Chapter Two
Nate twisted in his seat to check on his passengers. Isa sat beside him, clutching her head, while Maya scrambled to her feet behind them. For a few hair-raising seconds after he pulled the parachute, they had dangled nose down beneath it, but now the plane had leveled out and was drifting toward the lake ahead just as he had planned.
“You okay?” he asked Isa.
She nodded, her expression dazed and glassy, rubbing at a red lump on her temple. They had maybe a minute until impact. The Cirrus wouldn’t float for long, so he needed to make the most of every second they had to spare before then. He sure hoped Isa—and Maya—were up for a swim, because they were fresh out of alternatives.
He unfastened his seat belt and crawled in back, lowering the seat to retrieve his and Isa’s overnight bags. If she and the dog were able to swim unassisted, he’d try to get the bags to shore. Who knew how long they’d have to wait for rescue? The provisions inside might be the difference between life and death.
“Can you swim?” he asked Isa as he shoved the plane’s first aid kit inside his duffel bag.
“Yes,” she answered faintly.
“Can she?” he asked, pointing to the dog.
“I d-don’t know.” Isa’s teeth were chattering. She was going into shock, and her timing couldn’t be worse.
He crawled back into the front seat with their bags and refastened his seat belt. “Take off your headset and your shoes.”
She stared at him blankly for a moment, then removed her headset and slid off her sneakers. He kicked off his loafers and tied both pairs of shoes to his bag. They’d swim better this way.
“I’m going to open the doors now,” he told her. The lake glistened maybe fifty feet below. They had only seconds left. He unlatched his door and swung it up, then reached over Isa and did the same to hers. Wind rushed through the interior of the plane, and Isa screamed.
“Why did you do that?” She clutched frantically at the straps of her seat belt.
“When we hit that lake, we’re going to need to get out fast. When I say go, you’re going to unclip your seat belt, climb out on the wing, and jump.”
“Oh God…oh God.” She closed her eyes, continuing to mutter under her breath.
And then, with a jolt, they smacked into the lake. Water sprayed around them, soaking the interior of the plane. Isa screamed again, throwing her hands up in front of her face. The plane lurched left, then forward before finally coming to a rest.
Immediately, he unclipped both of their seat belts.
“Wh-what?” She looked at him, her eyes unfocused.
Dammit. “You’ve got to swim.”
He put on her backpack and slung his duffel bag over top of it. The water was up to their ankles now and rising fast. It was ice cold, and they had a good five-hundred-yard swim to shore. He sure as hell hoped she was up for it. “Are you ready?”
“Ready,” she whispered.
“Now, Isa. Jump.”
She sat there, eyes wide, visibly trembling, and his heart clenched. He really didn’t want to drag her out of her seat, but they needed to go, now. The plane began to list to one side.
“Go,” he said softly as water continued to pour into the cabin. Thirty seconds, and his beloved Cirrus would be gone.
Isa crawled onto the wing and flopped sideways into the lake, disappearing below the surface. Fear bolted through him, but a moment later, she was up and swimming.
Nate turned his attention to the dog, who was whining and thrashing around in the rapidly filling rear of the plane. He slid his fingers beneath her collar and guided her to the door. Here’s hoping Huskies could swim…
Maya bobbed into the lake and began to paddle.
Heaving a breath of relief, Nate pushed himself out of the plane and kicked off in the direction Isa had gone. Behind him, with an ominous sucking sound, the Cirrus slipped beneath the surface. Gone.
Seven years and over one thousand hours of flight time together—possibly the longest relationship he’d ever had. But he and his passengers were alive. If they made it out of this mess, he could buy himself a new plane. He adjusted the bags on his back and swam after Isa and Maya.
“Oh no,” Isa moaned as he drew even with her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Maya!” she cried.
The dog had left them in her wake, paddling swiftly toward shore with her red leash trailing behind her in the water.
“It’s okay. She looks like a strong swimmer.”
