CHAPTER 7
Murdoch quickly feathered the engine. Thick black smoke roiled from beneath the cowling, making it hard to see. Cursing, he vaguely heard Dallas call the Nogales base and give them critical information. As he glanced down, he saw a possible place to land at the end of the canyon.
Heart thundering, he wrestled the Cessna down to six hundred feet. The massive, rugged yellow-and-ochre walls of the canyon rose around them now, and the winds were erratic. Sweat popped out on his upper lip. There was no sound, just the hammering of the rain against the aircraft. The prop whirled lazily in the wind, as they free-floated on the air currents. The altimeter was rapidly unwinding. They were now at five hundred feet, on a gentle glide downward.
“Tighten your harness,” he growled.
“Done,” Dallas said, tight-lipped. She saw a small patch of flat land at the end of the canyon. “You heading for that box area?”
“Got it,” he said, hands tight on the yoke. Attempting a dry stick landing, one without an engine, was dangerous under any circumstances, but here…The rain increased. Four hundred feet.
“Damn, talk about low vis,” he growled.
“Bad,” she agreed. Gripping the arm of her seat, Dallas could do nothing but watch. Murdoch was the pilot, and it was his responsibility to get them down safely. But could he? The wind slammed against them.
“Dammit,” he muttered. Three hundred feet.
The Cessna slid to the right, the wing tip suddenly dipping.
Instantly, he played with the rudders. The craft righted. Two hundred feet.
He was off course! The wind had blown him from the center trajectory he’d put the plane in. Instantly, he banked to the left, played again with the rudders. They skimmed a hundred feet above the rocky desert floor.
Dallas saw the box canyon approaching. It was dotted with cactus and brush, and some chunks of rock that could tear the landing gear from beneath the Cessna. She tensed, gripping the seat and bracing.
“Hang on!” Murdoch rasped. Fifty feet.
If only the wind wouldn’t nail them! He wrestled with the controls as the ground suddenly came up at them. The stall buzzer started screeching because he’d brought the Cessna in nose high. At all costs, he didn’t want the tricycle landing gear torn off or they’d go nose-diving into the unforgiving desert floor. The screeching continued. The Cessna lugged, and forward motion slowed remarkably. Twenty feet.
At the last moment, he dropped the nose of the plane. The warning shriek ceased.
Silence reigned, except for the battering rain.
And then…
They were down! The landing gear settled in. Murdoch was so tense it felt as if he would snap in two. He played the yoke and rode the rudders as if stepping on fragile eggs. The Cessna raced along the rocky, rough ground.
“Look out!” Dallas yelled, pointing ahead. A hundred feet in front of them a large rock lied. Large enough to do them major damage.
Too late! Murdoch hadn’t seen the rock because of the low visibility. As he slammed his feet on the rudders, the nose whipped downward. The propeller dug into the earth and shattered, sending metal flying in all directions.
The landing gear grated and snapped off.
Suddenly, the aircraft skewed to the right, the wing tip digging into the muddy gravel. Cursing, Murdoch hung on, no longer able to control the Cessna.
A grating roar, the sound of rock ripping the lightweight aluminum belly of the aircraft, filled the cabin. Murdoch felt the wing snap off; the metallic screech hurting his ears. More than anything, he didn’t want Dallas hurt.
The harness bit savagely into his shoulders and across his waist as the aircraft hit the wall of the box canyon then shuddered in its death throes. It finally settled with scraping, shrill sounds against the rocks, then quiet prevailed.
Dallas shook her head, trying to get her bearings. The fuselage cowling was bent up and ripped open. Her side of the Cessna was smashed against the canyon wall. The door was impossible to open, the window shattered and rain pouring in.
“You okay?” Murdoch asked, unsnapping his harness and scanning her quickly. She looked pale but composed.
“Fine, just a few bruises. You?”
“Okay. Let’s egress,” he ordered.
“Roger that.”
Murdoch used his shoulder to pop the pilot’s door open. No more smoke was coming from the engine, which was good, but they couldn’t risk staying put. The possibility of explosion was high; he could smell aviation fuel inside and outside the cabin. Turning, he gripped Dallas’s extended hand, and she leaped out beside him.
“Let’s get the survival gear from the rear compartment,” he told her. Rain was wetting his hair and clothing. The temperature was chilly, and the drenching only made him colder. Dallas beat him to the compartment. She twisted the handle, and the door fell open.
Reaching inside, Murdoch hefted the large, dark green waterproof bag over his shoulder. He started to search for a safe, dry place to shelter.
“Over there,” Dallas said, running ahead of him.
