his hands and shut his eyes. He nodded.
“You okay?” Kit asked.
Rocco looked at him. “I’m alive.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you are.”
Rocco lifted his head to look around, seeing the warm glow of the destroyed equestrian center, Owen, and Mandy. He shoved free of Kit’s hold and tried to stand. His legs didn’t hold him. He fell down. The world was spinning. Time warped again. He felt nauseous and dizzy. He tried to stand, managed to take a few steps before again hitting his knees. His head was ringing like a fucking bell tower. He bent over and covered his ears with his forearms. Christ, his head hurt.
Mandy knelt in front of him. She reached out tentatively and covered one of his hands with hers. “Rocco? Where does it hurt?”
“Mandy-” He barely recognized his raspy voice. He couched in front of her, afraid to move too much while the world was spinning so crazily. “I feel it. I feel the flesh,” he whispered, lifting his head to look at her. He caught her gaze and refused to relinquish it. If he looked at himself and saw the blackened skin and blood, he would be lost. “It’s sticking, burning, pulling. Do you see it? Is it real? I can smell it. I can feel it. Help me, Mandy.”
“Oh, Rocco.” Her voice broke. She brushed his hair from his face, her touch infinitely gentle. Her eyes filled with tears. She took hold of his face, her thumbs brushing his cheeks. She shook her head. He sat up a bit farther so that she could look him over. She ran her hands down his neck, over his shoulders, down his arms, to his hands. Lifting her gaze, she met his look and shook her head. “It is not there. But you are cut-up pretty badly. Can I take you inside?”
“No,” Kit answered. “The ambulance is almost here.”
The sirens were close now. Fire engines were rushing up the hill toward the center.
“Where are the dogs?” Rocco asked, looking around. “They were with me right before the explosion.”
“I’ll go look for them,” Mandy said as she stood up.
“No!” Rocco and Kit both stopped her.
“You’re not going anywhere until we secure the site,” Kit ordered. “Where’s Blade?” he asked Rocco.
Blade. Rocco knew something about him. He tried to reach that memory. It danced at the edge of his consciousness. They’d stood at the corral and watched Mandy earlier that evening.
“He said he was going to meet with his foreman, that Dennis had some things to cover with him before he and his wife headed out of town for a while,” Rocco looked at Kit and Owen. “But that was hours ago. He’s not back yet?”
Something else claimed Rocco’s attention. “Oh hell, Kit.” He remembered what he’d seen immediately before the explosion. “There was someone down there, in the arena. I saw him before it all blew. The dogs were barking at him. A phone rang, and then the bombs went off. They were triggered by the cell phone.”
“That was Buchanan. Max and I saw him on the monitors,” Kit said.
Val and Angel came back with the word that the grounds were clear. Owen sent them to move the cars so that the fire trucks would have room to maneuver if they needed to come up to the higher level. Soon the lower terrace was filled with fire engines and cop cars. An ambulance pulled into the upper terrace. There were no fire hydrants to connect to, but the Wolf Creek Bend Fire Department was often called upon to tackle wild fires in the nearby mountains and so came well equipped to deal with a remote fire like the one at Mandy’s ranch. Two water tankers pulled up by what was left of the construction site.
A couple of paramedics rolled a stretcher over to Rocco. He felt a cold sweat break out over his skin at the thought of being strapped down while they worked on him. He stood up, using all his concentration not to wobble on his legs.
“No,” he told the paramedics when they reached for him.
“Rocco, you have to go with them,” Kit ordered. “I want them to check you out. You might have a concussion and God knows what other injuries.”
Rocco tore his gaze from Kit and nodded toward the gurney. “I’m not going on that. I’ll walk.”
Mandy came to his side and wrapped an arm about his waist, providing her shoulder to lean on. “Let’s go.” She didn’t give him time to argue but started walking him toward the back of the ambulance.
The paramedics cut his shredded T-shirt off. One of them wrapped a blood pressure cuff on his arm while the other checked his pupils. Then they began examining the many cuts and scrapes he’d suffered when the explosion threw him to the ground. He had to fight a rising panic at being crowded, touched.
He could feel the burned skin and blood tightening on him. He shut his eyes. It wasn’t real, that phantom flesh. Mandy had said so. It was a memory, all that had remained of his son after Kadisha’s house blew up. It wasn’t on him now. He looked over the shoulders of the men tending to him. She was there, watching the proceedings, her face taut with anxiety.
He took a deep breath to calm himself before motioning her over to hold his hand. The paramedics looked from her to Rocco. In a small town like Wolf Creek Bend, everybody knew everybody and who their significant others were. He bet there’d been speculation in town about the two of them, especially after his freakout at the diner. And now this explosion. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her cold knuckles, making sure there was no doubt to any observers that she belonged to him.
“Sir, several of these cuts are going to need stitches. And you may have a concussion. We’re going to take you down to the hospital in Cheyenne.”
“No. You’ll put butterflies on them, and we’ll call it good.” He felt a growing pressure to get to Blade’s. He had to have seen the explosion, even from his place. If he were able, he’d be here. Something had happened to him. Rocco couldn’t screw around with little cuts when Blade was in trouble.
The two paramedics looked at each other and shook their heads. “If you won’t go to the hospital, we’ve got Doc Reynolds on call. At least let us take you into town to have him take care of these cuts, check you out more thoroughly.”
Before he could refuse any attention, Mandy tightened her hold on him. “Rocco Silas, you go see the doctor and let him fix you up.”
“Fine. But you’re staying here. I’ll get Kelan to take me. I don’t need to be driven in an ambulance.”
“I’m going with you.”
“You’re going to stay here, Em. I don’t know what’s going on, but shit’s hit the fan. I need you to stay here with Kit. It’s the only way I’ll go the clinic.”
“You’re hurt. I should be with you.”
He looked at the paramedics, who were observing their conversation with rapt attention. “Please,” he told her. “Stay with Kit.” He nodded to the paramedics as he grabbed his shredded T-shirt and stood up. He took hold of Mandy’s arm and led her back to her brother.
Kit and Owen were talking to a couple of men-one was the police chief. Rocco assumed the other was the fire chief. “Sheriff,” he nodded to Tate. “I told you there was more going on here than common pranks.”
“And I asked you for more information,” the sheriff grumbled. “If you thought this was a matter for Homeland
