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“Leave the helmet. Just secure yourself!” Dan shouted, hoisting Natalie into the chopper. He didn’t feel good about this. He didn’t feel good about it at all.
Quickly he climbed into the cockpit and pressed the ignition, even as Natalie took the seat next to him, fastening the harness.
He watched as mud rushed over the landing skids of the chopper. Jesus…
“Hold on!” With a flip of a switch and a jerk on the cylindrical stick between his legs, they were airborne.
As soon as the helicopter was stable, Dan glanced back to find no sign of the roof, just a relentless river of mud.
THE CHOPPER SAT ready for liftoff on the Courage Bay Hospital’s helipad. The patient had been stabilized and was now in the hospital staff’s capable hands.
The rush of adrenaline that had kept Natalie going plummeted, almost making her dizzy as she fastened herself back into her seat. She was soaked to the skin, and the seat belt bit into her shoulders, but she felt an odd sense of euphoria at having rushed into the fray with Dan and saved a man’s life.
“The attending doc says he’s going to pull through.” Dan’s voice came over the headphones as he powered up the helicopter once more.
Natalie remembered to tug her mike in front of her mouth as she nodded at him. The chopper gave a lurch and they were again airborne.
They were going to take the helicopter back to the airport, where they would retrieve Dan’s Jeep. Natalie had been half afraid he would suggest she stay at the hospital and not make the return trip with him, but thankfully, he hadn’t said anything. She suspected he was totally focused on getting back to the mudslide and relieving the squad’s captain he’d left in charge.
During their flight to the hospital, the storm had let up a bit. Rain was still coming down heavily, but the winds had died down—for the time being, anyway.
Natalie watched as the white X of the hospital’s landing pad grew farther and farther away beneath them. She’d worked at the hospital for more than ten years, but she’d never seen it from this angle. Through the pounding rain it looked almost surreal.
Who was she kidding? This entire experience had been surreal. She’d never been up in a helicopter before, yet she had helped Dan rescue an ill man from his roof moments before the mudslide had claimed the entire house.
A curse filled her ears.
She turned to look at Dan. His right hand was fused to the stick between his powerful legs, his left to a longer one between their seats, which looked like an oversize emergency brake. His right hand and the stick it held shuddered ominously.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Deep grooves bracketed his mouth as he flicked his gaze from the instrument panel, with its hundreds of dials and switches, to the windshield. “The winds are picking up and I see thunderheads rolling in. The storm’s switched course and is circling around behind us.”
Natalie looked back over her shoulder. Ominous black clouds pillowed bright, jagged shafts of lightning. She could no longer make out the hospital in the dimming light.
“It’s unsafe to try to land back at the hospital,” Dan said through the mike. “My best bet is to try to go around the storm and approach the airport from the northwest.” He spared her a quick glance, his blue eyes lingering for a moment before shifting back to the instrument panel. “Hold on.”
Natalie grasped her harness for dear life as he made a sharp right turn. The wind pushed at the helicopter relentlessly, making it sway in the air.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Earlier, she’d been so focused on the rescue that she hadn’t really stopped to think how dangerous it was to be flying in these conditions. But when the helicopter hit an air pocket and dropped a few yards, she could have sworn her stomach pitched down, too—somewhere in the vicinity of her icy, boot-clad feet.
Her feet? She suspected her heart had just hit the ground some thousand feet below. Until it came boomeranging back up with a vengeance and lodged in her throat.
In the distance, lightning split the dark sky—in front of them this time, making her jump. This couldn’t be safe! Thunder rattled the windshield of the small aircraft as it was buffeted by the storm.
Natalie leaned closer to the side window, staring down at the darkness below. Another crack of lightning showed her they were above Courage Bay. The high, churning, foam-capped waves revealed that the storm had gone from bad to much, much worse.
She briefly closed her eyes and counted backward from ten. After what she’d seen of Dan and his amazing capabilities today, she wanted to trust him, longed to believe that he would see them through this okay. But this brutal weather, the suddenly very small helicopter, the countless B disaster movies she rented to help make the lonely nights go by, all combined to make her the most frightened she’d been since—well, in her entire life.
