She tried to smile at him but the muscles in her face wouldn’t seem to work. “You … you sure you’re okay? Your skin’s like ice. And your poor nose.”
“Yeah. Well, I was too pretty for my own good anyway. Now I’ll just be an average Joe.”
“Liar.” This time the smile made it onto her face. “You’ll always be a beautiful man. The doctors will make you better than ever.”
He began releasing her. “The EMTs need you to go now.”
She nodded and reluctantly turned away.
“Wait.” She turned back. “How did you get up here so fast?”
Yardley blew out her breath. “There are steps cut into the slope behind the kennel. Dad made some SEALs do it for him as an exercise in cooperation. I think he just took advantage of their willingness to do anything to gain his approval.”
He would have done it by himself, to gain her approval. Hell, he’d climbed a hill in the snow in his undershirt for her. Pretty impressive. But he didn’t say any of that. She was in love with another man.
She turned away only to spin back once more. “Here. You need this.”
She unzipped his coat and slipped it off to hand it to him. “I can’t believe you’ve been out here dressed like that.”
Kye smiled. “Why? Are you cold?”
He waited until the ambulance pulled out and then approached the sheriff. “Can I borrow a high-beam flashlight and a FLIR? If you’ve got one.”
“Sure. But why?”
“Ms. Summers’s K-9, Oleg. Purdy fired on him at close range. He’s disappeared and I’m pretty sure he was hit.”
“Wait. I’ll go with you.”
Kye nodded. “I’ll need to go back to the house first. I need a few things, and my K-9, Lily. She’s search-and-rescue-trained and will be able to track him faster in the snow than I can.”
“And get yourself some clothes, son. This ain’t Florida.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sheriff Wiley and one of his deputies who ran his hunting dog as a retriever agreed to help Kye search. First he had to go back to the house, pick up Oleg’s muzzle and leash and a blanket he thought Yardley wouldn’t mind him borrowing. And, of course, Lily.
He’d found her curled up on the bed he’d slept in the night before. Well, pieces of it. She had chewed up both pillows and the comforter, so that the room look like it had exploded. And then she’d had a go at a corner of the mattress itself. He couldn’t blame her. Shut up all evening and half the night with strangers coming and going and gunshots. The bedroom looked like he probably felt if he had time to think about it, which he didn’t.
She launched herself at him when he came in, yipping and screaming in joy. He took a few minutes to play with her. Letting her tug on one end of a sock and then giving her several treats as she performed tricks they usually practiced daily. It seemed to quiet her. The only strange thing about all this was that it was done by flashlight.
The sheriff told him he’d see to it that someone came out to check on the generator in the morning. After all, it would be Monday, the first working day of the new year. Until then, Kye would need to find a motel room. After he found Oleg. And after he visited the hospital to check on David and Yardley. He hoped he would be able to give her good news.
Once satisfied that Lily was calm and ready to work, Kye moved quickly through the warmth of the house’s interior. Even in the dark, the captured heat within the house was beginning to thaw out his fingers and toes, making them tingle painfully as he quickly exchanged his soggy pants for jeans. There was nothing for him to change out of his undershirt into so he simply zipped his parka over it. He had to go back out into the cold so there was no real use in warming up. Except for the thermos of coffee that appeared in his hand.
The sheriff’s wife had arrived, thinking that Yardley might need a woman’s help. She’d even come prepared with sandwiches for her husband’s officers.
Kye swallowed a ham sandwich in a few bites, amazed at how hungry he was. But it was eaten on the move. He had to get back out there and find Oleg before his injuries and the cold claimed him.
The sheriff drove them back to the site where other law enforcement officers were still gathering evidence on the utility road. A man had died. There’d been an attempted kidnapping of a federal witness. A home had been invaded. Shots had been fired. There would be many inquiries into the events of the night.
The searchers came to quick agreement. Lily would lead the search. Everyone, even the deputy’s dog, would stay behind her so as not to confuse the scent.
Kye carried her off onto a snowy area in front of the truck. The wind direction wouldn’t be a problem since they were up in the trees. The snow, at last, had petered out. Only problem, the woodlands here were heavily evergreen. Their pungent oily scent might cover Oleg’s.