Against the Odds (7 page)

“Let’s go, