Free Against the Odds by Kat Martin Page B

wanted to say she needed to think of Ginny. That she had to
learn to trust again sometime. But since, for different reasons, he wasn’t ready
for a relationship either, he kept his mouth shut.
    He glanced at Ginny in the mirror. “We’re off to shakes and
burgers,” he said with a grin, and little Ginny giggled.
    Alex’s thoughts strayed to the woman who wasn’t going with
them, the person he would have liked Becca and Ginny to meet. He shoved her
image from his mind and started the engine.
    * * *
    Rina opened the door and stepped back to let her best
friend into the apartment. Sage Cantrell’s wavy dark hair swung forward as she
leaned over to give Sabrina a hug.
    “How are you feeling?” Sage was about five inches taller that
Rina’s petite five-foot-one-inch frame, but the spike heels Sage always wore
pushed her up to nearly six feet. Which was probably good, since her husband,
Jake, was six foot five.
    “I’m good,” Rina said. “Bored, but good.” On a pair of crutches
made of aluminum instead of wood and not nearly so dear as the ones Alex had
made for her, Sabrina led her friend into the living room. “Want a cup of coffee
or a Coke or something?”
    “I can’t stay long. I’ve got a staff meeting this afternoon.”
Sage was the Vice President of Marketing and Acquisitions for Marine Drilling
International. She was a dedicated career woman in line for the presidency of
the company. “So the ankle is doing okay?”
    “The sprain is pretty much healed,” Rina said as they sat down
on the cream sofa in front of a low, gilt, French table. “I’ll be off these
crutches in a few more days.”
    She’d been back from Rio Gordo for a little over two weeks. She
was bored to tears and eager to be doing something instead of just sitting
around the apartment friending people on Facebook and playing solitaire on her
iPad.
    And strange as it might seem, the something she was itching to do was get back to Rio Gordo. Now that
she knew where the mine was located and had seen the two-track road that would
get her there, she wanted to finish what she had started. She wanted to know if
Uncle Walter had found silver on his land.
    Land that now belonged to her.
    “I hope you had a good visit with your mom,” Sage said.
    Her mother had stayed nearly a week. They’d always gotten along
great, so it was fun. “It was nice to catch up. And her cooking is terrific. I’m
sure I put on five pounds.”
    “That’s okay, you lost that much out in the desert.”
    “Snake and javelina aren’t big favorites.”
    Sage laughed. “So when are you going back to work? You’ve never
been much for sitting around the house.”
    “I...umm...guess I didn’t mention that my leave of absence is
open-ended. I may not be going back at all.”
    Sage knew all about the land Rina had inherited, knew that was
the reason she had hired Alex to fly her out to Rio Gordo. In fact, it was Sage
and Jake who had demanded the sheriff’s department start a search when Rina
failed to call Sage the first night she was away as she had promised to do.
    When Sage couldn’t reach her the next day and Jake couldn’t
reach Alex, Jake had called the airport and discovered the chopper hadn’t made
radio contact for two full days. It wasn’t until after a lengthy search that the
sheriff had spotted Alex stumbling toward the highway.
    “So what will you do if you don’t go back to work?” Sage asked.
“You aren’t thinking about that mine again, are you?”
    “I never stopped thinking about it.
I need to know if Uncle Walter found silver. If he did, there’s no reason I
can’t find a company to work with to help me mine it. I’m tired of working for
somebody else. And look where it’s gotten me. In the last twelve months, I’ve
lost most of what I worked for years to earn.”
    “I guess you’ve thought this through.”
    “I have. If it doesn’t work out, then I’ll find something else
to do.”
    “Whatever you do, I know you’ll be