Colton's Ranch Refuge. Beth Cornelison
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hand free and grabbed the car door.
Violet sucked in a ragged breath. Mary! She stretched an arm toward the sedan and dragged herself an inch at a time. Her leg throbbed, but she ignored the pain. Mary! She had to help Mary.
One of the brutes slammed a fist in Mary’s gut, and the girl doubled over in pain. Her fingers slipped from the door. With a booted foot, the man shoved Mary inside and slammed the car door shut. “Go!”
Violet stretched out a trembling arm. “Noooo!”
With a squeal of tires, the silver sedan screeched away.
Horror punched Violet as she collapsed on the road, sobbing, “Mary!”
Chapter 3
Nausea roiled in Violet’s gut. Her leg was on fire. Her head throbbed.
But the worst pain came from her heart. She felt flayed, raw. She was tormented by the knowledge that the kidnappers had taken Mary, had hurt Mary. God only knew what they had in store for the Amish girl.
Violet pressed a hand to the gash in her leg, curled in the fetal position and sobbed harder than she had since she was a child.
Mary! They had Mary!
Her head swam, and the road seemed to rock beneath her.
On some level, she knew she needed to get help. She was bleeding, losing consciousness and aching from head to toe.
But she couldn’t erase from her mind’s eye the look of terror on Mary’s face as the animals shoved her in the backseat.
“Mary,” she muttered, feeling her strength seeping from her.
The clop of horse hooves rattled through her skull, and a sudden shadow blocked the sun from her eyes.
“Mein Gott!” a male voice said.
Gentle hands rolled her onto her back, probed the wound on her leg and lifted her.
A vague image of a dark beard, black hat and grim mouth wavered before her. She moaned in protest as the man moved her. “Mary,” she rasped.
The man said something to her in Pennsylvania Dutch as he laid her on a hard surface. The scents of dirt and horse sweat filled her nose, and she struggled not to retch. Near-blinding pain reverberated through her as the surface below her lurched into motion, bouncing roughly down the road. A buggy …
Violet’s vision dimmed. Her consciousness faded in and out as her Amish rescuer jerked to a stop, shouted words she didn’t understand. But a name filtered through the haze.
Troyer. She’d been on her way to visit Caleb Troyer. It was the next farm … not far.
“Mary …”
She heard more voices—urgent voices, young voices. “Violet! What happened?”
Hudson? Mason? No … David and William.
More German. Another name—Dr. Colton.
A bandage was wrapped quickly and tightly around her thigh. Dizzying pain shot through her. And then she was being lifted again.
This man was younger, strong, capable. Caleb Troyer?
“Hold on, Violet. I have you,” he said in English, his voice compassionate and soothing. “We will get you to the doctor.”
She tried to speak, had to tell them … what?
“Where’s Mary?” one of the young voices asked. Mary …
Violet’s mouth was dry, and her tongue felt swollen to twice its normal size. She tried to speak, tried to tell them. “Took … her …”
“Easy, ma’am. You are going to be all right. Dr. Colton is a good doctor. The best.”
“Mary,” she rasped, curling her fingers in the front of Caleb’s shirt. “Took Mary …”
Caleb stilled, met her gaze with piercing gray eyes. “What?”
“They … took Mary …”
Pain filled Caleb’s face, and his jaw tightened. She felt the tremor that shook him.
He set Violet down in another buggy and shouted something in Pennsylvania Dutch to the other man. As Caleb Troyer cracked a whip at his horses, sending the buggy forward with a lurch, he added, “And find Emma Colton. Tell her to meet me at her brother’s office!”
Peering over the top of the résumé he held, Derek Colton studied the attractive blonde sitting across his office. “Your credentials are impressive, Ms. Phillips, but I don’t see any references here.”
Amelia Phillips’s fingers tightened slightly on the arms of her chair. “Well, no. I didn’t list any because—”
The door to Derek’s office flew open. “Dr. Colton, come quickly!” his receptionist blurted without preamble. “We have an emergency.”
Derek frowned as he lurched to his feet. “What is it?”
“An Amish woman. Caleb Troyer brought her in. She’s bleeding badly and unresponsive.” His receptionist jumped out of his way as he rushed to his office door.
His gaze flicked briefly to Amelia Phillips. “I’m sorry. We’ll have to finish later.”
Amelia nodded, her hazel eyes wide with concern. “Can I be of help?”
Derek hesitated, giving her a quick assessing glance. “I … yeah. Scrub in. Nancy will show you where everything is, then meet me in exam room two.”
He turned without waiting for a response and hustled to the sink to wash his own hands and don a pair of latex gloves.
Caleb Troyer stood in the waiting room with a petite woman limp in his arms.
“Bring her back here, Caleb!” Derek shouted, motioning to the exam room where a vast array of top-notch medical equipment waited. When Derek had opened his practice in Eden Falls, Gunnar had quietly funded the purchase of state of the art facilities, setting Derek up to provide most any treatments or tests his patients needed.
Caleb hurried into the exam room and laid the woman gently on the exam table. “I don’t know her name. Isaac Lapp found her on the road and brought her to my house. Her leg has a deep cut, and her head has a large bump. Bruises and scrapes …”
Derek stepped closer to begin his examination, and his breath froze in his chest when he saw the woman’s pale face. “This is Violet Chastain, the actress! I just met her yesterday. Why would—”
Caleb caught Derek’s arm in a firm grip, stopping him. “We need to get Emma here. The woman was still conscious when she arrived at my house. She said someone kidnapped Mary Yoder. I think the men who took my sister have Mary now, too.”
Derek’s pulse kicked, and he muttered a curse word under his breath as he began peeling the homemade bandage off Violet’s leg. “Have my receptionist call Emma and Tate. You can wait out front for them, tell them what you know.” He jerked a nod toward his patient. “Thank you for bringing her in.”
As Caleb left, a scrubs-clad figure bustled in drying her hands on a sterile cloth. Derek arched an eyebrow. “That was quick.”
“You have to be quick when lives are at stake, right?” Amelia peered past him to the exam table and snapped on a pair of gloves. Immediately, she clipped a pulse ox monitor on Violet’s finger, then grabbed the blood pressure cuff from the countertop. “Heart rate 60. BP is 80 over 65. Oxygen 90 percent. Starting 2L oxygen now.” She retrieved the oxygen tank and non-rebreather mask from the corner of the room and settled the mask over Violet’s mouth and nose.
Derek cut Violet’s skirt off her so he could work better, then opened his mouth to ask Amelia for a thigh cuff, only to find her turning from the cabinets with one in