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Total Exposure
Tori Carrington
Fire chief Dan Egan pilots a helicopter with Dr. Natalie Giroux aboard to make an emergency airlift. A full-blown electrical storm hits. Lightning strikes the chopper. An emergency landing is their only hope….The forced landing strands Dan Egan and Natalie Giroux on a remote island in Courage Bay. Being isolated with Dan both frightens and excites Natalie. He's the kind of stubborn, fearless man she tries to avoid, yet she finds herself attracted. Maybe it's the brush with death…or the way Dan is struggling with his own desire for her. But she may as well admit it–when their helicopter went down, so did all of Natalie's defenses.
Attention: Courage Bay Emergency Services personnel
From: U.S. Coast Guard
This is to notify all emergency personnel that a helicopter has been reported missing over Courage Bay near S-hamala Island. The helicopter is piloted by Dan Egan, fire chief of Jefferson Avenue Firehouse. Also on board is Dr. Natalie Giroux, a staff member of Courage Bay Hospital. The two were returning to the local airport after a successful emergency airlift of a male heart-attack victim from the mudslide on Courage Bay mountain. Reports indicate the fire chief’s dog is also in the copter.
Final contact with air traffic control was made shortly after the helicopter took off from the hospital helipad late this afternoon. All reports indicate that the pilot changed course to avoid the approaching storm. Further attempts by air traffic control to contact Chief Egan have been unsuccessful, suggesting radio failure or a forced landing. Gale-force winds are reported in the bay area, along with twenty-foot swells. A large-and small-craft warning has been issued for the surrounding waters. All flights are grounded in and out of Courage Bay airport, and Coast Guard personnel were evacuated from S-hamala Island to the mainland earlier this afternoon. Given the current conditions, any search-and-rescue missions are on hold until further notice. Updates will be issued on an hourly basis.
About the Author
TORI CARRINGTON
Multi-award-winning, bestselling husband-and-wife duo Lori and Tony Karayianni are the power behind the pen name Tori Carrington. Their more than thirty-five titles include numerous Harlequin Blaze miniseries, as well as the ongoing Sofie Metropolis comedic mystery series with another publisher. Visit www.toricarrington.net and www.sofiemetro.com and www.myspace.com/toricarrington for more information on the couple and their titles.
Total Exposure
Tori Carrington
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
As steadfast fans of Harlequin’s continuity series, we were thrilled when we were invited to contribute to the CODE RED series. Actually, contribute is the wrong word, because, as we quickly discovered, these series are team endeavors in which every member plays an important role—from editor down to the author of the last title—making for a unique reading and writing experience we’ll treasure always.
In Total Exposure, our hunky hero, Fire Chief Dan Egan, is every bit the alpha male with a chip on his shoulder that beautiful burn specialist Natalie Giroux only aggravates. Dan’s wounds run far deeper than the burn he suffered three months earlier in a warehouse explosion. But when he’s stranded with Natalie on a deserted island during one of the worst storms in Courage Bay’s history, does this man of action have the courage to let the lady doc heal all his wounds so the two of them might forge a future together?
We hope you enjoy Dan and Natalie’s rocky journey to happily-ever-after! We’d love to hear from you. Write us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, Ohio 43612 or e-mail us at toricarrington@aol.com. And make sure you visit our Web site at www.toricarrington.com for info on coming attractions and to enter our latest online drawings.
Here’s wishing you love, romance and heartfelt reading!
Lori and Tony Karayianni
aka Tori Carrington
We warmly dedicate this book to the extraordinary
Marsha Zinberg and her phenomenal support team,
including Alethea Spiridon, Sasha Bogin and
Margaret Learn, for helping us “expose” another facet of
ourselves as writers and human beings. Thank you!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
IN DR. NATALIE GIROUX’S experience, there were days that were great, others that were so-so and a handful of additional ones she’d prefer to erase from the record books altogether. Unfortunately, this cold, rainy Friday in November fell solidly into the last category. Not so much because of the threatening storm system that had been parked over Courage Bay, California, for the past couple of days. It was, after all, the rainy season, and, well, rain was to be expected. Her sluggishness didn’t stem from the long, hard week she’d just gone through as Courage Bay Hospital’s burn specialist, treating a wide variety of injuries she somehow never got quite used to seeing. Nor could her mood be blamed on nothing going according to plan, or the fact she’d been misplacing things all day.
No. The source of her melancholy was far more personal and went much deeper than such simple matters. And as a result, the dark monster was much more difficult to battle.
Natalie blinked her examining room back into focus, then gently tousled the head of a four-year-old burn patient in for a follow-up appointment.
“That’s it,” she said, helping the girl down from the table. “We’re all done. Now, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
She trailed the girl and her mother into the reception area. Little Jenny Barnard was recovering nicely. Natalie wished she could say that about all of her patients. She held up three different flavored suckers. Jenny took the yellow, lemon-flavored one.
