She snuggled closer to his back and moved her free hand, sliding it from his waist, up his abdomen, to his chest. Feeling his heart beating tinder her touch, she went to sleep.

Long moments after he’d been hit, Teague struggled to a sitting position. He couldn’t see; blood was pouring from the wound at the top of his forehead, getting into his eyes and blinding him. Agony pounded in his head with Satan’s drumbeat. What the fuck had happened? He didn’t know where he was; his searching hands couldn’t find anything familiar, just rocks and more rocks. He was outside, he knew that much. But where, and why?

He waited, experience telling him that memory would return as he came to full consciousness. Until then, he pressed his hand over the jagged cut to slow his blood loss, ignoring the pain the pressure caused.

The first thing he remembered was an ungodly bright flash of light, and a boom as a giant fist punched him in the head.

Shot, he thought, then discarded that idea. If he’d been shot in the head, he wouldn’t be lying here wondering about it. The shot had missed, then, but not by much. His face felt on fire, as if all the skin had been stripped off. The slug must have hit the boulder right below him, blasting him with pieces of rock.

As soon as the word slug formed in his mind, he thought “shotgun” and the pieces of his memory fell into place. That was the boom he’d heard, following so closely on the heels of his own shot that the two sounds had overlapped.

He wondered if anyone else had heard the shotgun; why hadn’t someone called on the radio to check on him? His thoughts were still so sluggish that several moments went by before he realized he’d been unconscious and wouldn’t have heard the radio even if someone had tried to contact him.

Radio. Yeah. He reached for it, found it clipped to his belt right where it was supposed to be; he unclipped it, fumbling because his hands were wet with blood, and then sudden caution made him freeze. If he dropped the radio, he might not be able to find it. Carefully, making certain he had a solid grip, he started to key the “talk” button—and stopped.

He could call for help. Hell, he needed help. But–he wasn’t helpless. He could do this on his own. When you ran with a pack of wolves, you didn’t show weakness or you could find yourself eaten alive. Billy wouldn’t turn on him, and neither would Troy, but ‘league wasn’t so certain about Blake. He was damn certain about Toxtel and Goss—certain they’d turn on him in a New York minute. If he couldn’t make it off this damn mountainside by himself, if he had to be carried out instead of walking under his own steam, they would view him as weak, and he couldn’t afford that.

Okay. He had to do this on his own, then. He took a few deep breaths and forced himself to concentrate, to get past the pounding agony in his head, the dizziness and sense of panic. He had to be operational.

The first, most important thing he had to do was stop losing blood. Head wounds always bled like a bitch anyway, so he could lose a significant amount in a short time, probably already had. He had to put pressure on the wound, a lot of pressure, no matter how much it hurt.

He knew he had a concussion, maybe brain damage that would only worsen with time, but his exploring fingers told him the area around the wound was swelling rapidly. That was good, from what he’d heard. If the swelling was on the inside of his brain, that was bad. He could deal with a concussion; he’d done it before.

Teague braced his back against the rock behind him and drew his legs up, planting his feet as solidly as possible. Leaning forward, he braced his right elbow on his knee and put the heel of his palm against the wound, using his entire body to apply more pressure than he could have accomplished using just arm strength. He ignored the pain exploding in his head, holding firm and steady while he concentrated on breathing and getting through the agony.

While he sat there, he started swiping his left forearm across his face, trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes. The thing about blood was, the shit congealed, then it dried, and it was hard as hell to get off. He needed water to clean his face. There was a ton of it at the bottom of this fucking rock pile, but getting down there was something he’d think twice about attempting in broad daylight without a concussion. No, he had to get back to the road.

Other than applying pressure to the wound, he was limited in what he could do for himself, so that would have to be enough. The good news was, the longer he sat there, the more his head cleared. It still hurt like a son of a bitch, but he was thinking better.

The bad news was, the longer he sat there, the colder he felt.

If the blood loss caused him to go into shock, he was screwed. On the other hand, the temperature had to be in the thirties, maybe even below freezing. Of course he was cold, but hypothermia wasn’t good, either. He had to get off these rocks, the sooner the better. His head was going to hurt worse when he tried to move, but what the tuck, hurting was better than dying.

He moved his hand, waiting to see if blood poured down his face again. He felt a trickle and immediately wiped it away, then pressed his hand back over the wound. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, but it had definitely slowed.

His rifle. Where was his rifle? He couldn’t leave it here. For one thing, that damn expensive thermal scope was mounted on it. For another, his fingerprints were all over it. If it had slid down the rocks toward the stream, he wouldn’t be able to retrieve it and someone else would have to come back for it, winch right now meant they’d have to leave one firing position unmanned, and he didn’t want to do that.

Something about the firing positions bothered him, but he couldn’t think what it was. It would come to him. though. Forget about it for now—concentrate on finding the rifle.

Using his left hand, he felt around on the ground, but came up empty. He’d have to use the flashlight. He didn’t like doing that, didn’t want to give away his position to the fucker who’d shot him… okay, the fucker already knew his position, otherwise how could he have shot him? Big question: How had he known?

Teague stopped searching for the rifle to concentrate on this question, because it seemed vitally important that he think it through. He hadn’t used a flashlight to move into position, so did the shooter have night-vision goggles? The devices weren’t that hard to come by, but what were the odds that somebody in Trail Stop, of all places, would have them? Creed, maybe; he could see Creed having all kinds of shit. But Creed hadn’t shot him; Creed had been hustling some woman to cover—

Ah, fuck. The answer bloomed in his mind. That hadn’t been Creed leaving the house with the woman. Creed had already gone out the back and moved into position to provide cover for the other two. When league had pulled the trigger, his muzzle flash had given away his position and Creed had fired. Simple as that. No night-vision device needed.

Creed could still be out there, waiting for someone to show himself.

But he’d be on the other side of the stream, because crossing it in this area was impossible. The slope down to the river was steep, so the water roared down, strong enough to sweep even the strongest man off his feet and slam him into the boulders that dotted the streambed. Stream was really a misnomer in this case, because that brought to mind a slow, peaceful flow of water, which this definitely wasn’t. It was like a mini-river—and a bad one. Plus it was as cold as a well-digger’s ass, because it was fed by snowmelt from the mountains.

Teague assessed the situation. He was behind solid cover, surrounded by rocks, his head lower than the boulder in front of him. He had to risk turning on the flashlight so he could locate the rifle. He could minimize the risk, though, by covering most of the lens.