Clean Inspirational Romance: Escape to Paradise (Inspirational Happy Sweet First Love Second Chance Romance) (Contemporary New Adult Love Inspired Holiday Short Stories) (38 page)

“Shh,” was the only reply he received from Mack as she steadfastly remained by his side, still attempting to tug the fabric off to use it as a tourniquet.

Several attempts and wiggles later, the shirt was removed and wrung into a tight, makeshift bandage, which Mack promptly tied around Colin’s upper forearm. He hissed as she touched the wound, drawing back in an alarmingly sudden movement.

Mack recoiled, worried that she might’ve hurt him further. She held the cloth in one hand, both hands stained with red.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked with wide eyes.

“I’m fine,” Colin managed. He could feel the sting of the bullet wound now, and it was only growing in intensity, slowly licking up his arm like a flame. “It–” He paused, looking down at his arm, almost entranced by the horrific way the red pooled and trickled down like a scarlet waterfall.

“It just burns,” he commented, almost casually as Mack followed his line of vision with visible discomfort. “Stung a little when you touched it, but it wasn’t anything serious,” he attempted to reassure her.

Mack still didn’t look convinced. “Here,” he prompted, moving his arm towards her. The movement elicited another painful bout, but he grit his teeth and kept silent, lest Mack be apprehensive about tying the tourniquet again.

She was still hesitant, even as he nodded to encourage her, and she moved relatively slowly, much more careful this time.

“I’m going to die of blood loss before you get that tourniquet properly tied, Mack,” Colin noted to her with mild amusement.

“I can’t believe you’re joking at a time like this,” Mack muttered. But she picked up the pace, working to tie the cloth firmly in place.

“I can’t believe you’re unfamiliar with treating gunshot wounds, particularly with your occupation,” Colin shot back. He had genuinely been surprised. As a sharpshooter, it wasn’t uncommon for her to be around bullets and guns and violent fights more frequently than he.

“Not unfamiliar with wounds, just treating them,” she quipped. “Not a nurse, just a scout.” She finished tying up the last bit of the awkwardly chunky tourniquet and leaned back to examine her work.

“It’ll hold,” she decided with an unhappy frown on her face. Colin looked down on it. It wasn’t particularly tight, but probably the best he could hope for. He brought a bloodied hand up to press down firmly on his wound, nearly seeing stars with the burning pain it brought him.

“It’ll be fine,” he repeated dazedly as he remained where he lay. Mack nodded blankly, looking around for anything more that might be of use.

“Just,” Colin struggled for the word, “leave it.”

“Oh my lord, what is going on here?” The voice was distinctly feminine and familiar to Colin.

“Mrs. Wright?” said Colin. She was his neighbor; the nicest lady on the block, in his opinion, if a little deaf. Always came over to buy her flour and soap. He refrained from the urge to turn around, knowing it would only agonize the wound more.

“Colin, dear, are you okay? Oh, where are your parents? And you, young lady, what is going on?”

Colin let his eyes slip shut as Mack relayed the story to Mrs. Wright. The pain was slowly getting worse and he grit his teeth, feeling his eyes start to smart with tears from the throbbing.

“Hold on, Colin.” It was Mack again, desperate pleading in her voice. “Hold on, okay?” She shook him slightly, and he wanted to push her away, wanted the pain to stop. But shaking him had brought him back from the lure of the darkness and he cracked his eyes open blearily to see Mack blurrily leaning over him.

“Hold on.”

**

A quiet knock brought his attention to the door. Mack’s short silhouette bled across the morning sunlight and Colin smiled, beckoning her from his bed.

“Come in,” he said. She obliged, carrying with her a tin of biscuits and some coffee.

“How are you feeling?”

“Could be worse.” Colin twisted his lips into a wry smile. To be completely truthful, he had been surprised at the relatively short-lived pain. It still burned, but not as badly as he had been anticipating.

A short trip to the local doctor had taken care of the bullet, and after dressing and cleaning it, he was instructed to stay on bed rest for the next few weeks. Mrs. Wright and his neighbors had been marvelously kind, keeping shop for him and even bringing him things to eat.

But no one fretted over him like Mack did, and it was something Colin found rather amusing. She had seemed so unlike the motherly, nursing type – and she really wasn’t. She struggled with cleaning his wounds and changing his dressing. She struggled with bringing him food and often simply stood by the bedside, wringing her hands in frustration as she attempted to help in any way she possibly could.

“Just sit, Mack,” he’d laugh at her. “It’ll get better on its own.” Time and patience, he quickly found out, were not Mack’s strong suits.

She came by daily, though, even if her visits were occasionally short. And she never failed to bring something. Often it was food, but sometimes it was a small trinket, or a useful item.

The days when she could stay over were the nicest. They were warm and comforting, days they could just sit and talk for hours on end and go off on nonsensical tangents.

Mack sat down at the end of his bed, setting down the tin of coffee powder and cookies. “Today was the last day of Sam’s trial,” she said.

Colin nodded mutely, waiting. “It was Sam.” Her voice was filled with sorrow. “He killed Beth.”

Colin shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around the twist in the outcome of events. Sam seemed the guilty party more and more during the investigation, and now there had been a trial and a verdict. But still he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. “It couldn’t have been. Sam?” He couldn’t picture the man with the sad eyes trying to frame an innocent man, much less kill his own fiancée.

“It was Sam,” Mack affirmed. “Beth, and he had a falling out right before she was killed.”

“So he killed her? Because they couldn’t reconcile?”

“She was his fiancée,” Mack said. “And a sweet gal she was, really. Seemed to be. Would stop by to say hi or drop off some homemade biscuits...”

