* * *
An hour later, the island was wrapped in the black, wet, howling embrace of the storm Anna had predicted.
The wind was a wild thing, tearing at Stefano as he came around a tight curve on a narrow road. Another mile, maybe two, and he’d be—
What in hell was that?
The bright beam of his headlight pierced the darkness and picked out the shape of a small car coming toward him.
“Sweet Jesus,” Stefano said, and braked, but it was too late. The driver of the car must have seen him, too, and braked as he had, but too hard. The car skidded and swerved across his path and he knew, with terrifying clarity, that it was heading directly for a gnarled tree, but it was the rest of what he saw in that sudden blaze of light that tore a cry from his throat.
The car was an old red Fiat. And the horrified face of the woman behind the wheel, her mouth drawn open in a scream Stefano could not hear, was Fallon’s.
CHAPTER FOUR
TIRES squealed agonizingly as they fought for purchase on the wet road, but nothing could stop the forward momentum of the Fiat as it slid, with sickening inevitability, into the tree.
Stefano leaped off his motorcycle and ran toward the car.
“Fallon,” he shouted, “Fallon!”
The night was silent except for the incessant drumming of the rain and the pounding of his own pulse.
His first thought was that she was okay. She’d managed to slow her speed considerably before the crash and the damage to the car seemed confined to a crumpled fender.
When he reached the car, he groaned aloud.
It was an old car, with no airbag to have cushioned Fallon from the force of the crash. The windshield on the driver’s side was shattered. She lay slumped against the steering wheel, and tiny shards of glass glittered like stars in her dark hair.
Stefano grabbed the handle. The door wouldn’t give.
“Come on,” he shouted, “come on, damn it!”
Desperate, his breath sobbing in his throat, he pulled harder. It was useless. The door was either locked or jammed shut.
He cursed, ran around the car, slipping and sliding in the wet dirt, wrenched open the passenger door and climbed inside.
“Fallon?” he said as he reached for her.
She didn’t respond.
Tearing off one glove, he slid his fingers to her wrist. Yes, thank God, he could feel the beat of her pulse.
She was alive.
His belly knotted when he saw that she hadn’t fastened her seat belt. If only she’d worn the belt. If only it hadn’t been raining. If only he hadn’t come around the curve just then.
Stefano blanked all those “if onlys” from his head. All that mattered was what he did next. The accident, everything that led up to it, was part of the past and couldn’t be changed.
He started to move her, then froze as his mind played back everything he’d ever read or heard about the folly of moving someone who’d been in a bad accident.
You could make a bad injury worse, cause paralysis or death.
Did those caveats apply when you were on a road in the middle of nowhere with the rain pouring down? He knew these roads and these mountains. The odds of someone coming along to offer help ranged from zero to none. There was a farmhouse perhaps ten miles away. With luck, it would have a telephone.
For the first time in his life, Stefano was immobilized by indecision. Should he move Fallon? Ride his bike to the farmhouse, hope there was a phone, call for an ambulance, then come back to be with her?
Gritting his teeth, praying to whatever deity might be listening, Stefano eased Fallon into his arms, then drew her carefully toward him. She moaned once but made no other sound.
He paused when he got her into the passenger seat. Holding her in the crook of first one arm and then the other, he shrugged free of his heavy leather jacket and wrapped it around her. Her head was still down but her breathing was steady.
“I’ve got you now, sweetheart,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”
Still, no response.
Holding her to him, gently, his hands trembling, he tipped her head up.
Oh, God!
Her face. Her beautiful face!
Crimson streamed from a gash on her forehead that reached into her hairline, from another on her cheek, from yet a third that slashed wickedly across her chin. She had no other wounds that he could see, but those were enough. Knowing who she was, what she was, Stefano understood that what had happened on this night would forever change Fallon O’Connell’s life.
His heart lurched.
“Fallon,” he said softly, “can you hear me?”
She moaned again. Her lashes fluttered.
He leaned closer. “Fallon?”
