Page 57 of A Rebel's Shot

“Oh, I don’t plan on ever letting you go.”

He froze, his gaze capturing hers. Her eyes didn’t waver from his, willing him to see the truth of her words. He was embedded in her soul, so he’d better get used to the idea of them together.

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Good.”

With his one-word answer, giddiness swamped her. She hung from a wrecked fuselage, sleet pelted her face, and pain radiated through her body, but she couldn’t stop her ridiculous smile from pushing her cheeks up. He rolled his eyes, his pressed lips tipping at the corners.

“Ready?”

“Cut me loose, Spidey.” She squeezed her arm across his shoulders, but her hands tingled. Would her muscles even hold her with the loss of circulation?

“Nope. You’re not landing that nickname on me.” He reached for her buckle.

“Why not?” The pressure on her shoulders released, and she gasped as she fell.

Her downward motion jolted to a halt as Tiikâan deftly caught her, cradling her in his arms. She tightened her arm around him, pressing her face into his neck as awave of lightheadedness crashed over her. Her body trembled with residual fear and adrenaline.

He squeezed her against his chest, then pushed back, gently setting her beside him. “Well, I’m not flexible at all. I can’t scale walls or shoot webs.”

“But you’re strong.” She wrapped her hand around his bicep and wagged her eyebrows when it flexed. “The way you flew us through that storm, missing mountains we couldn’t see clearly proves you have spidey sense.”

He shook his head and pushed on the door to get out. “Instruments did the work there.”

The door held, so he slammed his shoulder into it, his back muscles rippling beneath his t-shirt. It gave way with a crunch, but only opened an inch.

“And you’re more flexible than you think.” She crawled into the other side of the cockpit to give him more room, peeking back at Nolan who grumbled from his upside-down position about banging and his headache, and relief rushed through her that he was waking up. “You practically pretzeled when you let yourself loose from the buckle.”

Tiikâan’s laugh was abrupt, and the smile that stretched across his face was exactly what she hoped to pull out.

“Could we focus here and get me out?” Nolan’s annoyance rumbled like the thunder still filling the sky.

Tiikâan shoved his shoulder into the door again. “Working on it.”

With the next hit, the door swung open. Tiikâan barely caught himself from tumbling out. He eased out, then went to work on the passenger door.

Merritt crawled along the ceiling—or was it considered the floor? She shook off the unnecessary question and squeezed her way to the back where Nolan hung like a trapped bandit.

“You okay?” She ran her hands over his head and shoulders.

“Yeah. Just banged up.” He mumbled, his face red from being suspended. “You?”

“You know us Harlands.” She pressed a quick kiss to her uncle’s cheek. “We’re hard to knock down.”

He exhaled a humorless laugh. “That’s the truth.”

The screeching of metal as Tiikâan opened the passenger door made her cringe. Tiikâan climbed in beside her, focusing on getting Nolan loose.

As he helped Nolan out, his muscles bulging from his neck as he kept her uncle from crashing, her hero image of Tiikâan solidified. Her uncle wasn’t a small man.

Nolan slumped against the seat, his hand shaking as he pushed it through his disheveled graying hair. “What now?”

Tiikâan took a deep breath and pushed it out with a huff. “We gather what we can and head for the ice cave at the bottom of the glacier. We’ll have more room there and be out of the weather.”

“Then what?” Merritt leaned on the back of the pilot seat.

“Then we wait for the storm to pass, come back to the plane, and wait some more for the rescue.”

He shrugged. “The plane has an emergency beacon that’s signaling our location, and we’ll call out with theradio before we leave to let the cavalry know where we are holing up and that we need to be rescued.”

---