“Now, do you remember everything I told you?” Natalie asked the four-year-old. “You’ve got to drink lots of juice and let your mom change your bandages when she says it’s time.” The superficial dermal burn on the right side of Jenny’s face was the result of an unfortunate accident involving a pot of boiling spaghetti, a cat and the young girl a week ago. But the injury was not what Natalie focused on now that the examination was over. All she saw was Jenny’s vibrant spirit.
“I will, Dr. Natalie.”
Natalie smiled and crossed her arms over the girl’s chart, hugging it to her, as she watched mother and daughter walk down the hall of the hospital. When they were out of sight, she glanced at her watch, trying to ignore the large numbers of the date at the left. She made a few notes on the chart, then slid it into the slot outside the examining room door for her assistant to pick up.
Today would have been her first wedding anniversary.
The thought snagged her attention, nearly causing the next chart she drew out to drop from her numb fingers.
She swallowed hard, seeking the solace she usually found in her work.
It wasn’t so much the fact that she and Charles would have celebrated their first year of marriage today. She’d been mentally preparing herself for that milestone over the past month. What made her heart ache was that the week before their wedding day, she’d lost Charles. Not to another woman. Not to a case of cold feet. No, the loss was even more decisive. Natalie had lost him to heart disease. Permanently.
She cleared her throat and flipped open the chart in her hands, grateful to be so busy. During the past year, the hospital and her patients were all that had stood between her and emotional collapse.
But nothing seemed capable of helping her through today.
Her gaze fell on the name at the top of the chart and she sighed, glancing around the waiting area without much hope of finding who she was looking for.
“He didn’t show,” her assistant, Manuela, said from her desk on the other side of the reception area. “Again.”
“What appointment is this?” Natalie asked. “His fourth?”
“Fifth.”
Natalie skimmed the contents of the chart. Fire Chief Dan Egan might be everything and more than his stellar reputation suggested when it came to his work, but keeping his appointments with her seemed to rank low on his list of priorities.
She leaned against the doorjamb, then turned the page of the file, although she really didn’t need to. She already knew what it would tell her. Namely that the fire chief had suffered a contact burn to his side in the warehouse explosion three months ago. The severe blistering and her inability to judge the depth of the wound had required a follow-up appointment for her to better evaluate the injury and make assessments for additional treatment. Only the handsome fire chief had canceled that appointment. And the next one he’d made for a week after that. Until she stood right where she was now—essentially without the information she needed in order to close the file.
“Should I call and reschedule?” Manuela asked, interrupting her thoughts.
“Hmm? Oh.” She flipped the chart closed. “No.”
“Are you going to leave the file open?”
Natalie stared over the young woman’s shoulder to the wall and the seascapes hanging there. But she didn’t see the warm pastel colors depicting what was visible through any window looking over Courage Bay. Instead her mind conjured up an image of Charles right before his death. A staff psychologist with the hospital, Charles had refused to follow up on symptoms that in retrospect had foreshadowed the fatal heart attack that took his life.
“Are you all right, Natalie?” Manuela asked quietly.
Natalie’s chest felt cramped and congested. Only she wasn’t coming down with a virus. At least not one that could be treated. Rather, it was raw emotion that choked off her breath and made her feel sick to her stomach.
Nothing she had said had made a difference with Charles. And there was no reason to believe that she’d have any more pull when it came to Dan Egan.
She shook her head. “It’s been three months since the warehouse incident. I’m going to close the file.”
The phone on Manuela’s desk rang as Natalie glanced at her watch again. Three-thirty. Since her last appointment for the day was a no-show, she had some unexpected time on her hands.
The last thing she wanted.
“Natalie?”
She looked at Manuela.
“It’s Debra Egan for you. Shall I take a message?”
Debra Egan. Dan Egan’s daughter. Natalie often forgot that little detail because her connection to them took different forms. While Dan was her no-show patient, Debra led an exercise class at a local gym. A class Natalie took whenever she could fit it into her busy schedule.
Maybe she could go over there now. Work off some of the energy burning her from the inside out.
She motioned down the corridor. “I’ll take the call in my office. Thanks, Manuela.”
Leaving her door open, she put Dan’s chart on her narrow desk, sat down and plucked up the telephone receiver.
She’d barely said hello before Debra asked, “Is he there?”
Natalie reached for the pile of folders in her in box. “If you’re referring to your father, no. Unless he’s running late, he stood me up again.” She shuffled through the files until she located the one she was looking for, on a grease-fire patient.
“So Nate lied to me…again.” Debra sighed. “I just called the station and he told me Dad was at the hospital.”
“Maybe he is here somewhere, just not with me.”
Silence reigned as Natalie reviewed the details on a patient who needed her help much more than the city’s stubborn fire chief. After a few moments, she realized Debra had still not replied. “Is everything all right, Deb?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to zone out on you, Natalie. It’s just that…well, I’ve been taking on double classes here. And when I’m not working—heck, even when I am—I’m worrying about Dad. Just the other day I caught him wincing when he reached to pick up something. That burn is bothering him, but he won’t own up to it.”
“I can’t do anything about it if he won’t let me,” Natalie said quietly.
“I know. I was just thinking, you know, if you wouldn’t mind too much, you could go over to the station yourself to check him out.”
