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“Just enough to free my hands and feet,” he explained quietly. “Then I’m going to crab-walk us to the ledge. Okay?”
She wanted to say no, but she knew it would take a little strain off the safety line and keep it from shearing off on the rocky outcroppings.
She really, really didn’t want that to happen.
She looked up at the suspended medevac litter, which was now hanging motionless a few feet to her left.
Go figure.
Gritting her teeth, she nodded jerkily, tightening her grip on Nate’s harness. Her thighs clenched around him until they ached, and all she could think was, Thank God for all those squats and lunges I’ve been doing lately.
“Good girl,” he murmured, and she wanted to snort because she was about as far from being a good girl as they were from the ground. He eased his grip until all that kept him from succumbing to the law of gravity were her arms and legs.
He murmured into his comms and then with his feet planted flat against the cliff face, he began to move them toward the ledge.
It couldn’t have been more than a minute since Frankie’s spectacular leap off the edge but her muscles had begun to shake and she didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to hold on.
Beneath Nate’s jumpsuit, muscles bunched and flexed, giving her a few more inappropriate thoughts. Thoughts that might have freaked her out if she hadn’t been closer to death than she liked. Frankly, in the circumstances, she figured she was allowed.
Besides, it had been so long since she’d had inappropriate thoughts of any kind that she might as well enjoy them. They were the closest she’d had to actual sex in forever.
Finally, the tension on her harness lessened and Nate straightened, big feet planted shoulder width apart.
After a couple of beats he said, “You can let go now, Francis,” the dry tone as much as his use of the hated name bringing her head up. The first thing she saw was his mouth, beautifully sculpted and much too tempting.
Tearing her gaze away, she looked up into eyes as dark and fathomless as the death they’d just escaped. Sometime in the past couple of minutes—probably while she’d been having those hot thoughts—he’d lifted his visor and the warmth in his usually unreadable gaze stunned her.
“You okay?” His mouth was barely an inch away and all it would take was one tiny move from her and—
Spooked, Frankie flashed a quick look to the left and saw they were once more on the ledge. Her patient, wrapped in a silver emergency blanket, was a few feet away, waiting for her to get her act together.
“I’m fine,” she croaked, her throat desert dry and tight with tension while adrenaline still pumped through her at their near disaster.
Eager to put a little distance between them, Frankie released the stranglehold she had on him and slid to the ground until all that connected them were her fingers still locked on his harness.
“Francis.”
She opened her mouth in a snarled protest but it gave her the impetus she needed to let him go. She might have pushed away from him if they hadn’t been perched on a narrow, slick ledge and she hadn’t just taken a decade off her life with that one daring leap.
“You good?” he asked again, ducking his head to look into her eyes. He must have been reassured because he didn’t wait for her to reply. “Help me secure the PEP so we can get off this ledge.”
Frankie shook her head even though she knew he meant the patient extrication platform. Sucking in a shaky breath to still the churning in her gut, she shoved all her messy emotions aside and got her head in the game. She had a patient who needed her undivided attention and the litter swaying gently just over their heads was waiting to airlift him to the closest trauma center.
Everything else could wait. Including her freak-out because no way was anyone witnessing that.
Within minutes, they’d transferred the student to the backboard and strapped him into the litter. Nate then reattached the hoisting strapline and with a hand signal from him, Frankie’s patient rose into the air. She watched as hands reached out to snag the litter and pull it aboard the chopper before expelling the breath she’d been holding.
Litter rescues occasionally went bad but, despite the rocky start that had almost cost Nate his life, this one had gone relatively smoothly. But she wanted to be off the ledge before something else went wrong. Before she lost the tight grip on her emotions.
She wasn’t looking forward to climbing back the way she’d come either. Her arms and legs shook, which would make the ascent a little tricky even though the rangers at the top had set up a standing body belay and would take most of her weight as she “walked” up the cliff face.
She’d wait until Nate left with the chopper before attempting the ascent for fear of completely humiliating herself any further.
Out of the darkness the hoisting strapline appeared again and Frankie let out a tiny relieved breath. Any minute now she’d be free to fall apart without an audience.
She watched Nate catch the metal connector clip and murmur something that she couldn’t quite catch. Now would be a good time for Fearless Frankie to regain control, she thought, because smartass and cocky was way better than cowering, trembling and freaked out.
She gave a cocky grin and quipped, “So long, soldier,” adding a snappy salute for good measure.
“It’s sailor, not soldier,” he growled, as he unclipped her line and gave it a quick tug.
“What are you doing?” she snapped in outrage, making a grab for it, but it was already out of reach as the rangers above reeled it in. She turned on him with a snarled “Are you insane?” but he ignored her, snapping her onto his harness capture strap. Of course, she tried to stop him but he brushed her hands aside with a quick impatient flick and hooked them both to the hoisting line.
Eyes on hers, he wrapped his arms around her and said, “Trust me.”
The words had her heart lurching as the truth landed like a punch to the solar plexus. God, she did. Didn’t want to...but did.
