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Mocha? He shoved the Jeep into gear before realizing he’d decided to do so. Her eyes were brown. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Spike’s head poked between the seats. He whined softly, looking first at Dan, then at Natalie.
“I know what you mean, buddy,” Dan said between clenched teeth. “I know what you mean.”
NATALIE HAD LISTENED as Dan spoke on his radio to dispatch during the ride to the site, but had understood little of the codes and commands. She had witnessed many gut-wrenching scenes while on duty at the hospital’s burn unit, and inwardly prepared herself now for the worst. Dan pulled to a stop behind the ladder truck, the rain pounding on the windshield so heavily she only had a split second to see what lay outside before sheets of water again blocked her view.
“What…what’s going on?” she asked, the sound of her heartbeat loud in her ears.
“Mudslide,” Dan said, bounding from the car, his dog following after him. Natalie craned her neck to watch him, noticing the way both dog and master stood in the onslaught, neither seeming aware of the rain as they took in the situation.
Natalie fastened her rain slicker tightly, then grabbed her umbrella. The instant she opened the door she was hit by a wall of rain and wind that stole her breath from her. She sputtered, tightly gripping the molding of the door as she climbed out, fighting to hold on to the umbrella she was trying to open.
“Stay in the car!” Dan shouted, striding purposely toward the spot where his men were gathering their gear.
Natalie squinted after him as she pulled the umbrella as close to her head as she could. Stay in the car? What did he think she was, some kind of unruly child? She was a physician used to responding to emergency situations. Okay, so they usually involved burn victims who had already been transported to the hospital. But she wasn’t stupid. She started to step around the ladder truck, her foot plopping into a particularly nasty puddle with spongy mud beneath. Maybe she’d have to be a little more careful, but she wasn’t stupid.
Spike’s bark drew her closer to the front of the truck. Exercising caution, she stepped clear of the vehicle, then stopped dead in her tracks. She hadn’t realized where they were until that very moment. Before her towered Courage Bay Mountain, looking like an ominous monster in the dim purple light. The city of Courage Bay spread out along a ten-mile stretch of clean, white-sand beaches bordering the Pacific Ocean north of Los Angeles. Steep, forested mountains surrounded the crescent of lush coastal land. But after a particularly brutal drought last summer, the mountains were vulnerable to mudslides in this year’s rainy season.
Wealthier residents of the city had built expensive homes that jutted out of the side of Courage Bay Mountain facing the bay—on a steep slope the rain had turned into an unstable mound of mud. Natalie shielded her eyes and watched as a house halfway up the hill slid a couple feet sideways, its front pilings collapsing under the shifting weight.
Oh, God.
That something so seemingly solid could be easily swept off its foundations gave her pause.
“Over there!” one of Dan’s men shouted, indicating a man waving frantically at them from where he stood near the side of his house. An ominous crack sounded. Natalie watched the man slip and slide away from the structure toward a stand of trees where a woman and two young kids huddled.
It all looked so…overwhelming. So hopeless. How could the firefighters possibly reach them? There was no way they could get up there. And how would the family get down? Given the steady pounding of the rain and the already treacherous slopes, the situation could only get worse.
“Go!”
Natalie blinked and turned her head to find Dan shouting the order to four men wearing rappelling gear. Two by two, connected together by ropes, they headed for the foot of the mountain and began climbing the sturdiest-looking part of the hill.
“Team south, go!” Dan shouted again, and four more men headed down the road to the other side of the slide, carefully maneuvering their way through mud and debris flowing over the two-lane coastal highway toward the sea.
Standing pole still, strangely immune to the rain pelting her despite her slicker and umbrella, Natalie stared at the bear of a man she’d been trying to bully into letting her examine him such a short time ago. He looked so powerful, so capable. And his mere presence made the situation seem less desperate. More than a natural disaster, the mudslide was a challenge to be met. A job to be done. And she sensed that Dan Egan was exactly the man to do it.
Spike barked. Natalie jumped, surprised to find the dalmatian standing next to her. She glanced over to see Dan looking her way. Their gazes met across the twenty-foot expanse, neither of them blinking despite the rain streaming down their faces. As if they were joined in some odd, reassuring way.
One of Dan’s men held out something for him to look at, forcing him to break eye contact. Natalie let go of the breath she was holding, then turned her head and briefly closed her eyes.
Please, she prayed, please don’t let me fall for this man….
TWENTY MINUTES LATER the rain began to let up a bit, though not enough to make a significant difference. Dan stared up at the angry winter sky, asking for any kind of break he could get. While the lessening rain had little impact on the severity of the situation, it did create a better working environment for his men.
He scanned the mountainside, searching for the two rescue squads. The north team had already anchored a lead rope and was harnessing up the family of four to come down one by one. The south team was having a harder time finding a solid foothold from which to operate.
The civil engineer he’d ordered dispatch to contact held out the plastic-covered schematic of the houses on the hill. Of the more than a dozen homes, two were almost completely swallowed by the cascading mud, either buried outright or in pieces, and four more were about to give way. The bridge spanning the pass had been washed out, making those houses inaccessible. The rescue team had to move quickly.
