Free Against the Odds by Kat Martin

shoulder. “What about my
crutches!”
    “Sorry, love. I’ll have to make you a new pair.”
    Her heart sank. The last of her independence was gone. As Alex
started over the rugged landscape, she clung to his broad back and prayed he
could get them out of the desert safely.
    Another hour passed. Alex was sweating, his jaw set against the
pain in his side. Even though she knew he was tired, he kept going, trudging
over the burning landscape, doggedly setting one foot in front of the other.
    “We need to stop, Alex. You said we would rest in the middle of
the day.” Rina was as hot and sweaty as he was, her ankle throbbing.
    He took a few more steps, then blew out a breath, clearly
wishing he could continue. “All right. We’ll rest until it cools off.”
    She held on tightly as he crossed a deep ravine, making his way
to the opposite side, headed for a patch of shade beneath an overhanging
rock.
    That’s when she heard it. The whop, whop,
whop of a chopper. Alex set her down and shot out into the open,
madly waving his arms. The chopper circled, spotted Alex and swooped lower, then
began a slow descent.
    For the second time that day, Sabrina started crying.
    * * *
    The Rio Gordo County Sheriff’s helicopter settled into
the desert, blowing dust and sand and hot air around them. The two EMTs aboard
made a cursory check of Rina’s ankle and Alex’s ribs, pronounced the two of them
stable enough to make the ride back to the airport. Sabrina refused a stretcher
and instead let Alex help her aboard the chopper.
    For a moment as she glanced around the interior, she forgot
about her ankle. She was too busy remembering the crash that had nearly killed
them and praying they would make it safely back to Rio Gordo.
    As soon as everyone was back aboard and she and Alex were
strapped into their seats, the helo lifted off the desert floor and swung away,
heading back in a different direction from the route they had originally
taken.
    Rina had just ended her quick prayer when she looked down and
spotted the parallel lines of a tiny dirt road cutting through the desert, a
two-track path they hadn’t seen when they were searching from the air before. At
the end of the road was a cluster of wooden buildings and what looked like a
hole in the side of a cactus-covered hill.
    “Alex! There it is! It’s the mine!”
    Sitting next to her, Alex leaned forward, spotted the buildings
and the mine and let out a hearty laugh. He grinned at her, his gorgeous dimples
popping out, and just shook his head.

Seven
    T he helicopter flew them to a clinic in Rio
Gordo where an older Hispanic doctor named Navarro had Alex’s ribs and Sabrina’s
ankle x-rayed. The doctor grumbled about the stitches Alex should have had in
his back, but said neither of them had any broken bones. They were dehydrated
and a little sunburned, but they were alive. A miracle in itself.
    “We’ll be going over the chopper,” the sheriff told Alex as he
sat outside the emergency room, waiting for Dr. Navarro to finish with Sabrina.
“It might take a while, but we’ll do our best to find the cause of the
crash.”
    Sheriff Beau Dickens, a heavyset man with a leonine main of
silver hair and a thick Texas drawl spoke with a sincerity that made Alex
believe he would do his best to find out what had gone wrong.
    “Not much left to work with,” Alex told him, thinking of the
pile of burned-up metal sitting in the middle of the desert.
    “We’ll be bringin’ in an aviation forensic expert. Dan
Baldwin’s one of the best.”
    “I’ll want to know what he comes up with.”
    “No problem.”
    He and Sabrina were both released that day. That night, they
took two rooms at the Eazy Eight Motel near the airport. In the room next to his
Sabrina slept twelve hours straight before they headed for his plane late the
next morning and the flight back to Houston.
    That had been two weeks ago. He was home now, back at work in
his office. Sabrina was recovering in her apartment