Natalie briefly closed her eyes. While she didn’t mind making the occasional house call, the thought of chasing Dan Egan around, trying to get a look at him without his shirt on, struck her as ridiculous.
“I mean, you were scheduled to see him right now, anyway, weren’t you? The fire station is only a couple blocks away from the hospital….”
Natalie propped her elbow on her desk. “Deb, I…”
“Please, Natalie. I’m really worried. I mean, after what happened with Mom…”
There was a plaintive tone in the nineteen-year-old’s voice. Sometimes Natalie found it hard to remember that Debra was almost twenty years younger than she was. But at times like these, when she was reminded that Dan Egan’s wife had died of breast cancer only two short years ago, she realized how young and still hurt Debra was.
“I’ll throw in a couple free exercise sessions,” the young woman said, her voice overly bright.
Natalie took a deep breath and told herself if she did this, she wouldn’t be doing it for Dan Egan, but as a favor to his daughter.
“Okay,” she said, smiling at the enormous sigh of relief filling her ear. “I’ll go to the station. But I can’t promise anything, Deb. I mean, if he doesn’t want me to examine him, I can’t exactly cut his shirt off him.”
The idea of peeling away Dan Egan’s shirt to reveal his muscular torso sent a mild shiver running through her—one unfamiliar and ultimately unwelcome.
“Oh, thank you, Natalie! You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“I think I do, Deb,” she said softly. “That’s why I’m doing it.”
“I’m going to call the station right now and tell him you’re coming.”
Natalie opened her mouth to object, but the line was already disconnected.
She slowly hung up. Odds were that if Dan Egan knew she was coming, he’d run full tilt in the opposite direction.
FIRE CHIEF DAN EGAN loved his job, but like most professions, there were aspects he hated with a passion. And paperwork ranked right up near the top.
He pulled together the rotation schedules scattered across his desk and started putting them in order by week. Too bad Courage Bay’s budget didn’t allow for a full-time office manager. He could really use one. Especially now, so close to the holidays. It wasn’t hard to understand why everyone wanted Thanksgiving off. But it was up to him and his two captains to decide who would actually get their request. While seniority played a role, Dan also had to consider who had worked the last holiday, and other variables.
This was all stuff he’d prefer not to have to think about. He’d much rather be out on a run somewhere instead of stuck in his office trying to make heads or tails out of Captain Joe Ripani’s indecipherable chicken scratches. Dan turned a page one way, then another, trying to make out a notation. At last he gave up and tossed the paper aside. The white sheet drifted on the air and started sailing over the side of his desk toward the wastebasket. He made a move to catch it, pulling the three-month-old burn on his side and causing pain to shoot up his back and down his arm.
“Damn.”
Spike, a twelve-year-old Dalmatian and his constant companion nowadays, lay sprawled in front of the door. At the sound of Dan’s voice, he lifted his head and gave a quiet bark.
Dan grimaced at him. “I bet you know exactly how I feel, don’t you, boy?” He gingerly leaned back in his chair. “Too old to do any of the fun stuff, too young not to want to do it.”
While Spike hadn’t been the official fire dog for some years now due to age, his role at the station had been called into question by the new firehouse mascot, Salvage, a black Lab that truckie Shannon O’Shea had rescued from a warehouse fire. A second fire at the same warehouse was responsible for Dan’s burn.
Yes, Dan had found out exactly how it felt to be phased out—or rather, “promoted”—when he made fire chief a year ago, leaving his days of hands-on action well behind him.
The small, recessed speaker in the ceiling broadcast an incoming phone call to the station’s general line. Dan purposely ignored it, because for all intents and purposes he wasn’t there. He was supposed to be at the hospital getting a checkup from that frustratingly beautiful Dr. Natalie Giroux. An appointment he had no intention of keeping.
He caught himself lightly rubbing the wound in question, then put both hands firmly on his desk as Spike laid his head back down on top of his paws.
“Chief? Call’s for you.” Nate Kellison’s voice sounded over the speaker. Nate was a paramedic on Squad Two.
Cursing under his breath, Dan leaned back in his chair to yell out the open door. “I’m not here.”
“She’s not buying it,” came the answer.
Dan snatched the receiver from its cradle on his desk. “Egan.”
“I knew I’d get you if I threatened Nate with the rotation from hell.” His daughter’s voice filtered into his ear. “But my question is, why are you there instead of at the hospital like you’re supposed to be?”
“Something came up.”
“Right. Just like something’s come up the past four times you were scheduled to meet with Natalie.”
The mention of the lady doc’s name made Dan’s stomach tighten.
He told himself the thought of her poking and prodding at him was behind the physical response. If the memory of her mocha-colored eyes above her surgical mask when he’d finally come to in the hospital three months ago had anything to do with his reaction, well, he wasn’t about to own up to it.
Mocha? Where in the hell had that description come from? He rubbed his forehead with his finger and thumb. Must be Tim and all that fancy cappuccino stuff he made whenever he was on duty. Dr. Natalie Giroux’s eyes were brown. Nothing more, nothing less.
And Dan hated hospitals. Nothing more, nothing less.