He pulled his two-way to his mouth. “South team, status report.”
“Surface unstable. No foothold, sir. Repeat, we can’t get a foothold. Over.”
Dan eyed the terrain around the team. “Go fifteen paces southeast, Captain, and see if you can get a lock on the rock there by the trees.”
“Roger that.”
He watched the leader of the south team secure his radio, then point out the route to his men. On the other side, the stranded mother was cautiously sliding down the taut rope, a firefighter from the north team at her back to ease the way.
Dan caught himself rubbing the back of his damp neck, awareness crawling over his skin. While the doc hadn’t stayed in the car as he’d asked, she had stayed out of the way, staring at the mudslide, her eyes wide, looking particularly vulnerable.
Now that was a word he wouldn’t have used to describe Natalie Giroux only an hour ago. As he recalled, pushy was the adjective he’d chosen. She stood at the foot of the hill, appearing to want to do something, but aware that she wasn’t qualified.
He grudgingly gave her credit. He knew what it was like to be stuck on the sidelines. At forty-five, he’d had to trade an active role for that of coordinator. But the urge to rush into the fray was something he wasn’t good at quelling. Not yet. And, he was coming to fear, not ever. As it was, he now fisted and unfisted his hands, his pulse pounding with the impulse to climb up the shifting mountainside and help those in need.
“Doesn’t look good.”
Dan turned to address the man at his side. K-9 Patrol Officer Cole Winslow’s rain gear wasn’t much protection against the storm blasting them, but he seemed oblivious to it. He held the lead to Braveheart, his black-and-tan German shepherd.
“What brings you out to this neck of the woods?” Dan asked after he directed team members on the ground to help the rescued mother from her harness and to safety.
“Actually, I was already here. You’ve heard about the series of break-ins in the area recently? Well, the prowler was spotted in one of the houses. Braveheart and I were called in to track his scent.”
“Which house?”
Cole nodded toward the northeast and a house that a river of mud was claiming even as they watched. “Dylan Deeb’s place. You know, that producer who was brought up on sexual assault charges six months ago?”
Dan was familiar with the case. Deeb was a slimebag with a capital S. He was accused of coercing underage actresses into having sex with him in exchange for parts in his movies. The charges were dropped when the actresses refused to testify against him. Likely Deeb had convinced them their careers would do better with him on this side of prison bars.
“You get the prowler?” Dan asked.
The officer shook his head. “Lost his scent at the marina. A small boat was reported stolen an hour ago, so my guess is he borrowed it and headed out onto the bay.”
Glancing at the churning waters in the distance, Dan wondered if the prowler would have been better off facing Cole and prison than the storm-tossed sea.
A car raced up behind him and ground to a screeching stop on the wet asphalt. It had obviously passed the barriers his men had placed a quarter of a mile up the road. Like a river of brown lava, the debris path had sheared the highway in two, blocking traffic on both sides. He glanced at the older model vehicle and the young blond woman who stumbled out of it. She stared at the mountain in horror. A resident? Possibly. He motioned toward a junior firefighter to stop her from advancing, then concentrated on controlling his own overactive adrenaline.
BRITTNEY MACKENZIE COULDN’T believe her eyes. She stumbled forward, staring at the disintegrating mountain in front of her. She’d been there only an hour before and everything had been fine. Now the road she had taken to drive up to film producer Dylan Deeb’s house was indistinguishable from the rest of the oozing mud eating the highway.
Fine? Had she really just used the word fine to describe what had happened in Dylan Deeb’s house only sixty minutes ago?
“Miss, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step back.”
She blinked unseeingly into the face of a young firefighter in yellow waterproof overalls and black boots. “What…How…” The words came out of her mouth but she couldn’t seem to form a coherent sentence as she desperately sought out the producer’s house. Her heart beat an uneven rhythm in her chest.
It’s gone.
Along with any chance of her ever becoming a working actress.
Remorse, shame and fear rose up in her throat, choking her.
“Whoa, easy there,” she heard the firefighter say right before her legs went out from under her.
When she became aware of the world around her again, what could have been minutes or hours later, she was blinking into the face of a pretty woman who reminded her of her mother.
“Can you hear me?” the woman asked, waving a penlight in front of her eyes.
Brittney squeezed them shut against the intrusive light. “I can hear you.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
Brittney squinted. “Three.”
She realized then that she was lying across the front seat of her own car.
“Do you live here? Is there someone I can call? When’s the last time you had anything to eat?”
Eat?
Brittney struggled to a sitting position. “I’m fine. Really, I am.” She pulled her shaking legs inside the car and reached to close the door. “Thank you. I’ve…I’ve really got to go.”
The woman stepped back and Brittney finally managed to get the door closed. She hit the automatic lock, discovered her car was still running, then put the engine into reverse, her only intention to get as far as she could, as fast as she could, away from Deeb’s nonexistent house….
CHAPTER THREE
NATALIE HAD IMMEDIATELY responded to the firefighter’s call for help, but was forced to step back as the young woman—who had been all but unconscious a moment before—sped off in reverse. Twenty or so feet down the highway, she spun the rusted vehicle around, then raced off into the rain.
