Jake was moving restlessly by the time she got back to his SUV. His eyes fluttered, and he moaned when she cleansed his wounds with the wipes.
He sat up. “What happened?”
“You tell me. I found you passed out cold after you nearly hit me.” Skye dabbed ointment on the cuts around his eyes and forehead. His lips were cracked, too, but she didn’t think he’d take kindly to greasy ointment on them.
“Someone tried to kill me.” He leaned forward onto the steering wheel. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Skye massaged the back of his neck. “Take deep breaths,” she advised. She didn’t like his pallor under the dirt. Trying not to hurt him, she probed his thick hair for lumps. She suspected he had at least a mild concussion.
“Ouch!” He jerked his head away. “I’m fine, quit fussing.”
“You’re not fine. And where’s your hat?” she added, feeling like an idiot for asking the question. He didn’t look the same without his hat. His vulnerability tugged at her heart, and she didn’t like the way it made her feel.
“Fell off when I pitched over the cliff,” he mumbled. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest.
He’d fallen over a cliff? What if he had broken something? She touched his forehead, and his skin felt clammy. “Hang in there, Jake. Help is on the way.”
“Should have run when I took one look at you,” he mumbled. “So beautiful.”
Her heart took a sudden leap like a deer running from a bear. He thought she was beautiful? She swallowed hard and stepped back as she heard the wah-wah of the ambulance in the distance.
Jake’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at her. Skye was drawn into the dark depths. What made him tick? He seemed so driven about his career, so passionate.
He reached out his hand and touched her long braid with grimy fingers. “You tied your hair all up again. I liked it down.” He closed his eyes again.
She would have sworn he wouldn’t notice her hair in church. She didn’t understand this attraction she felt toward him. He was a roving sort of guy, and she craved stability above all else. Men like him could chew her up and spit her out faster than she could react.
The ambulance’s siren grew louder, and she turned to see the plume of dust behind the vehicle as it came toward them. The paramedics jumped from the ambulance and ran to Jake’s SUV.
Jake opened his eyes again and sat up, waving them away. “I’m fine, just fine,” he mumbled.
The paramedics ignored him, put a collar on his neck and proceeded to check his vitals. Once they were finished with the preliminaries, they started to load him in the ambulance, but Jake balked.
“I’m not going,” he said, his jaw thrust out.
“You’ll have to sign a release,” the older paramedic said.
“Fine, bring it on.” Jake scribbled his name on the release, then ripped off the collar and handed it to them. “Call the sheriff. Someone rigged a wire across the path so I’d fall down the cliff,” he told them.
“I’ll call him right now.” The paramedics walked toward the ambulance.
Skye looked him over again. He must have hit his head really hard. “Who would do such a thing? No one here would hurt you.”
Jake’s gaze focused on her. “You tell me. At first, I thought a rival might be at fault. But you have just as much motive.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You’ve been opposed to my presence right from the start. Whether you’re the culprit or someone else, I have to move now. I don’t scare easy. The only way to keep my discovery safe now is to announce it to the media.”
“You can’t do that!” She caught at his arm. “You have to know I don’t want you dead!” Skye’s voice trembled, and she bit her lip. The thought of Jake lying broken at the bottom of the cliff was a mental image that made her shudder.
Jake rubbed his forehead.
“Stop, you’re making it bleed again.” She grabbed his hand and pulled it away. “Jake, I wouldn’t do something like that. I’ll tell you to your face how I feel, but I won’t be a sneak and a saboteur.”
For the first time, he looked uncertain. “Maybe you’re right.” He shook his head, and his eyes thinned again as he stared into her face.
“You still don’t look like you believe me.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
Skye hugged herself tightly. “Can you hire someone to guard the site?”
“You almost sound like you care.”
“I care that someone might get hurt on our property.”
“Ah, you’re worried about lawsuits.” His voice was ironic. “I signed a release not to hold your mother responsible, so it’s not your problem.”
But it was her problem. She chewed on her bottom lip. “I wish you’d come back to the shop with me. I’ll give you some herbs to help with the healing and the muscle soreness.”
He grinned. “Not a chance. You might finish the job with poison.”
“You know better than that. You’re just trying to be difficult.” She wanted to cry, to put her head down and sob. It was the reaction to the near accident, she knew, but knowing that didn’t make it easier to keep her voice from shaking.
This island had always seemed a safe haven for her. To realize someone wanted Jake dead made her glance toward the dark woods and wonder if someone was watching them. She’d never felt so exposed, so vulnerable. Who would do this?
“Don’t look so scared.” Jake took her hand. “I’ll come with you.”
His sudden capitulation drew her gaze from the shadowy forest. “Really?”
“I’m going to need all the help I can get to be back on the job tomorrow.” He sounded grim, and the humor in his eyes faded.
“I’ll help you to my truck,” she said.
“I can walk by myself.”
“At least you’re smart enough to know you shouldn’t be driving.”
He got out of his SUV, and Skye slid behind the wheel and guided the SUV off the road.
“I’ll have Max and Becca come get my vehicle later,” Jake told her when she joined him beside her truck.
Skye nodded and went to the ambulance to tell them to have the sheriff meet them at her shop.
Jake opened the truck door and slid inside. “Where’d you get this beauty?”
Skye warmed to his praise of her “baby.” Not many people appreciated the classic truck. “It was my father’s.” She felt, rather than saw, Jake’s long glance in her direction.
“Your father’s desertion really affected you.”
Her heart gave a twinge at the compassion in his voice. “Yeah,” she said. There were depths to Jake Baxter she found she liked.
“Did your mother ever try to find him?”
Skye nodded. “She hired a private investigator, but the trail petered out in Detroit.”
“Had they been fighting?”
She nodded. “But no one thought he would just leave like that. Least of all me. We’d always been close.”
Skye