There weren’t very many things capable of putting the fear of God into Dan Egan. He’d joined the Courage Bay Fire Department after completing six years of active military service as a helicopter pilot flying emergency missions in war-torn areas of the world. He’d done it all—firefighter, haz-mat specialist, smoke jumper, helicopter pilot, captain. When Patrick O’Shea became mayor last year, freeing up the top position in the fire department, Dan had moved up to chief. Yes, he’d pretty much faced every intimidating situation that there was to face.
But hospitals…
He cursed under his breath.
“I told you,” he said to his daughter, “and I’m going to keep telling you until you get it through that thick head of yours—I’m fine. I don’t need to go to the doctor for a checkup.”
“And I told you,” Debra countered without missing a beat, “and I’m going to keep telling you until you get it through that thick head of yours, it’s just a follow-up. If it’s true you’re fine, then what better way to shut me up than by letting Natalie take a look?”
There went that stomach-tightening thing again.
Next to hospitals, Burn Specialist Natalie Giroux was second on his most-hated list. Well, maybe not most-hated. But definitely a woman to avoid. While her eyes were soft and intriguing, her take-charge manner rubbed him the wrong way. Although he didn’t consider himself sexist—he was the first to admit the two female firefighters at the station more than pulled their own weight—Natalie…well, Natalie seemed to go that one inch too far.
Pushy. That’s what he’d like to think his late wife would have called her. A pushy woman.
“Are you done?” he asked his nineteen-going-on-forty-year-old daughter. “Because if you are, there are some important things I could be doing.”
“If you’re not on a run, then it’s not important,” she countered. “Anyway, I just called to make sure you’re there. I convinced Natalie to stop by and conduct her examination.”
“Here?” he repeated. “Here, as in the station?”
“Yes. And you’d better be nice to her.”
Nice to her, hell. He wasn’t going to be there.
“Deb, I’ve got to go.”
“Call me—”
Dan didn’t hear the rest because he was in the process of hanging up.
If Dr. Natalie Giroux was on her way to the station, that meant he had to be on his way out.
He pushed to his feet, wincing again as the scar tissue pulled tight. He grabbed his jacket, then headed for the door. Spike lumbered to his feet, the chain collar around his neck clinking as he wagged his tail and followed.
Dan hurried down the hall toward the bays at the front of the station, calling out as he went. “Nate? I’m out of here. If you need anything, I’ll be—”
The words stopped dead in his throat as he literally bumped into the woman he was trying to avoid, along with her unsettling mocha-brown eyes.
Dr. Natalie Giroux blocked his path, looking none too happy as rain ran in rivulets from the umbrella she held.
“You’ll be where?” she asked.
CHAPTER TWO
NATALIE HELD HER GROUND as she faced off with an obviously shocked and disappointed Dan Egan in the open bay of the fire station. She had little doubt he’d been trying to ditch her. The instant Debra had said she’d be calling her father, Natalie had hurried to the station, determined to get this over with once and for all. Close the file on the sexy and infuriating Dan Egan, who could easily serve as the poster boy for stubborn men worldwide.
She gazed into his light blue eyes and found herself swallowing hard to rid her mouth of the moisture that had instantly collected there. She’d forgotten how…big he was. And that was saying a lot, because at five-seven, she didn’t exactly rank on the short side. But Dan…Dan easily topped six-three. Six feet three inches of hard, solid, attractive male.
Of hard, mulish, injured male, she reminded herself.
“I, um,” Dan mumbled, squinting at her against a shaft of late afternoon sunlight that had suddenly speared through the thick, heavy storm clouds blanketing the Courage Bay area. “I have to run some errands.”
“Good thing you didn’t say you had an appointment.” Natalie couldn’t help a wry smile, although she felt cold and wet, and her day had taken an even steeper nosedive when she’d agreed to this particular call.
He absently scratched the back of his neck near the neat line of his dark brown hair. “Did we have an appointment today?”
A clacking sound caught Natalie’s attention, and she gasped as something brushed against her bare knee. She looked down at the white dog with huge black spots all over him. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “This must be Spot.”
Dan slid his fingers into the dog’s chain-link collar and pulled him back. “Actually, it’s Spike.”
Natalie blinked at him.
Dan grinned. “His grandfather was Spot.”
“Ah,” she said, not quite sure how to react to the information or the warm grin that came along with it. She tried to look over Dan’s shoulder, then glanced around him instead at the mammoth red ladder truck glistening in the shaft of light. A moment later the light disappeared and dark gloom settled in once again, a steady rain pelting the station roof.
“Looks like this storm’s not going anywhere for a while.”
Natalie glanced at the ominous purple clouds. Were they really talking about the weather? It had rained for the past seven days straight. “It is the rainy season in Southern Cal.”
He seemed to consider her. “That it is.”
“Where do you want to do this?” Natalie asked.
Dan’s eyes widened slightly. “Do what?”
“If you’re in that much of a rush, we could do it right here.”
“Here?”
“The examination.” She tightened her fingers around the black bag she held along with her umbrella, not comfortable with the other possibilities that came to mind. Why did she feel so drawn to this man, reading sexual innuendo into a simple comment?