“But she’s Houdini! We’ll never see her again.” Isa kicked with renewed vigor. The cold water seemed to have brought her back to her senses, and she swam ahead of him with more strength and speed than he had expected.
Still, it was a long ten minutes before they reached the shore. Nate was winded and shivering by the time he followed Isa onto the rocky shoreline. Her lips were purple and shaking, her cocoa eyes wide, her dark hair plastered to her head, and she looked so fucking beautiful, he almost pulled her into his arms and kissed her because they were alive.
“We survived,” she whispered.
“Fucking right, we did.”
She flung her arms around him. For a moment, he just stood there, caught off guard by her impulsiveness, before hugging her back. Her whole body trembled against his—adrenaline, or cold. Probably both.
“We lost Maya,” she said against his neck, a tremor in her voice.
“What are you talking about?” He pointed toward the edge of the tree line, where the dog sat watching. “She’s right there.”
“Oh!” Isa released him and crouched, extending her arms toward the dog. “Maya, you beautiful thing. I’m so glad to see you.”
Maya walked toward her cautiously, wet and bedraggled but otherwise none the worse for wear. She pressed her head into Isa’s lap.
“I can’t believe it. At the shelter, she was always trying to escape.” She stroked the dog behind her ears.
“Maybe she just didn’t like being in a cage,” he said.
“Maybe. So how long do you think it will be before they send out a search party for us?”
He cringed inwardly at the hopeful expression on her face. “I’m not sure my distress call went through. If it didn’t, it’ll take a few hours for them to realize we haven’t arrived in Reno. They might be able to send out search and rescue for us today, but they won’t have many hours of daylight left. I think we should plan on spending at least one night here.”
“At least one night?” Isa’s pretty face paled.
“I deviated from our flight plan to skirt the forest fire. They may not know where to look.” He paused, glancing at the black smoke visible in the distance. The scent hung heavy in the air. “We can’t discount that fire either. I don’t know where it’s moving or how long we’ll be safe here.”
“Crap,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around Maya and holding her close.
“How’s your head?” he asked, gesturing to the goose egg on her right temple.
“Hurts like a son of a bitch,” she said with a wry smile. “Don’t suppose we have any ibuprofen in those bags that hasn’t been ruined by all the water?”
“Probably not.”
“Oh no.” Isa stared at her hands, her expression stricken.
“What’s wrong?” He crouched beside her. Her fingers were slightly pruned from their time in the water, but he didn’t see any obvious signs of injury.
“My ring,” she whispered.
She wasn’t wearing any rings, but he had a hunch that was the problem. “Did it come off in the lake?”
“It must have.” Tears glistened in her eyes.
“Wedding ring?” He rocked back on his heels, feeling a twinge of disappointment at the thought of her being married.
She shook her head. “It was my grandmother’s—a gold butterfly. She gave it to me before she…before she died. She said that as long as I was wearing it, I’d always be able to feel her with me.” She blinked rapidly, her face tinged pink.
Aw, hell. “I’m sorry, Isa.”
“Yeah, me too.” She looked down at her hands and blew out a breath. “But I’d rather my ring be at the bottom of the lake than either of us. So what next?”
Nate felt an irrational urge to dive back into the lake and look for her lost ring. “We should probably take stock of our supplies.”
“I agree.”
He set their waterlogged bags on the ground between them. “What did you pack in yours? Rocks?”
“Dog food,” she said sheepishly, pulling the backpack closer. “I packed a few meals for Maya in case we got held up overnight in Reno.”
“Foods’s good, but I think our first priority should be dry clothes.” Because they were already freezing from having gone in the lake, and the temperature was only going to plummet as the sun went down.
“No dry clothes here,” Isa said as she pulled a soggy pair of jeans and a yellow shirt from her bag.
“Let’s take everything we have and lay it out in the sun. Hopefully it’ll dry before nightfall.” He took his spare clothes out of his bag, untied her sneakers and his loafers, and walked over to an outcropping of rocks. He spread it all out, then shucked his T-shirt and jeans and laid those on the rocks too.