Another sharp dip jolted them. The whump-whump of the helicopter blades above them, a loud clap of thunder behind, the pounding sound of rain against the windshield and the steady hammering of her heart made her feel as if she was going to be sick.
Another crack of lightning. Only this time it wasn’t far off in the distance, but directly in front of them. And just before it disappeared into the dark sky, the helicopter ran straight into its path.
Dan reached a hand out to cup the back of her neck, then pushed her head between her legs. “Hold on. We’re going down….”
CHAPTER FOUR
THIS WAS NOTthe way he intended to go.
Dan struggled with the helicopter controls. The electrical system was on the fritz after the lightning strike. The aircraft’s engine cut on and off as if someone were gunning, then releasing the gas pedal of a car, while the rotor above him continued to spin. He eyed the rpm gauge on the console, watching the needle dive downward. Sheets of rain impeded Dan’s vision and his heart slammed against his rib cage. But he knew one thing for sure: this was not going to end him.
“Medevac One, this is air traffic control.” A woman’s staticky voice came over his headphones. “The Emergency Alert System has been activated. Repeat, the EAS has been activated. Please—”
A loud crackling cut off the transmission.
Damn.
The radio had either shorted out or was fried. His guess was the latter.
“Dan?”
He glanced over at Natalie, having forgotten for a moment that she was in the chopper with him. Although how he could have done so was a mystery to him. Her mocha-colored eyes were bigger and more mesmerizing in her pale face when shadowed with fear. Spike was cushioned against her side, and she had her arm around him. The sight sent warmth coursing through Dan’s bloodstream.
He reached behind him for a thermal blanket and tossed it across her slender legs. “Put your head in your lap, Natalie. I’m going to have to put this bird down and it’s not going to be pretty.”
That was if he could find a clear, safe spot to land her.
As the helicopter rocked like an amusement park ride whose cable was unraveling, he sought a landing site. To the west lay the rough, steel-gray waves of the Pacific. To the east were the mountains of Courage Bay, normally beautiful, but treacherous in the current circumstances.
A loud system alarm filled his ears. Dan heard Natalie’s gasp as the altimeter warned of a rapid loss of altitude and their quick approach to the horizon. He gripped the stick tightly in his hands and maneuvered the control pedals. Holding both steady, he aimed for a spot directly in the middle of Courage Bay.
NATALIE TRIED TO KEEP her head down, but she’d never been the type to hide beneath the covers when the bogeyman might be lurking under her bed. Only this boogeyman was Mother Nature, and Natalie had never been so scared in her life.
The helicopter’s quick descent made her feel eerily weightless and light-headed. There was water everywhere. Nothing but water…
Oh, God, she thought. They were going to crash into the Bay….
She cuddled Spike close, hoping her arms would help cushion him when they hit. Life jackets. They needed life jackets….
That was the last thought she had before the craft hit hard, nearly jarring her teeth from her gums. The helicopter bounced, then hit again. It listed to the side, the grinding of metal nearly deafening her as the rotor blades struck something, then came to a stop. She was aware of a scream and distantly realized it was her own.
“Get out!”
Natalie blinked. At the last minute, she had closed her eyes and buried her face in the blanket.
Spike wriggled free from her grasp. Natalie stared into Dan’s face as he released his own harness and quickly reached to unfasten hers. She couldn’t seem to make her fingers work as she stared out of the craft to find they weren’t bouncing in the waves like an oversize beach ball, but instead were resting on solid ground.
How that was possible was a welcome mystery.
Dan reached across her and opened her door, shoving her outside without preamble. Natalie fell to the wet sand, her bones shuddering as she fought to get to her feet under the pressure of the gale-force winds. Spike jumped out after her, and Dan followed.
“Help me secure her.”
Secure her…
A wild gust of wind caught the chopper on the beach, sending it listing to the other side. Dan rushed to the door and reached inside to pull out a rope. “Here!” he shouted over the roar of the storm. “Secure this to a tree. A solid one as far inland as possible.”