There was a cave on the other side of the canyon, about two hundred feet away. Far enough from the plane that, in case it did explode, they would be safe from any debris or shrapnel. Trotting through the muck and puddles, and dodging jagged rocks, Murdoch closed the distance between them.
“Phew!” Dallas said, happy to reach the dry cave. She turned and waved as Murdoch came in out of the rain. He dropped the rubberized bag on the ground between them and sank down beside it. “Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah,” she said, grinning as she knelt opposite him.
“I’m celebrating,” Mike told her, giving her a tense, twisted smile. He removed his helmet and set it aside, then started digging items out of the bag. “We’re alive. We walked away from this crash. Always a good time to celebrate.”
“Ditto. But no turkey dinner tonight, Murdoch.”
The adrenaline made him shaky in the aftermath. He noticed Dallas’s hands were trembling, too. “Don’t even go there,” he jested. “Damn, I wish they’d put a bottle of good, mellow whiskey into this survival kit,” he muttered. “I could use a stiff shot right about now to settle my nerves. How about you?”
“Roger that,” she said, breathless. “I’m starting to have adrenaline letdown.” She shook her hands rapidly for a moment. “Realizing we survived, Mike. I was scared.”
“Me, too.” He flashed her a tender look. Dallas’s color was coming back. She removed her helmet and set it nearby. The flak jacket came off next. “Did I ever tell you that you sure as hell make a shapeless flight suit look great?” he growled.
Chuckling, Dallas felt heat roll into her face. She saw the glint of a hunter was in Murdoch’s eyes. “Thank you—I think.”
Sitting back on his heels, he glanced out the mouth of the cave. “Look! Snow! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, to you! I might not have a turkey dinner and wine for you, but hey, this isn’t bad.” He gestured toward the huge snowflakes twisting and dancing in the gusts of wind.
“Snow…!” She wrinkled her nose and grinned at him. The rain made the planes of his face gleam. Murdoch looked dangerously attractive.
“Hey, just consider me your Christmas present.” He opened his arms wide.
Her laughter echoed through the cave. “You’re incorrigible even under these circumstances.” She shook her head and started checking on their supplies; there were enough for a week at least.
“Aren’t you inspired?”
Dallas snorted. “Not unless you can produce a red ribbon to put in your hair, Cowboy.”
Murdoch’s mouth curved faintly. “We can imagine, can’t we?”
It felt good to Dallas to indulge in their usual banter. They’d survived a crash! “We’ll see,” she murmured. Reaching for a GPS radio in the mix of items, she held it up. “I got a message off to Nogales before we went down. They know where we are.”
“They can’t mount a rescue right now,” Murdoch said, eyeing the weather outside the cavern. “None of the federale helos have IFR instrumentation. Our base will probably contact them, and they’ll get here tomorrow morning, after it stops snowing.”
Nodding, Dallas pulled out the silver blankets that kept in body heat. “You’re right. So we’re spending Christmas in a cave.”
“At least we’re alive, unhurt and together.” He sighed, admiring the graceful way her hands moved. “Not a bad combo.”
“Right,” Dallas said. “You want to start a fire? My blood has thinned from six years of living in the jungle, and I can’t take the cold like I used to.”
Murdoch got to his feet. “I can’t have my woman cold.”
The cave had been used by wild animals over the years; he could see dried scat here and there. The cavern wound back a good fifty feet, becoming smaller and smaller as he ambled toward the rear wall. Lucky for them, plenty of dry sticks and branches lay about. As he brought back the fuel, he noticed Dallas had already found dried brush just inside the cave entrance.
Mike began to see this unexpected situation as a great opportunity. First off, a fire and getting dry. Then something to eat….
As he started working on the fire, he hummed Christmas tunes to himself.
* * *
“Well, Christmas dinner hasn’t been all that bad,” Dallas said. The firelight was throwing deep shadows across the cave. She sat next to Murdoch on a log he’d dragged up to the fire. Outside, it was dark, and the snow was letting up.
Murdoch pushed the beans around on his makeshift plate. “MREs are never good,” he muttered. “I keep thinking about that herb-rubbed turkey, my excellent dressing I spent a day on, all going to waste.”
After finishing off her meal of spaghetti, Dallas took a sip of her coffee from her aluminum cup. “There’s always another day, Mike. You’re giving your gourmet meal its last rites?”
Chuckling, he said, “Does that mean you’d come over for a post-Christmas gourmet dinner at my place once we get home?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Wow. This is new. What happened?” He reached up and tapped her brow, touching her dark hair in the process. “Are you sure you didn’t hit the windshield and bump your noggin?”
