Page 9 of Suddenly Tempted
“We’re going down,” he said. “Brace!”
Then he did something that completely surprised her. He dived across the seats and wrapped his strong arms around her, pulling her close. She gasped into his soft, warm jacket, feeling the hard body beneath. There was no time to appreciate it, because a second later the helicopter thumped into the snow and she was hurled into Devlin as the helicopter slammed into the trunk of a tree. There was an awful wrenching noise as the rotors sheared off, then the machine rocked itself into stillness.
For a moment she just sat there, her heart the loudest thing in the world. Devlin held her tight, his breaths coming hard and fast, and she pushed her head into the folds of his jacket, barely daring to open her eyes.
It felt like an eternity later that he pulled away, and she reluctantly let him go. Devlin sat back in his chair, wincing. He held his right arm with his left, his face a mask of pain. He looked around the controls, then through the window, and finally he turned to Darcy.
“Are you okay?” he asked, taking off his headphones.
She took hers off, too, shaking her head.
“No, I’m not okay!” she said. “You crashed! We never should have gone up.”
He opened his mouth as if to reply, but then the helicopter lurched, her side dropping alarmingly. Darcy screamed, looking through the window in her door. It was hard to tell through the swirling snow, but it looked like they had landed right on the edge of a deep ravine.
“Stay calm,” Devlin urged, seeing the same thing. “Do exactly as I say.”
“The whole reason we’re in this mess is because I did exactly what you said,” she shot back, clinging onto her chair so hard her knuckles turned white.
“Do you want to argue, or do you want to get out of here in one piece?” he replied. Darcy glared at him, but he turned away from her and grabbed the handle for his door. He grunted in agony as he pushed it, and the door flew open, caught by the wind. Snow and sleet poured into the cabin like water, taking Darcy’s breath away. Devlin started to climb out, looking back and offering her his left hand. “Come on.”
She shook her head, fear gripping her like a vice. The helicopter shifted in another blast of wind and her heart dropped to her feet like she’d gone over the edge of the big dipper. She reached out and gripped his hand as tightly as her gloves would let her. He pulled her and she clambered over both seats, following him out of the door. He moved his arm to around her waist and she looped hers around his neck, allowing him to lift her to the ground. She was paralysed with the fear of dropping down into a deep ravine, too scared to let him go.
He yelled something to her, but the screaming wind was too loud. Devlin peeled her hands from around his neck and snow battered at her face. It was colder than anything she’d ever known, colder even than when she’d got locked in the walk-in freezer at her first job in a fast-food restaurant. It seemed like her bones were made of ice, and it hurt to breathe. Devlin had let her go and was struggling through the blizzard to the rear of the helicopter. She chased after him, not wanting to let him out of her sight.
“Food,” he shouted back. “And medical supplies.”
She nodded. He grabbed the door and pulled it, grunting at the effort, and swapping to his left hand. Darcy helped him, and together they slid it open. Devlin grabbed his suitcase, hauling it out into the snow. He was about to pull himself inside when a fist of wind struck the helicopter. It tilted away from them, gravity finally claiming it. With a groan like a wounded bear, it tumbled over the edge of the ravine, Devlin giving it up just in time. Darcy watched it go, the helicopter breaking into pieces as it rolled and crashed to the rocky floor 100 metres beneath them.
“No!” Devlin roared.
Beyond the ravine Darcy couldn’t see anything but mountains and snow. No sign of the resort. No sign ofanything. Behind her, the mountainside rose relentlessly towards the dark sky.
Devlin ducked down on his haunches. He slammed a fist into the snow and glared at Darcy.
“What are we going to do?” she shouted, the wind snatching her words away as soon as they’d left her mouth. She pulled her coat tightly around herself, fumbling with the zipper in her gloves, but it did little to ward away the cold.
Devlin stood up, his face expressionless. He scanned the mountainside, cradling his right arm. Then he nodded past Darcy’s shoulder, saying something that was lost in the storm. She shook her head and he walked up to her. He was so tall and broad that he sheltered her against the cold. He leaned in, his lips almost touching her ear. The feel of his words made her shiver, her skin prickling with goosebumps.
“There’s a ranger station near here,” he said. “It should be manned. It’s where I was hoping to land.”
“What?” Darcy uttered. “Why? You said you needed to get to the airport.”
Devlin nodded.
“I did. I do. But there’s something I needed to do first.”
“You’re insane!” she shouted. “And so selfish! We’re stuck in the mountains, in a blizzard, and all because you wanted to make a stopover at a ranger station? What on earth was so important that you’d risk our lives?”
He ignored her, picking up his case in his good hand and walking up the slope. The snow came up to his ankles, making it difficult, and there was definitely something wrong with his right arm. Darcy stayed where she was, a blizzard of panic and confusion blowing inside her skull. The reality of the situation was starting to set in. This wasn’t just annoying, this was dangerous. They were stuck on a mountain with no food and no heat and no medical supplies. If they didn’t find shelter soon, then the storm would be the end of them.
The falling snow was so thick that Devlin was already almost invisible. Darcy called out to him, ordering him to wait for her, but he pushed on regardless. She put her head down, pulling the hood of the jacket up and clamping it to her head. Despite everything, she was grateful to Devlin for finding her the jacket and trousers — if she’d been out here without them, she wouldn’t have lasted five minutes against the freezing temperatures. But her feet were so cold they felt red raw, and that wasn’t a good sign.
The ground was rough, the snow deep, and the wind was doing its best to push her back towards the ravine. Her shoes struggled on the ice, her ankles frozen solid. The slope was steep, and after a handful of steps, Darcy was struggling for breath. She wasn’t unfit — as much as she hated adventure, she loved her little local gym and worked out there twice a week — but she wasn’t used to such wild conditions. Devlin, on the other hand, was. She’d read somewhere, in the millions of articles and interviews written about him, that he loved extreme sports. He was a keen snowboarder and climber, and had even won a couple of medals for cross-country skiing. That fitness was paying off. He strode confidently across the wild terrain, now just a vague outline in the storm.
Why wasn’t he waiting for her?
“Devlin!” she shouted. “Wait!”