“What do you make of that?” the firefighter asked.
Natalie frowned. “I don’t know. Low blood sugar, maybe. Shock.” She looked at him. “Did you recognize her?”
“No.”
At any rate, there was nothing she could do about the woman now. You could only help those who wanted to be helped.
She found her gaze pulled to Dan Egan’s powerful back, the thought ringing even truer.
A plaintive call echoed through the rain. Natalie was pretty sure someone was yelling for help, but given her position at the foot of the mountain, with the waves of the bay crashing against the shore behind her, she couldn’t be sure from which direction the cry was coming.
She realized she was still staring at Dan’s wide back when she saw another firefighter rush up to his side, pointing out something near the top of the shifting mountain. She squinted against the rain. A man stood on his roof, alternately shouting at the people below and rubbing his chest and left arm. Natalie slowly advanced toward Dan, her umbrella falling back even as she gripped it. Mindless of the rain soaking her hair and face, she watched the stranded man drop to his knees, silent now as he desperately clutched his left arm.
“That’s not good,” she murmured, coming to stand next to Dan.
“What is it?” he asked.
“He’s demonstrating the classic symptoms of cardiac arrest.”
Dan’s head whipped around, just as a burst of static sounded on the radio he held in his left hand. He lifted it to his ear and fiddled with the knobs before speaking into the mouthpiece. “Come again, HQ.”
“Call on the 911 line, Egan. A man says he’s trapped on the roof of his house at 432 Truesdale. The mud’s rising fast and he’s suffering from severe chest pains.”
Dan caught and held Natalie’s gaze. “Tell him we’ll get to him as soon as we can. Out.”
Natalie closed her umbrella and headed toward the Jeep for her bag.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Dan asked, grasping her arm.
She blinked at him and then at his hand on her arm. “I’ve got to help him.”
Dan’s face was drawn into hard lines. “To do that you’d have to get to him first.” He pointed to a spot just south of the house the man stood on. “See that? The bridge has been completely washed out. There’s no way my team can reach him anytime soon.”
Natalie swallowed. This was one of the hardest parts about being a physician—knowing you were trained to help people but not being able to do it. “There’s got to be some way. What about air rescue?” She looked up into the glowering sky. “Where’s the helicopter?”
“Unfortunately, the pilot’s off sick today and it’ll take too long to arrange backup.”
She stared at Dan, wanting him to do something, anything, to try to remedy the situation.
He seemed to realize he still held her arm. Cursing quietly, he released her and strode away.
Natalie followed on his heels. “What are you going to do?” she asked, fighting to keep up.
“Fly up there myself.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“I’m well trained in handling cardiac arrest cases, Nat.”
Nat. He’d called her Nat. No one but her brothers ever referred to her that way. Not even Charles. The familiarity sent warmth skittering over her chilled skin. “Your men have their hands full here. What are you proposing to do? Fly in there alone to take care of the situation?”
He stared at her long and hard, then finally said, “Grab your bag and let’s go.”
FIFTEEN MINUTES, a slick drive to the airport and a choppy flight later, Dan carefully navigated the medevac helicopter over the mountain. His experience as a helicopter pilot was extensive—he’d flown many emergency missions in the military throughout troubled areas of the world—but it had been awhile since he’d been at the controls.
He glanced at Natalie in the seat next to him, attempting to tune out how white she was. He’d tried to warn her against coming. These types of rescues weren’t for the faint of heart. Add in the rain that was coming down in heavy sheets again, and he was surprised the doc was able to keep her lunch down. He spared her slender body a glance. If she’d even eaten lunch.
“Over there!” Natalie shouted at him through the headphones, clearly not used to talking into the pencil-thin black microphone she’d pushed away from her cheek.
Dan spotted the house in question. Mud was rising at a fast rate around the two-story structure, which now looked like a one-story house. The man who had called 911 lay completely still on one side of the flat, Mediterranean-style roof, seemingly unaware of their approach.
“Where are you going?” Natalie asked.
“I have to circle back around and try to land in the clearing just behind the house.” Dan tapped the mike in front of his mouth, gesturing for her to move hers so he could hear her. “Let’s just pray the ground is solid enough to hold us.”
Natalie fiddled with the mike and nodded.
The blast from the helicopter’s rotor blades nearly flattened the pines around the small clearing and blew the rain into thick sheets around them. Dan carefully negotiated the landing and powered down the rotor the instant they touched ground while Natalie yanked at her seat harness. After commanding Spike to stay put, Dan opened his door, then reached over and popped the release on hers. He grabbed the rescue equipment and jumped out. She spared him a grateful look before clambering down herself, following in his wake as the chopper’s blades spun to a stop.
“Watch your step!” Dan shouted, grabbing hold of her rain slicker with his free hand to keep her from being swept down by a vein of shifting mud. The footing was questionable at best, downright hazardous at worst. He should never have allowed Natalie to come along. But she’d been right that he needed help. Every spare hand he had was busy trying to save those lower on the mountain.
