Free Flirting with Disaster by Jane Graves

see the sun coming up—a stunning orange and red display that would have put a smile on her face under any other circumstances. But now she merely stared at it blankly, wondering how many more sun-rises she’d have to see before a moment of her life would pass that wasn’t consumed by grief.
    Suddenly she heard a knock at her front door, three times in quick succession. She sat up suddenly, startled at the noise, even as heartache dulled her senses.
    No. Go away. Please just go away.
    The knocking persisted.
    It had to be a woman in labor. Nobody came to her house at the crack of dawn for anything else. As a nurse-midwife, she was used to getting dragged away at all hours, because babies never came on schedule.
    Somebody needs you. They’re counting on you.
    That thought was what finally drove her to stand up, her head pounding, and walk out of her bedroom. She trudged down the hall to the stairs, every step feeling as if she were moving through quicksand.
    The knocking continued, loud and harsh.
    She descended the stairs and stopped at the bottom, clutching the banister. In the past five years since she’d gotten her degree and returned from the U.S. to live in Santa Rios, she’d seen scores of babies born. But suddenly it felt so hopeless. How was she going to face bringing another life into this world when the man she loved had so recently left it?
    Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to go to the door, throw the lock, and swing it open. And what she saw shocked her.
    Gabrio Ramirez stood on her front porch. He wore no shirt. Blood streaked his chest and right arm, and an unmistakable look of panic filled his eyes.
    “Gabrio? My God! What happened?”
    “I-it’s not me,” he said.
    “You’re bleeding! Come inside!”
    “No! Just come with me! You have to come with me!”
    He turned and trotted down the porch steps.
    “Is there a woman in labor?”
    “No!”
    “Gabrio!”
    He turned around, walking backward as he talked. “Please! Just come to my car! Now! ”
    Her heart beating apprehensively, she slipped out the door and followed Gabrio to his rusted-out Chevy Impala. He opened the back door. She came around it, peered into the backseat, and let out a gasp of pure agony.
    Adam’s body.
    He lay on the seat, broken and bleeding, one arm dragging on the floorboard, his hair matted with blood.
    “Oh, God.” She turned away instantly, bowing her head, sobs immediately choking her voice. “Oh, God, no .”
    She stumbled away from the car, her stomach grinding with nausea, feeling so light-headed that she was afraid she was going to pass out.
    The plane crash. Somehow Gabrio had recovered Adam’s body from the plane crash and brought him to her. It was the only explanation.
    Gabrio grabbed her by the arm and spun her back around. “Please do something!” he implored, his eyes filling with tears. “Please!”
    “Do something? But I can’t. I—”
    “Yes, you can! You’re a nurse! Do something! ”
    Sera recoiled at the boy’s outburst. She didn’t know what to say. What to do. He’s dead. I can’t raise the dead. Is that what you expect me to do?
    Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to step back toward the car and peer into the backseat again. Her gaze traveled hesitantly up Adam’s legs to his waist, and then to his chest. It was covered in blood, but . . .
    She blinked. It couldn’t be. For the first time she realized . . .
    Fresh blood?
    Then she saw something else, and she was so shocked that she had to grab hold of the car door to keep from collapsing. In the faint morning light she could just make out Adam’s chest rising and falling with short, shallow respirations.
    He was alive.

chapter five

    Eerie shafts of late morning sunlight streaked through the grime-crusted windows of the bunkhouse, weakly illuminating Lisa’s pale, bruised face. Dave had dozed on and off for the past several hours, but she’d slept like the dead. He watched as she stirred now, turned over, lifted