But Dan was too much like Charles—so not what she wanted or needed right now. Nor anytime in the foreseeable future.
“Oh.” He looked around, as if realizing where they were for the first time. “We could go to my office.”
“That’ll work.”
He started walking away, then glanced over his shoulder. “Will this take long?”
“Depends.”
He slowed his steps, nearly causing her to plow into him. “On what?”
Natalie tried not to look at the way the denim of his jeans hugged his backside. “Have you had any problems since the injury? I mean, aside from the normal healing process?”
He shook his head. “No problems.”
“No soreness, tightness, sharp pains?”
He seemed to hesitate for a moment. “Nope. None of that.”
“Well, then, this shouldn’t take any time at all,” Natalie said, hoping fervently that was the case. She didn’t like the way she felt when she was around Dan Egan. His presence…did things to her. Short-circuited her mental wiring. Kicked up her heartbeat. Reminded her that she was a woman who hadn’t been with a man in a long time.
Today would have been your wedding anniversary, a small voice whispered to her.
Charles is gone, another said.
“Are you okay?”
They had stopped outside an office Natalie guessed was his. “That’s funny,” she said with a small smile. “I thought I was supposed to be the one asking that question.”
His gaze skimmed over her face, but he didn’t say anything.
Once again Natalie felt that heightened awareness of Dan as a man. She put her bag down on the cluttered desktop and opened it up. “Take off your jacket and shirt,” she said in her most professional tone.
“Pardon me?”
His voice held a slight Southern drawl. Natalie had forgotten that Dan hailed from Turning Point, Texas. And though a long time had passed since he’d actually lived there, his voice, his mannerisms, and yes, even his charm, were decidedly Texan.
“I can’t examine you through your clothes, Dan,” she said quietly.
“Oh.”
He obviously wasn’t looking forward to this any more than she was. Just being near him again made Natalie remember how affected she’d been by him three months ago. When he was brought in to the emergency room, unconscious, after the warehouse explosion, she’d noticed how strikingly handsome he was. How powerful looking. When she’d peeled back the sheet to examine the blistered skin on his side, he’d blinked open those pale blue eyes, and she’d felt the shock of connection.
Immediately she’d repressed her response and focused on the job she had to do. But she hadn’t forgotten….
“Dan, I really need you to—”
“Okay—”
An earsplitting alarm went off and at the same time the cadence of the heavily falling rain intensified against the station roof.
Spike barked and wove circles around their legs even as Dan straightened his jacket and headed through the open doorway without so much as an explanation or apologetic glance.
Natalie gathered her bag and umbrella and followed after him, not about to be put off again. If she had to conduct this examination while he was putting out a fire, by God, she was going to do it.
DAN CLIMBED BEHIND the wheel of his service Jeep, allowed Spike to climb up over him and into the back seat, then switched on the siren. He was about to put the vehicle into gear when the passenger door opened and Natalie slid in next to him.
His gaze fell on the way her skirt hiked up from the climb, revealing her slender legs. She seemed to realize what he was looking at and immediately remedied the situation, tugging her hem down to cover her knees.
Ladder truck #1 blew its horn some twenty feet away as it pulled out of the bay and onto the street, siren blaring, redirecting Dan’s attention.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded of Natalie, a hairbreadth away from reaching over her to open the door and shove the lady doc out.
“With you, of course.” She crossed her arms in a maddening way that emphasized the gentle curves beneath her rain slicker and blouse. “I’m going to close the case on you today, no matter what it takes.”
Dan stared at her. There weren’t very many people who could stand up to his scowl, and he focused it on Natalie full force.
To her credit—or stupidity—she didn’t even blink. Instead, her delicate chin came up a little higher and those mocha eyes held a challenge he’d previously seen in fellow combatants’ eyes.
Mocha? He shoved the Jeep into gear before realizing he’d decided to do so. Her eyes were brown. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Spike’s head poked between the seats. He whined softly, looking first at Dan, then at Natalie.
“I know what you mean, buddy,” Dan said between clenched teeth. “I know what you mean.”
NATALIE HAD LISTENED as Dan spoke on his radio to dispatch during the ride to the site, but had understood little of the codes and commands. She had witnessed many gut-wrenching scenes while on duty at the hospital’s burn unit, and inwardly prepared herself now for the worst. Dan pulled to a stop behind the ladder truck, the rain pounding on the windshield so heavily she only had a split second to see what lay outside before sheets of water again blocked her view.
“What…what’s going on?” she asked, the sound of her heartbeat loud in her ears.
“Mudslide,” Dan said, bounding from the car, his dog following after him. Natalie craned her neck to watch him, noticing the way both dog and master stood in the onslaught, neither seeming aware of the rain as they took in the situation.
Natalie fastened her rain slicker tightly, then grabbed her umbrella. The instant she opened the door she was hit by a wall of rain and wind that stole her breath from her. She sputtered, tightly gripping the molding of the door as she climbed out, fighting to hold on to the umbrella she was trying to open.
“Stay in the car!” Dan shouted, striding purposely toward the spot where his men were gathering their gear.