“No,” she lied, but he must have read the reluctant truth in her eyes because he said, “Bring us in, Boom,” and the next instant they were airborne.
Frankie swallowed as they swung away from the ledge. She didn’t like the feeling of being suspended in a sea of blackness while wind, rain and rotor wash lashed at them from every side any more than she liked being vulnerable.
To anyone...let alone this man.
She’d tried it once and he’d devastated her, stomping on her tender heart with his size thirteen tactical boots. It was the last time she’d allowed her feelings to show.
“I’ll get you for this, soldier,” she warned through clenched teeth and squeezed her eyes closed against the overwhelming pull of the man pressed intimately against her.
Gone was the cocky, handsome boy who’d treated her with all the indulgent impatience of an older sibling. In his place was a man whose powerful cocktail of tightly coiled testosterone and simmering pheromones was even more treacherously compelling.
Even the expression in his eyes was different—sometimes intense, sometimes brooding but always distantly watchful.
This Nate might look like an older, hotter and harder version of the boy she’d once loved but somewhere along the line he’d acquired a darkness that made him more than dangerous, more than lethal, to women everywhere.
Over the sound of the chopper she heard him yell, “You falling asleep there, spider girl?”
Her eyes popped open and she looked up to see the red and white fuselage looming closer. A couple of visored men watched and controlled their ascent, reminding Frankie of a movie she’d seen about alien abduction.
“No,” she muttered. “I’m pretending I’m on a beach in Hawaii.”
He must have heard because his mouth kicked up at one corner and before she could fully grasp the sudden transformation, hands were reaching for them, pulling them in. The instant she felt the capture strap release, Frankie scrambled over to where a crewman was tending her patient and wondered what she thought she was doing, because she had a feeling that getting sucked into Nate Oliver’s force field again...would be an unmitigated disaster.
Fortunately, she was too smart to let that happen. Way too smart.
Her patient’s eyes were open but he appeared dazed and disorientated. “Focus on me, handsome,” she yelled over the noise of the engine, and quickly freed his arm to set up an IV. “You hang in there, okay?”
Looking up briefly to gauge their ETA, she noticed several pairs of eyes on her and became aware of the grins.
Frowning, she looked around and caught sight of Nate’s expression and by the firm unsmiling line of his sexy mouth, he wasn’t happy. But then again—apart from that flash of wry humor—unsmiling seemed to be his default expression.
At least when it came to her.
Her belly clenched.
“What?”
“Yowza, lady,” a crewman yelled, his wide toothy grin and smooth cheeks all she could see beneath the bug helmet. “You saved Sammy in the most awesome move I ever saw. Ever think of joining the circus?”
Sammy? she thought with a frown. Who the heck is Sammy?
Thinking maybe they were talking about her patient, Frankie drawled, “I’m allergic to rings,” laughing when she was rewarded with confused looks. She shook her head. “Never mind.”
No way was she explaining that one. She’d decided a long time ago that marriage wasn’t for her and guys seemed to think all a woman wanted was a wedding ring and a white picket fence.
Determinedly pushing aside unpleasant thoughts, Frankie willed the chopper to move faster through the air. The sooner they arrived at the hospital, the sooner her patient could be rushed into surgery. And she really needed to escape this inexorable pull Nathan appeared to still have on her double-X chromosome.
CHAPTER TWO (#uf6319a1d-8589-5d68-8c26-65007de51836)
HOURS LATER FRANKIE dragged her weary feet through the ambulance bay doors into ER. The adrenaline had long since faded and she was feeling every strained muscle and ache as though she’d been through a marathon workout session.
Fortunately, the mud slide hadn’t been as extensive as everyone had feared and most people had managed to escape the worst of it. Those that hadn’t had already been admitted or treated and released.
It had probably been the longest shift of her career. Her jumpsuit clung wetly to her skin and her boots squelched with every step. There was also something wrong with her back that she could no longer ignore. She’d check it herself but one of her superpowers wasn’t the ability to make her arms bend the wrong way or her head swivel like an evil toy in a horror movie.
Fortunately, the ER was quiet after the earlier rush and she found the person she was looking for in the staff lounge, stuffing her face with one donut while searching through the bakery box for another.
Paige Carlyle looked as exhausted as Frankie felt. At the sound of the door opening, the petite doctor looked up guiltily—cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s—as though she’d been caught doing something illegal.
“Those things will kill you,” Frankie announced, snagging the full to-go mug off the counter. She swallowed a large mouthful and grimaced. “And so will this.”
“Hey,” Paige objected around a mouthful of pastry, and snatched the cup away, cradling it protectively against her chest. “It’s hot, delicious and I need the sugar.”
“No, you don’t. You need some veggie juice and a nice long soak in a hot tub.”
Paige made a face at the mention of veggie juice. “Yuk, I’m not drinking pond scum,” she declared, gleefully washing down her donut with hot chocolate and making sounds that were a little too disturbing in Frankie’s opinion. Paige reluctantly closed the bakery box and slumped against the counter. “But a long hot soak sounds like heaven. My feet hurt and I haven’t been home in so long Ty’s probably forgotten what I look like.”