“Um…” Isa said from behind him.
“I figure I’ll warm up faster if I’m not in cold, soggy jeans. Plus, the more dry clothes, the better, right?” He turned to find her shamelessly checking him out in his boxer briefs, two spots of color on her cheeks.
“Right.” She turned her back and started laying out her own clothes.
He headed toward their bags to begin going through the rest of his stuff. When he looked up, Isa was walking toward him, wearing nothing but hot pink panties and a flesh-colored bra, all smooth skin and soft curves, and he damn near swallowed his tongue.
***
Isa wasn’t normally a self-conscious girl, but walking around in her underwear in front of a man she barely knew? Let alone a sexy, rich, CEO pilot who’d just crash-landed them in the middle of the mountains in a forest fire? Yeah, her day had gone from adventurous to WTF in the span of an hour.
Her head throbbed, and she focused on that rather than thinking about the eyeful Nate was getting as she knelt beside her bag. Nate, who looked outrageously delicious in his black boxer briefs. He was awfully tanned and toned for a man who worked eighty hours a week, but she was sure as hell enjoying the view. Maya—bless her—lay beside the bag exactly where Isa had left her.
Thirty minutes later, they had organized their stuff into piles. Between them, they had a dozen granola bars, a bag of potato chips, and two bottles of water, plus the gallon-sized Ziploc bag of dog food she’d brought for Maya. Nate had one of those gadgety pocket knives that was bound to come in handy, and a first aid kit that included several sealed—and therefore not soggy—packets of ibuprofen.
“Thank goodness.” She snagged one and ripped it open.
“Not so fast.” Nate reached for the pills. “If there’s any bleeding in your brain, the ibuprofen could make it worse.”
She gave him a look. “I survived a plane crash and swam out of an ice-cold lake. I’m willing to take my chances with a couple of ibuprofen.”
Nate pressed his lips together but said nothing as she opened one of the bottles of water and swallowed the pills with the smallest sip she could manage.
“So,” she said.
He gave her a long look, his expression hidden behind his mirrored lenses. “So.”
“I’ve watched enough Survivorman to know we should probably be building a shelter by now,” she said.
“Survivorman? Is that the show where the guy pretends to be lost in the wilderness?”
“Les Stroud, yes, and he teaches you how to survive until you’re rescued.”
Nate looked skeptical. “I don’t know how accurate a TV show like that is.”
“Well, let’s hope we’re not out here long enough to find out. And on that note, I personally am in favor of making some kind of big SOS sign out here in case a rescue plane flies by.”
“Agreed. And since we don’t have any way to start a fire, we should probably look for running water too. It would be safer to drink than the water from the lake.”
“Okay.” She climbed to her feet. “What first?”
“Why don’t you work on the SOS while I scout locations for a shelter?”
Since it didn’t seem like Maya was going to make a run for it, Isa unclipped the leash from her collar so that the poor dog didn’t have to drag it around. She followed at Isa’s heels as she gathered sticks and whatever else she could find to make her sign.
The lake before her was so pretty, it belonged on a postcard. Its glittering surface reflected the blue sky above and snowcapped mountains visible in the distance. She wanted to sit and take it all in, but as she started arranging sticks into the shape of an enormous S, something in her brain seemed to click into place. Like oh shit, this is really happening.
Nate’s plane—and her butterfly ring—were at the bottom of that lake. They were stranded in the middle of nowhere with a forest fire nearby, and search and rescue might not even know where to look for them. She was going to spend the night somewhere out here, maybe more than one night, maybe…
Nope, she wasn’t going there yet. She forced herself to focus on the present. She’d build the most amazing SOS ever, and a rescue plane might even find them before nightfall. After what felt like hours—and with the pain in her head blissfully reduced thanks to the ibuprofen—she walked around the finished product, surveying her work with a smile.
“What the hell is that?” Nate said from behind her.
Startled, she tripped and fell flat on her ass in the middle of the O.