“Don’t apologize.” He sat down on the other end of the sofa, one long leg tucked beneath him so that he faced her. “Some nightmares are a lot worse than others.”
That was the truth.
She wasn’t sure where to start. “It’s hard for me to talk about this.”
“If it makes it any easier, Zach told me what happened.”
“He did?” That was a huge relief.
“He didn’t go into the finer details, but he told me enough.” Jason’s brow furrowed, his gaze dropping to the sofa for a moment. “Truth is, I brought it up with him. I hope that doesn’t upset you.”
She shook her head. “Of course not. You two are friends. You’re both federal agents, and you both know me. After what I told you today, it’s understandable that you’d be curious.”
“Not just curious, Winona. You and I haven’t known each other for long, but I consider you a friend. I hate it when bad guys hurt good people.”
She got the feeling he’d seen a lot of that—and not just with his parents. “What did Zach tell you?”
“He said some fugitive came into your clinic to get you to treat the burns he got from the dye pack on a money bag. He said the bastard forced you to help him at gunpoint, made all kinds of awful threats, and then injected you with a lethal overdose of ketamine. He said you were sure you were dead.”
Winona nodded, her throat going tight. “He came through the front door. I was in the back with my friend Bear, who’d brought in an orphaned fawn. He barged in on us, gun pointed straight at us, and demanded I help him. I didn’t have any choice.”
“No, you really didn’t.”
“He had bad second-degree burns on one hand, and it had become infected. I told him he needed to be seen at a hospital by a burn specialist, but he jammed the barrel of his pistol into my temple and told me to shut up.”
“What did this friend of yours, Bear, do?”
“Bear is a big guy with a big beard, but he suffered brain damage from a fever as a child. He has the mind of a little boy. He’s one of the most wonderful people I know, but he couldn’t do anything to help. He was terrified.”
“You felt like you needed to protect him.”
“Yes.” Winona’s stomach knotted at the memory of terror. “I put a topical anesthetic on the man’s burns and cleaned them as best I could. The whole time, he was saying terrible things. ‘When you’re done, I’m going to make you suck my dick. I think this pistol turns you on. Maybe I’ll fuck you with the barrel. Would you like that? I bet a bitch like you loves taking it up the ass. Do you fuck the animals?’ Stuff like that.”
“Jesus. I’m so sorry.”
“I was so afraid.” Winona didn’t realize how much her hands were shaking until Jason gently took her tea mug and set it on the coffee table. “I thought maybe I could inject him with anesthetic instead of antibiotics, but he demanded to see the vial. I gave him an IM injection of amoxicillin. Then he demanded the ketamine.”
“We catch people trafficking small amounts of that from time to time.”
“Yes. It’s an anesthetic.” Winona hugged the blanket tighter around herself. “I thought he wanted to steal it. Vet clinics get burglarized all the time by people trying to steal ketamine.”
“It makes sense you would think that.”
“He took a syringe and the ketamine and drew a big dose—more than enough to anesthetize two or three bull moose. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he told me that firing his pistol would attract attention. He walked over to Bear and jammed the needle into his thigh. I tried to stop him, but he was stronger than I was. He shoved me away. I fell and hit the floor hard. Then he walked over and injected me. I knew Bear and I were dead, that someone would find us there on the floor.”
Winona could still feel the prick of the needle, the sting of the medication in her muscle, the racing of her own heart.
Jason moved closer, took her hand, held it, his fingers warm. “It was Lexi who found you—and just in time, from what McBride says.”
Winona blinked back tears. “He abducted her and almost got her killed.”
Jason leaned forward, cupped her face in his palms. “But you’re a daughter of this land. The very earth that raised you saw what he’d done and decided he didn’t deserve to be in this world. It crashed down on him, ending him, but sparing Lexi.”
Winona had never thought of it like that before. “Yes.”
“He’s gone, Win. He can never hurt you or Bear or anyone else again.”
“My mind knows that, but there’s some part of me inside that is still terrified.”