Dallas caught his hand and squeezed it. “No, Cowboy, I didn’t. I’m not out of my mind, as you’re implying.”
Holding her hand on her thigh, Mike said, “Maybe this little crash woke you up, then?”
“Maybe,” she agreed. She liked the way his strong, warm fingers felt wrapped around her own. Their flight suits had dried out hours ago, thanks to a good fire. The temperature was rising now that the cold front had passed through.
Murdoch set down his plate. “I’m entertaining a thought, Dallas.”
“Uh-oh, here we go….”
“Ah, come on. Indulge me and my fantasies.”
Giggling, she said, “Okay, what’s your idea?”
He took her hand and rested it on his thigh. “We have two foil space blankets. How about we spread one on the cave floor and huddle beneath the second one? We can stay warmer by sharing our body heat.”
She met his dark gaze and grinned. “That’s funny, I was thinking the same thing, Cowboy. How about that?”
“You’re such a tease, Klein.”
“Me?” She feigned shock.
“You’re as bad as I am, and you know it.”
She liked the way his mouth drew into a boyish smile. The gleam in his blue eyes sparked a hot response. “I like the idea.”
“Good, so do I.”
If nothing else, the crash had ripped away Dallas’s fear of having a relationship with Mike. Life was too short. One or both of them could be badly injured or even dead right now. And they weren’t. “I don’t know where all this will lead,” she confided to him, dropping her teasing tone. Dallas searched his eyes.
He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I don’t either, Dallas. But you know what? I’m open to a future with you. Being around you is like living with a lightning bolt. I never know what will happen next.” His voice lowered. “What I can’t live with is the thought of not having you in my life.”
“Even if I am the proverbial lightning bolt?”
He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it gently. “Some people are catalysts, darlin’, and you’re one of them.” His voice deepened to a growl. “What is important to me is you, Dallas. That’s the bottom line.”
Her heart opened and a soft sigh issued from her lips. “Do you always say the right thing at the right time?”
“No. Look at how we crashed into one another on that first day.” Murdoch flashed her a wicked grin.
“Point taken,” she admitted, returning his smile. “But you changed.”
“Yes, because you were right, and I was wrong. You’re a fair-minded person. You forgive past mistakes, and you don’t throw salt in a person’s wounds. You forgive, forget and move on. I’ve never met a woman like that. And not that many men, now that I think about it.”
“It’s not productive, hanging on to the past,” Dallas murmured. Her hand was tingling wildly where he’d pressed that lingering caress. What would it be like to kiss those male lips of his?
“How about we take this a day at a time?” Mike suggested.
“Roger that.”
“Good. You want to make that satellite call to Nogales?” They had checked in by GPS earlier with the C.O. and had promised one last nighttime transmission to let him know they were safe.
“Yes, I’ll do it this time.” She reluctantly released Mike’s hand.
“You take care of business, and I’ll take care of our bed.”
Dallas saw the little-boy smile on his mouth grow. “Sounds perfect, Mike. Go for it.” She went to the pack for the GPS phone. Stepping to the cave entrance, to pick up transmission, Dallas made the call.
Murdoch had put the finishing touches on their bed when she turned and walked back to him. She was smiling broadly.
“Good news. Los federales say they’ll be here around 1100 tomorrow morning to pick us up, by helo. They’ll take us to Hermosillo, where Nike and Charlie will meet us and fly us back to Nogales.” She switched off the GPS and tucked it into the pack.
“We’ll consider this our roughing-it-in-the-wild experience,” he suggested, watching her come toward him. Her flight suit had a zipper and his fingers literally itched to start pulling it downward.
Dallas’s entire body tingled beneath Murdoch’s dark, animalistic look. In the privacy of a remote canyon, with no one to interrupt them, she could finally consummate with Mike Murdoch all she felt for him. His delicious mouth curved upward at the corners as she slipped her arms around his broad shoulders.
“Now,” she whispered, taking full advantage of her height and pressing herself wantonly against his male form. “Right now…” His mouth swept down on hers like a hawk upon its prey. Except she was no victim, nor was he her enemy. Predator, yes, but so was she. A soft moan rose in her throat as his mouth moved commandingly against her own. Matching his strength, relishing the warmth of his lips, Dallas felt his hands, long and lean, curve around her rib cage.
The scent of him, the taste of coffee, the dryness of the cave and the freshness of the rain-washed air combined in a mix of pleasurable sensations. As his tongue swept across her lower lip, she smiled, and his eyes shone with fierce blue fire. Together the two of them sank to the blanket, facing one another. He tore his mouth from hers and pulled the other silver blanket over them.