Natalie squinted after him as she pulled the umbrella as close to her head as she could. Stay in the car? What did he think she was, some kind of unruly child? She was a physician used to responding to emergency situations. Okay, so they usually involved burn victims who had already been transported to the hospital. But she wasn’t stupid. She started to step around the ladder truck, her foot plopping into a particularly nasty puddle with spongy mud beneath. Maybe she’d have to be a little more careful, but she wasn’t stupid.
Spike’s bark drew her closer to the front of the truck. Exercising caution, she stepped clear of the vehicle, then stopped dead in her tracks. She hadn’t realized where they were until that very moment. Before her towered Courage Bay Mountain, looking like an ominous monster in the dim purple light. The city of Courage Bay spread out along a ten-mile stretch of clean, white-sand beaches bordering the Pacific Ocean north of Los Angeles. Steep, forested mountains surrounded the crescent of lush coastal land. But after a particularly brutal drought last summer, the mountains were vulnerable to mudslides in this year’s rainy season.
Wealthier residents of the city had built expensive homes that jutted out of the side of Courage Bay Mountain facing the bay—on a steep slope the rain had turned into an unstable mound of mud. Natalie shielded her eyes and watched as a house halfway up the hill slid a couple feet sideways, its front pilings collapsing under the shifting weight.
Oh, God.
That something so seemingly solid could be easily swept off its foundations gave her pause.
“Over there!” one of Dan’s men shouted, indicating a man waving frantically at them from where he stood near the side of his house. An ominous crack sounded. Natalie watched the man slip and slide away from the structure toward a stand of trees where a woman and two young kids huddled.
It all looked so…overwhelming. So hopeless. How could the firefighters possibly reach them? There was no way they could get up there. And how would the family get down? Given the steady pounding of the rain and the already treacherous slopes, the situation could only get worse.
“Go!”
Natalie blinked and turned her head to find Dan shouting the order to four men wearing rappelling gear. Two by two, connected together by ropes, they headed for the foot of the mountain and began climbing the sturdiest-looking part of the hill.
“Team south, go!” Dan shouted again, and four more men headed down the road to the other side of the slide, carefully maneuvering their way through mud and debris flowing over the two-lane coastal highway toward the sea.
Standing pole still, strangely immune to the rain pelting her despite her slicker and umbrella, Natalie stared at the bear of a man she’d been trying to bully into letting her examine him such a short time ago. He looked so powerful, so capable. And his mere presence made the situation seem less desperate. More than a natural disaster, the mudslide was a challenge to be met. A job to be done. And she sensed that Dan Egan was exactly the man to do it.
Spike barked. Natalie jumped, surprised to find the dalmatian standing next to her. She glanced over to see Dan looking her way. Their gazes met across the twenty-foot expanse, neither of them blinking despite the rain streaming down their faces. As if they were joined in some odd, reassuring way.
One of Dan’s men held out something for him to look at, forcing him to break eye contact. Natalie let go of the breath she was holding, then turned her head and briefly closed her eyes.
Please, she prayed, please don’t let me fall for this man….
TWENTY MINUTES LATER the rain began to let up a bit, though not enough to make a significant difference. Dan stared up at the angry winter sky, asking for any kind of break he could get. While the lessening rain had little impact on the severity of the situation, it did create a better working environment for his men.
He scanned the mountainside, searching for the two rescue squads. The north team had already anchored a lead rope and was harnessing up the family of four to come down one by one. The south team was having a harder time finding a solid foothold from which to operate.
The civil engineer he’d ordered dispatch to contact held out the plastic-covered schematic of the houses on the hill. Of the more than a dozen homes, two were almost completely swallowed by the cascading mud, either buried outright or in pieces, and four more were about to give way. The bridge spanning the pass had been washed out, making those houses inaccessible. The rescue team had to move quickly.
He pulled his two-way to his mouth. “South team, status report.”
“Surface unstable. No foothold, sir. Repeat, we can’t get a foothold. Over.”
Dan eyed the terrain around the team. “Go fifteen paces southeast, Captain, and see if you can get a lock on the rock there by the trees.”
“Roger that.”
He watched the leader of the south team secure his radio, then point out the route to his men. On the other side, the stranded mother was cautiously sliding down the taut rope, a firefighter from the north team at her back to ease the way.
Dan caught himself rubbing the back of his damp neck, awareness crawling over his skin. While the doc hadn’t stayed in the car as he’d asked, she had stayed out of the way, staring at the mudslide, her eyes wide, looking particularly vulnerable.
Now that was a word he wouldn’t have used to describe Natalie Giroux only an hour ago. As he recalled, pushy was the adjective he’d chosen. She stood at the foot of the hill, appearing to want to do something, but aware that she wasn’t qualified.
He grudgingly gave her credit. He knew what it was like to be stuck on the sidelines. At forty-five, he’d had to trade an active role for that of coordinator. But the urge to rush into the fray was something he wasn’t good at quelling. Not yet. And, he was coming to fear, not ever. As it was, he now fisted and unfisted his hands, his pulse pounding with the impulse to climb up the shifting mountainside and help those in need.