Her eyes opened and she stared blindly at him.
“What—what happened?” she said in a weak voice.
“There’s been an accident.”
“An accident?”
“Yes.” He searched for words that would reassure her. “You’re going to be all right.”
“I don’t—I don’t remember…”
“That’s all right. You don’t have to remember. Not just yet. Fallon?”
“Mmm?”
She was tumbling back into unconsciousness. Was it best to let that happen or to keep her awake? Damn it, why didn’t he know? He’d sat through a first-aid course in college. Had he been asleep?
Stefano turned his face to the sky, let the rain beat down on him.
What did you do for someone who’d suffered head trauma?
“Fallon. Listen to me.”
“I’m lis’ning.”
“Tell me where you hurt.”
“Sleepy.”
“Yes. I know, but first tell me if you hurt anywhere. Your arms? Your legs?” He took a deep breath. “Your back?”
“Head,” she whispered, and punctuated the word with a hiss of pain. “Head hurts.”
She lifted her hand and raised it to her forehead. Stefano caught her wrist, afraid she might do more damage to her wounds and even more afraid the awful reality of what had happened might send her into shock.
“Listen to me, Fallon. I have to get help.”
“Don’leave me.”
He wound his fingers through hers. “Only for a little while,” he said softly.
No reply. Her lashes drifted to her cheeks but, God, she wasn’t sleeping. Not with her face so pale, her blood so dark.
Stefano lifted her hand to his lips and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. Then he got to his feet, wincing at the sudden pain that shot through his arm.
Pain in his arm? Was he hurt? He looked down at his forearm, saw an ugly gash oozing blood. He must have cut himself on something, glass from the windshield or torn metal on the car. Whatever had happened, it meant he probably wouldn’t be able to carry her very far.
Not that carrying her to shelter was a real option. The rain was coming down so hard he half expected Noah and the ark to come floating by.
Okay. Maybe he didn’t remember much about how to treat an accident victim, but it certainly didn’t make sense to expose a woman who might be going into shock to the force of a cold rainstorm.
What then? Leave her here, alone? No. That was out of the question.
He looked at the Fiat. A crushed fender and a smashed windshield didn’t necessarily preclude the engine from working.
There was only one way to find out. b
Hands shaking, he fastened the seat belt around Fallon. Then he climbed over her, brushed glass off the driver’s seat and got behind the wheel. Carefully, holding his breath, he turned the key.
The starter motor whined. The engine coughed once, twice. Then, with a shudder and the squeal of metal on metal, it started. It didn’t sound as if it would last very long but all he needed was to coax ten miles or so out of it, if luck was with him.
He got the car into gear and backed it away from the tree, shifted gears again, made a tight, cautious U-turn and stopped.
The wound on his arm was throbbing; he could feel a cold sweat break out on his forehead and his teeth were starting to chatter. Shock, he figured, and only gave a damn because it might mean he had less time to get help for Fallon than he’d thought.
He looked at her.
She sat with her head lolling against the headrest, her face still pale, the blood starting to coagulate. Her battered flesh was starting to swell. Such perfection, so cruelly destroyed.
His throat constricted and he leaned closer and feathered his lips over hers.
Then he took a deep breath, put the car in gear again and began what he suspected might be the most important journey of his life.
* * *
Pain. Pain, sharp and throbbing. Harsh white light. A smell of something coldly antiseptic.
And voices. A woman’s, brisk and demanding, speaking in Italian, followed by a man’s, urgent and low-pitched, speaking American English.
“Signorina O’Connell. Apra I vostri occhi.”
“Fallon? Come on. Open your eyes.”
Open her eyes? Could she do that? She wanted to; it was awful to lie here this way, trapped in the dark. Was she asleep and dreaming? If she fought hard enough, could she compel her eyes to open?
“Fallon. Please. Look at me.”
Sorry, she thought. Sorry, but I can’t.
Her eyelids were weighted down.
Down, down, down.
Fallon tumbled back into darkness.