Natalie blinked against the rain stinging her eyes, and stumbled toward a grove of old pines bent nearly horizontal from the force of the storm. Movement out of the corner of her eye made her jump. She scanned the thick forest. There—to the right! She tried to blink the object into focus, but saw nothing but nature battling nature.
She chose the thickest, oldest pine and ran the rope around the trunk. But as she stood staring at the cord in her hands, she couldn’t seem to fix on what kind of knot to tie.
Dan appeared beside her and literally took the decision out of her hands, fastening a simple square knot.
Of course, a square knot.
“Come on!”
She felt him grasp her shoulders, but couldn’t seem to get her feet to cooperate with her own commands, much less Dan’s. All she could think of was that they were all right. They were okay. They were not dead. They were very much alive.
“Where are we?” she whispered, the storm stealing her voice away.
“S-hamala Island.”
Natalie tried to grasp his words. They were on S-hamala Island—a tiny stretch of land in the middle of Courage Bay that she could see from her apartment window on a clear day. She knew precious little about it except that its name referred to the local Chumash Indians. S-hamala was one of the few islands in Southern California that maintained its original Indian name, and it wasn’t open to the public because a number of protected brown pelicans called the south side home.
“There’s a coast guard station here,” Dan said. “They should be able to help us.”
She nodded. Or at least she thought she did. Right that minute, the only thing she could be sure of was that she was upright, that she was alive and that Dan Egan had his arm around her.
CORRECTION, coast guard personnel would be able to help them if anyone was still there. And Dan had the unsettling feeling no one was.
It was standard operating procedure that, given enough advance warning, the remote location be abandoned in favor of the mainland station when severe storms occurred. Dan also knew that rescue craft and personnel had been lost before in storms half as bad as this one was turning out to be.
He squinted into the wind, noting the lack of boats secured to the pier. Nor was there any sign of coast guard staff. If anyone was there, they would have heard the chopper.
Natalie’s soft, wet body curved against his, making him all too aware of her presence. Spike lumbered ahead of them, his coat soaked and matted, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he climbed the steps to the station, which was little more than a small cabin built against a cliff, stilts supporting the front, the rock face comprising the back wall.
“Watch your step,” he told Natalie as they began ascending the twenty or so slick wooden stairs. Spike lost his footing ahead of them and Dan gave him a gentle boost, pushing him up to the observation deck that jutted out over the beach.
Locked. The door was locked.
“Stand back,” he told Natalie.
She blinked at him in a way that only confirmed his suspicions: she was in shock. He helped her move a few feet to the side. Shrugging out of his windbreaker, he wrapped the sturdy nylon around his hand and smacked the windowpane closest to the door handle. It broke easily and he cleared away the shards of glass, reaching in to free the lock. The wind instantly pushed the wooden door open, slamming it against the inside wall.
Dan hustled Natalie into the dark, empty station, then fought to close and lock the door behind them.
Ineffectually swiping her dark hair from her face, she asked, “Where…where is everybody?”
Dan grimaced as he looked around. “They must have been summoned to the mainland when the storm hit.”
He tried the light switches by the door. Nothing. Methodically he made his way to the far wall and tried the radio, which was no more than a hulking shadow. No power.
“I have to go out and find the generator,” he said to her.
Natalie stood in the same spot he had left her, just inside the door. The wind and rain whipped through the broken window, causing an almost mournful howling. Spike circled the room, his nails clicking on the wooden planks. At last he sat down next to Natalie and gazed up at her.
“We need to get you out of those wet things,” Dan said quietly, concern for her well-being overriding the voice inside his head that warned him to stay away from her. He went to stand in front of her, removing her raincoat, then bending down to help her out of her borrowed boots. Her wet stockings felt surprisingly warm and soft under his fingertips, even as her skirt dripped rainwater onto his hands. He was suddenly filled with the desire to skim his fingers up the length of her shapely legs and help her out of the panty hose…. He jerked his hands back and stood again.
“I’m going out to start the generator.”
She nodded, her eyes unnaturally large in her pale face.