“Doesn’t look good.”
Dan turned to address the man at his side. K-9 Patrol Officer Cole Winslow’s rain gear wasn’t much protection against the storm blasting them, but he seemed oblivious to it. He held the lead to Braveheart, his black-and-tan German shepherd.
“What brings you out to this neck of the woods?” Dan asked after he directed team members on the ground to help the rescued mother from her harness and to safety.
“Actually, I was already here. You’ve heard about the series of break-ins in the area recently? Well, the prowler was spotted in one of the houses. Braveheart and I were called in to track his scent.”
“Which house?”
Cole nodded toward the northeast and a house that a river of mud was claiming even as they watched. “Dylan Deeb’s place. You know, that producer who was brought up on sexual assault charges six months ago?”
Dan was familiar with the case. Deeb was a slimebag with a capital S. He was accused of coercing underage actresses into having sex with him in exchange for parts in his movies. The charges were dropped when the actresses refused to testify against him. Likely Deeb had convinced them their careers would do better with him on this side of prison bars.
“You get the prowler?” Dan asked.
The officer shook his head. “Lost his scent at the marina. A small boat was reported stolen an hour ago, so my guess is he borrowed it and headed out onto the bay.”
Glancing at the churning waters in the distance, Dan wondered if the prowler would have been better off facing Cole and prison than the storm-tossed sea.
A car raced up behind him and ground to a screeching stop on the wet asphalt. It had obviously passed the barriers his men had placed a quarter of a mile up the road. Like a river of brown lava, the debris path had sheared the highway in two, blocking traffic on both sides. He glanced at the older model vehicle and the young blond woman who stumbled out of it. She stared at the mountain in horror. A resident? Possibly. He motioned toward a junior firefighter to stop her from advancing, then concentrated on controlling his own overactive adrenaline.
BRITTNEY MACKENZIE COULDN’T believe her eyes. She stumbled forward, staring at the disintegrating mountain in front of her. She’d been there only an hour before and everything had been fine. Now the road she had taken to drive up to film producer Dylan Deeb’s house was indistinguishable from the rest of the oozing mud eating the highway.
Fine? Had she really just used the word fine to describe what had happened in Dylan Deeb’s house only sixty minutes ago?
“Miss, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step back.”
She blinked unseeingly into the face of a young firefighter in yellow waterproof overalls and black boots. “What…How…” The words came out of her mouth but she couldn’t seem to form a coherent sentence as she desperately sought out the producer’s house. Her heart beat an uneven rhythm in her chest.
It’s gone.
Along with any chance of her ever becoming a working actress.
Remorse, shame and fear rose up in her throat, choking her.
“Whoa, easy there,” she heard the firefighter say right before her legs went out from under her.
When she became aware of the world around her again, what could have been minutes or hours later, she was blinking into the face of a pretty woman who reminded her of her mother.
“Can you hear me?” the woman asked, waving a penlight in front of her eyes.
Brittney squeezed them shut against the intrusive light. “I can hear you.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
Brittney squinted. “Three.”
She realized then that she was lying across the front seat of her own car.
“Do you live here? Is there someone I can call? When’s the last time you had anything to eat?”
Eat?
Brittney struggled to a sitting position. “I’m fine. Really, I am.” She pulled her shaking legs inside the car and reached to close the door. “Thank you. I’ve…I’ve really got to go.”
The woman stepped back and Brittney finally managed to get the door closed. She hit the automatic lock, discovered her car was still running, then put the engine into reverse, her only intention to get as far as she could, as fast as she could, away from Deeb’s nonexistent house….
CHAPTER THREE
NATALIE HAD IMMEDIATELY responded to the firefighter’s call for help, but was forced to step back as the young woman—who had been all but unconscious a moment before—sped off in reverse. Twenty or so feet down the highway, she spun the rusted vehicle around, then raced off into the rain.
“What do you make of that?” the firefighter asked.
Natalie frowned. “I don’t know. Low blood sugar, maybe. Shock.” She looked at him. “Did you recognize her?”
“No.”
At any rate, there was nothing she could do about the woman now. You could only help those who wanted to be helped.
She found her gaze pulled to Dan Egan’s powerful back, the thought ringing even truer.
A plaintive call echoed through the rain. Natalie was pretty sure someone was yelling for help, but given her position at the foot of the mountain, with the waves of the bay crashing against the shore behind her, she couldn’t be sure from which direction the cry was coming.
She realized she was still staring at Dan’s wide back when she saw another firefighter rush up to his side, pointing out something near the top of the shifting mountain. She squinted against the rain. A man stood on his roof, alternately shouting at the people below and rubbing his chest and left arm. Natalie slowly advanced toward Dan, her umbrella falling back even as she gripped it. Mindless of the rain soaking her hair and face, she watched the stranded man drop to his knees, silent now as he desperately clutched his left arm.
“That’s not good,” she murmured, coming to stand next to Dan.
“What is it?” he asked.
“He’s demonstrating the classic symptoms of cardiac arrest.”