“Stop whining. It’s unattractive,” Frankie said with an accusing frown. “And so are your constant reminders that you have a sexy hunk waiting for you with home-cooked meals and daily massages.”
Paige’s mouth curved in a secretive smile and she made another sound that ratcheted Frankie’s irritation level a couple of notches. “You sound jealous,” Paige observed mildly. “Like you want a sexy hunk at home too.”
Frankie snorted. “Who doesn’t?”
“Well, I do know another unattached sexy hunk you might be interested in,” the doctor said craftily.
“Your brother? The air force top gun?” Frankie gave a dramatic sigh. “He’s hot and I just love a man in uniform.”
Paige gagged. “Yuk. No. I was talking about someone in another sector of the armed forces. Say...the Coast Guard?”
“Not interested,” Frankie said promptly. “And I can handle my own love life, thanks.” Or lack thereof, she reminded herself dryly. “You just concentrate on Terrible Ty.”
Tyler Reese had been Nate and Jack’s best friend until the summer they’d turned eighteen. Something had happened that had landed the three friends in a lot of trouble and it had been the last time Ty had been in Port St. John’s—except for Jack’s funeral—until an injury had threatened to end his surgical career. He’d returned to recuperate and had run into Paige on his first night.
Or rather into Paige’s flashlight, which had clearly knocked some sense into him because he’d left his life and big city career to move north.
Paige cleared her throat and stared at Frankie expectantly. “Is there something you need to tell me, Ms. Bryce?” she asked with excruciating politeness.
Frankie frowned at her friend’s tone. “No,” she said warily, and when the doctor just narrowed her eyes, she shrugged and couldn’t stop the sharply indrawn breath at the movement.
Paige must have seen something in her expression because she demanded, “What did you do?”
Of course Frankie answered with an affronted “Nothing,” hoping Paige would drop it because the doctor looked like she needed a break as much as Frankie did. She’d just go home, have a hot shower and fall into bed. She could deal with everything after about twelve hours of shut-eye.
Paige scoffed. “Tell me before I call Ty.” She paused and her gaze turned crafty. “Or better yet, maybe I’ll call a big bad coastie. He can hold you down while I examine you.” Knowing exactly who Paige was talking about, Frankie narrowed her eyes dangerously but her expression clearly didn’t intimidate the medical center’s newest specialist.
“Let’s go,” Paige said, tossing her to-go cup in the trash before moving toward the door, turning impatiently when Frankie didn’t move. “Well? What are you waiting for?”
“An ER physician?”
Paige rolled her eyes because everyone knew that though she was a qualified pediatrician, she was still paying off her state-granted tuition by working in ER. “Your smart mouth doesn’t intimidate me, Ms. Bryce,” she drawled. “Room Four. Stat,” she ordered, before disappearing through the door.
Frankie closed her eyes, her boots rooted to the spot. It wasn’t that she was being deliberately difficult. She was just too tired to move. Oh, yeah, and every breath reminded her of her flying trapeze stunt. Moving required skills she’d temporarily misplaced.
A second later the door opened again and Paige stuck her head inside, scowling when she saw that Frankie hadn’t moved. She narrowed her gaze and gave her cellphone a peremptory waggle. “Now,” she snapped.
Frankie frowned. “Does Ty know how annoying you are?”
“Of course he does,” she announced cheerfully. “It’s one of the things he loves about me.”
Frankie rolled her eyes because Paige was right. Ty did love her. His feelings for the pint-sized Attila the Hun were so obvious that it made Frankie just a little bit jealous.
She wanted someone to look at her like that.
Sighing, because now she was feeling sorry for herself, she followed Paige down the passage into an empty ER room.
“Okay,” the doctor said with her hands on her hips. “What hurts?”
Finding levity in the situation, Frankie snorted and reached for the zipper tab on her jumpsuit. “Maybe you should ask what doesn’t hurt...and go from there?” Maybe she should have gone home before she tried this because there was no way she was going to be able to dress again without bawling like a baby.
Paige pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and studied her. “Lemme guess. You acted rashly during that mountain rescue and you’ve hurt your back.”
“What mountain rescue? How do you know it’s my back?” Frankie demanded irritably. “And I’m never rash—at least, not any more—and not unless I need chocolate. Then all bets are off.”
Paige arched her brow. “It’s the way you’re holding yourself.” She leveled a mildly irritated yet softly understanding look that made Frankie squirm. “And I know you hate being a burden because you harbor what you think is a super-secret need to make amends for your past, Frankie. So you were wild and rebellious.” She shrugged impatiently. “Big deal. We all do dumb stuff when we’re kids.”
Frankie spluttered. “That’s ridiculous. I bet you—”
But Paige interrupted with, “You’re an excellent paramedic—the most advanced one on the coast, actually—but maybe you should think about saving yourself.”
“What does that mean?” Frankie demanded with a scowl.