Damn, but she was beautiful. And despite the shock that had settled over her when they’d crash-landed, more courageous than most women he knew. She hadn’t flinched as the helicopter wove through the rough air currents. Despite the mudslide, she’d jumped right in to rescue the heart attack victim, her movements quick and efficient, her mind clearly on the task at hand. And even in shock she had managed to find the best tree to secure the rope that he hoped would keep the helicopter from being blown out to sea.
Natalie blinked at him, making Dan realize he was staring.
“Why are you smiling like that?” she asked in a small voice.
Smiling? Was he smiling? He cleared his throat and averted his gaze. “I was just thinking how good you were out there, and wondering if maybe you got into the wrong line of work.”
At the mere mention of Natalie’s work, the burn scar on Dan’s side let him know it didn’t appreciate the extra tension he’d put on it. It throbbed and pulled and made every move painful.
Surprisingly, Natalie gave him a small smile of her own. “No. No, I think I’m in the right profession.”
He waited for her to offer more, but she didn’t. Probably still in shock.
“Hopefully I’ll be back in fifteen,” he said, glancing around the place. “Strip out of the rest of your clothes and find a blanket to dry off with. Warm yourself up.”
She nodded.
His fingers were on the door handle when she said his name.
Dan looked over his shoulder.
“Do you need any help?” she asked.
He looked at her standing in the middle of the floor, dripping wet and cold. The woman couldn’t seem to stop shivering, yet she’d thought to offer him assistance.
He shook his head. “I think I can handle it.”
Then he went outside and quickly closed the door, glad for the wind that ripped his breath from his body and the rain that soaked his face. They made him stop thinking about how much he’d like to kiss the lady doc in the room behind him.
NATALIE SHUDDERED as the door slammed shut. Every part of her seemed to shiver, from the wet bangs hanging above her eyes to her toenails.
The dog sitting next to her whined softly. She blinked his dim shape into focus and slowly reached down to pat him. “We need to dry you off, buddy.”
What had Dan said his name was, back at the fire station? Spike. Not Spot. The dog’s grandfather had been named Spot.
She stopped her ridiculous thoughts and bent to pick up her boots and coat, moving them from the center of the room closer to the door. She’d have to look for something to tack up over the broken pane. The howling of the wind through the narrow opening made her shiver more than her wet clothing did.
Slowly, methodically, she made her way around the small cabin, finding a cot, the communications radio, a table and four chairs, and a row of cabinets built into the far wall. She crouched down and began opening and closing cabinet doors until she found an oil lantern. She shook it, heard the promising slosh of fuel inside, then lifted it to the counter, switching her attention to the drawers and a search for matches. Within moments a warm yellow glow fought the approaching night.
Despite the warmth of Southern California in the winter, the sun still set at 5:00 p.m. Here on the island, the temperature would be even chillier than the mainland, storm or no storm.
And Dan was outside without so much as a flashlight.
Using the lantern to guide her way, Natalie found a small stack of blankets, T-shirts and khaki pants in a storage closet. The clothes were likely extras for coast guard personnel. She glanced over her shoulder at the door and curtainless windows before peeling her wet blouse and skirt from her body, followed by her bra, nylons and panties. She made quick work of drying herself with one of the blankets, then pulled on an oversize T-shirt, as well as a pair of pants, rolling up the waist of the khakis until they stopped sliding down her narrow hips. By the time she’d dried her hair, she was feeling marginally better.
After hanging her own clothes over a chair, she bent to dry Spike. The old dog licked her face in gratitude.
Natalie smiled. That was the best thing about dogs. You never had to wonder how they felt about you.
Her hands slowed their movements on the dog’s fur as she questioned her choice of words. She remembered Dan’s face when he’d knelt in front of her minutes ago, his fingers strong and warm against her ankles as he’d helped remove her wet shoes. He’d lingered there, and the storm had seemed to grow quiet as a shiver of a whole different variety worked its way over Natalie’s skin.
She’d known a moment of longing so strong it had rocked her to the core.
And scared her beyond belief.
Then Dan had pulled away and she’d forced aside the thought of his being interested in her, and her own startling attraction to him.
Until he’d grinned at her….
Natalie closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Dan had looked at her the way Charles once had. His features soft. His eyes warm. His smile genuine….
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