She was silent for a while, simply stroking the coarse cloth blanketing Colin. “I didn’t think Sam was like that, though,” she said. She looked up at Colin with sad eyes, and for the first time he saw the impact the betrayal had on her.

“He was always the first one to go chasing after varmints like that, always the first one to clean up a messy fight.” She shook her head.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said.

At that, Mack looked directly at him and narrowed her eyes. “Would’ve been fine either way,” she said shortly.  “But you just had to go and–”

“Shh,” Colin raised a finger to his lips. “We’re okay. That’s all that really matters now. We’re okay.”

***

The creak of the wooden floors and soft click of boots alerted Colin from the back of the store and he hurried to the front.

“We’re closed,” he said. Then he saw who it was who had walked in through the doors. It was Mack.

“Hey,” Colin greeted her as she walked towards him. She nodded a greeting at him. “You cut your hair,” he noted, appraising Mack’s short bob.

“Mm,” she nodded, lightly fingering the short, wavy strands that hung around her face. “Figured it was time for a change,” she said lightly. Colin nodded and wisely said nothing more about the subject.

“What brings you here?” Colin looked around at the empty trade post. It looked abandoned, dust swirling in soft clouds around the bare shelves. Gone were the tin pans and sluices and spoons and satchels that once filled the shelves.

His parents had all but packed up the shop within a week of his getting injured.

We are not staying in a location this dangerous – there’s absolutely no reason we ought to. There is always business elsewhere
, his father had said firmly. His mother had resolutely agreed, nearly trembling at the thought of such violence within such close proximity to them.

Colin had argued. Colin had begged. Colin had resolutely put his foot down. And it was all to no avail. His parents were going back to Europe. Business had been reasonable, but not exceptional, they had said. Not enough to justify staying. Colin’s brush with death sealed it.

Mack scuffed her boot against the wooden floor, sending up another small cloud of sand and grit. She looked down at her toes briefly before looking back up again at Colin. She gave him a small, lopsided smile.

“To say goodbye,” she said. “Problem?” She trod lightly with her words, something Colin hadn’t really known her to do in the past.

“No, not at all,” he said with mild surprise. In light of recent events, he was surprised she had even remembered that he was leaving.

“Good,” she nodded. She looked around at the forlorn store. “Folks packed up well,” she said with mild amusement before laughing.

Colin laughed with her, nodding in agreement. “Well,” he shrugged. “Can’t really blame them, what with Beth’s body being found on our property and the law getting heavily involved.”

“Not to mention your being a suspect and eventually getting shot,” Mack piped up helpfully, quirking her familiar smirk at him.

“That too,” Colin agree casually, before the two of them burst into laughter. It died down after a little while and the two were left in silence, facing one another.

“So, uh. I guess this is it then.” Mack tried to be casual about it, she really did. But her constantly shifting feet and nervous finger twiddling gave her away. She wanted to say the three words, she did. But they got stuck in her throat, wedged like a hard block of dry sawdust.

“You’d think I’d get better at this over time,” she laughed miserably at herself. “Figured after having said goodbye so many times this one would be a little less painful.” Mack looked up at Colin, shrugging with a watery smile.

“Wish it did,” he said affectionately, tenderly. “But it doesn’t have to be goodbye. Not if you don’t want it to be.”

Now Mack looked at him in earnest, bewildered expression on her face. “What do you mean?”

Colin laughed a little at her expression. “I’m not leaving.”

“You’re not… you’re not?” Mack was struggling to piece together this information, staring at him with stunned eyes and a confused look. She furrowed her brows. “But your parents? And moving back to Europe? And your–” She choked on her word, but managed to get it out. “Your fiancée?”

Colin twisted his lips into a bittersweet smile. “I’m not going back. At least, not for now,” he admitted, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck. “I told my parents I wanted to stay out here for a little while more, see how things pan out in the long run.”

Mack nodded, but clearly couldn’t quite follow him. “And,” he heaved a large sigh, “Brianna.” Her attention was on him now; she hung onto his every word.

“Brianna,” he started again, much slower this time, “is a wonderful woman. But she’s not the woman for me.”

Mack raised a brow at his words. “And your parents?”

“They weren’t happy,” he confessed with a short, dry laugh. “But I think some part of them understood.”

She nodded again at his words, and though she kept her customary solemn face, he could see the twinkle of happiness dancing around in her eyes. “So they let me stay,” he shrugged his shoulders. “The stock they packed up is being returned, and there is some new stock arriving soon too. What more do you want to know?”

“You’re allowed to stay? And to keep up your parents’ trade shop?”

Colin nodded in response to her questions.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know; I’ll have to see how business goes,” Colin told her. “But,” he added, “I can always find something new to pick up.”

Mack nodded slowly, still digesting the information she’d just received. “So you’re planning on staying around for a bit longer, then?” she said, reiterating. The words were drawn out and slow, each one of them emphasized.

“Yes.” Colin threw his hands up in exasperation. “How many times are you going to ask?”

Mack laughed at his impatience. “Enough times to make sure you’re actually going to stay.” Colin planted his hands firmly on her shoulders, drawing her closer to him as he did so.

He gazed earnestly into her eyes, brown eyes meeting gray. “Moonshine Mackenzie, I am here to stay.”

She laughed delightedly at his statement, particularly at his use of her name, and tilted her head slightly to the side. “Are you, Colin? Are you?”

“Yes,” he repeated.

She moved in closer to him, bringing her hand up to rest over his bullet wound, eyes flitting briefly to rest on it. Colin watched her, saying nothing before Mack tiptoed up to wrap her arms around his neck and draw him in even closer. She looked him straight in the eye before pressing her lips to his for the briefest of kisses.

“That’s a promise, Colin Hayes.”

“I promise.”

THE END

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