Dan’s head whipped around, just as a burst of static sounded on the radio he held in his left hand. He lifted it to his ear and fiddled with the knobs before speaking into the mouthpiece. “Come again, HQ.”
“Call on the 911 line, Egan. A man says he’s trapped on the roof of his house at 432 Truesdale. The mud’s rising fast and he’s suffering from severe chest pains.”
Dan caught and held Natalie’s gaze. “Tell him we’ll get to him as soon as we can. Out.”
Natalie closed her umbrella and headed toward the Jeep for her bag.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Dan asked, grasping her arm.
She blinked at him and then at his hand on her arm. “I’ve got to help him.”
Dan’s face was drawn into hard lines. “To do that you’d have to get to him first.” He pointed to a spot just south of the house the man stood on. “See that? The bridge has been completely washed out. There’s no way my team can reach him anytime soon.”
Natalie swallowed. This was one of the hardest parts about being a physician—knowing you were trained to help people but not being able to do it. “There’s got to be some way. What about air rescue?” She looked up into the glowering sky. “Where’s the helicopter?”
“Unfortunately, the pilot’s off sick today and it’ll take too long to arrange backup.”
She stared at Dan, wanting him to do something, anything, to try to remedy the situation.
He seemed to realize he still held her arm. Cursing quietly, he released her and strode away.
Natalie followed on his heels. “What are you going to do?” she asked, fighting to keep up.
“Fly up there myself.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“I’m well trained in handling cardiac arrest cases, Nat.”
Nat. He’d called her Nat. No one but her brothers ever referred to her that way. Not even Charles. The familiarity sent warmth skittering over her chilled skin. “Your men have their hands full here. What are you proposing to do? Fly in there alone to take care of the situation?”
He stared at her long and hard, then finally said, “Grab your bag and let’s go.”
FIFTEEN MINUTES, a slick drive to the airport and a choppy flight later, Dan carefully navigated the medevac helicopter over the mountain. His experience as a helicopter pilot was extensive—he’d flown many emergency missions in the military throughout troubled areas of the world—but it had been awhile since he’d been at the controls.
He glanced at Natalie in the seat next to him, attempting to tune out how white she was. He’d tried to warn her against coming. These types of rescues weren’t for the faint of heart. Add in the rain that was coming down in heavy sheets again, and he was surprised the doc was able to keep her lunch down. He spared her slender body a glance. If she’d even eaten lunch.
“Over there!” Natalie shouted at him through the headphones, clearly not used to talking into the pencil-thin black microphone she’d pushed away from her cheek.
Dan spotted the house in question. Mud was rising at a fast rate around the two-story structure, which now looked like a one-story house. The man who had called 911 lay completely still on one side of the flat, Mediterranean-style roof, seemingly unaware of their approach.
“Where are you going?” Natalie asked.
“I have to circle back around and try to land in the clearing just behind the house.” Dan tapped the mike in front of his mouth, gesturing for her to move hers so he could hear her. “Let’s just pray the ground is solid enough to hold us.”
Natalie fiddled with the mike and nodded.
The blast from the helicopter’s rotor blades nearly flattened the pines around the small clearing and blew the rain into thick sheets around them. Dan carefully negotiated the landing and powered down the rotor the instant they touched ground while Natalie yanked at her seat harness. After commanding Spike to stay put, Dan opened his door, then reached over and popped the release on hers. He grabbed the rescue equipment and jumped out. She spared him a grateful look before clambering down herself, following in his wake as the chopper’s blades spun to a stop.
“Watch your step!” Dan shouted, grabbing hold of her rain slicker with his free hand to keep her from being swept down by a vein of shifting mud. The footing was questionable at best, downright hazardous at worst. He should never have allowed Natalie to come along. But she’d been right that he needed help. Every spare hand he had was busy trying to save those lower on the mountain.
Natalie stopped abruptly, staring at the sight before them.
The mud had risen another several feet and was now almost level with the roof of the house.
“We don’t have much time!” he shouted. “We need to get him out of there now!”
“I need to check him first.”
“No time for that! If we don’t move him now, it will be our bodies they’ll be digging out of this mess.”
Her pretty face went even paler, if that were possible. Dan helped her navigate the roof, then he set the lightweight stretcher next to their patient. If he had to, he could drag the guy out himself.
“He still has a pulse,” Natalie called, fastening an oxygen mask over the man’s mouth and nose. “Faint but sure.”
“Get his feet.”
Natalie grabbed the unconscious man’s ankles.
“On the count of three. One, two, three…”
Up and onto the stretcher he went.
Dan made quick work of strapping the victim onto the stretcher, while Natalie fastened a portable defibrillator to his chest.
“Let’s go!” he shouted.
Together they carried the man across the roof and onto the shifting ground. A loud gasp made Dan look back in time to see Natalie lose her footing as mud oozed around the boots she’d found in the back of the chopper. A sea of mud was welling around the roof they’d just left.
Releasing his grasp on the stretcher, he helped her pull herself free from the sucking mud, then they both ran for the helicopter, lugging the stretcher between them. They slid it into the back of the copter and the metal clamps clicked home.
“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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