Mike had thoughtfully rolled up their nylon jackets into makeshift pillows. As he settled back down, his arm beneath her neck, he reached for the zipper at her throat.
“You have no idea how long I’ve dreamed about doing this,” he told her huskily, and then captured her mouth with his once more.
Dallas’s skin burned with need as he slowly, agonizingly slowly, pulled the zipper tab downward. He brushed the skin between her breasts. Threading her fingers through his dark, mussed hair, she inhaled his masculine scent, her nostrils flaring as she drank him in thirstily. When his hand reached her abdomen, Dallas moaned again.
Without hesitation, Murdoch slid his large, rough palm inside her flight suit, exploring her flesh. His fingers wreaked pleasure everywhere he touched. When he finally grasped her hip and drew her tightly against him she felt the hardness of his arousal and responded instantly. His lips curved, and she smiled with him.
“Now,” Dallas whispered against his mouth, “it’s my turn.” She found the zipper of his own flight suit and just as slowly opened it. Bit by bit she drew the tab down, the material apart, to explore his hairy chest. His muscles leaped beneath her caresses.
By the time she’d gotten the zipper down to his crotch, he was groaning. Barely able to think herself, Dallas felt him slide his hand beneath the shoulder of her flight suit and ease it off. She mimicked his actions. In no time, they had kicked the garments off their feet and pushed them aside. Dallas never wore lingerie beneath her flight suit. She hated such constraints.
“Dreams do come true,” Murdoch murmured, kissing her cheek, her delicate earlobe, and then trailing a series of nips down her slender neck. He delighted in the erratic pulse beneath her smooth, soft skin. Though his own body was hard and aching, he wanted to slow himself down to please her thoroughly. This was about what he held in his heart for this courageous woman warrior.
She was so incredibly soft in all the right places…. His hand moved to cup one of her luscious, taut breasts, and she sighed in response. Murdoch wouldn’t disappoint her. No, he wanted to continue to hear her moan, hear her gasps of delight and feel her fingers digging convulsively into his tense shoulders.
As he moved Dallas onto her back, Murdoch looked down into her slitted, golden eyes, framed by those thick lashes. His gaze lingered on her parted lips, which gleamed from his kisses. Satisfaction soared through him as she slid her arms around his shoulders and pulled him down to her. She was unafraid to meet him as an equal.
His whole body radiating tension, Murdoch groaned as he thrust deeply into her. A cry escaped her lips and she wrapped him in her arms, keeping him close as they moved together rhythmically. Before Mike knew it, a wild, heated vibration had begun in his lower body, changing to tremors and then a powerful earthquake. As he felt her tense with pleasure, his release began, an explosion of heat. Eyes closed, he felt every cell of her soft, liquid core surrounding him. The sensations were like powerful waves hitting the beach, one after another, rolling through him. The heat was scalding, and he growled with pleasure….
Gradually, Murdoch became aware he was lying on Dallas, and he rolled off, drawing her into his arms. He wrapped the silver blanket around her exposed shoulders.
Firelight danced and leaped against the cave walls. Though her face was shadowed, her eyes burned with fierce desire. Dallas threaded her fingers through his damp hair, and then pressed her palm to his cheek.
“You are something else, Cowboy,” she whispered, sliding her lips across his. Her entire body felt like effervescent champagne. Dallas absorbed the sensation of his hard male planes against her softer, rounded ones as they snuggled together beneath the blanket. She rested her cheek against his shoulder and gazed up into his smoldering blue eyes. There was such warmth radiating from him that she didn’t feel the cold of the cave. Brushing her hand across his perspiring face, his rugged jaw, she whispered, “What a wonderful gift. Thank you….”
Murdoch smoothed her mussed hair away from her face. He saw the satisfaction in her eyes and heard it in her husky voice. “We’re a gift to one another, darlin’.”
With a sigh, Dallas relaxed in his arms. The firelight created shadowy flickers against the rock walls of the cave. The snapping and popping of the wood was pleasant and soothing. “It’s nice to be able to fall asleep in your arms,” Dallas whispered, closing her eyes.
Murdoch cuddled her close, curving his arm over her back and shoulder. For a long time, he lay there, just listening to her breathe. Her hair tickled his chin, and each moist, warm exhalation caressed his flesh. All these things he’d imagined before this, yet the real thing surpassed them all. Mike felt like the richest man in the world. It was one helluva Christmas and Hanukkah, after all.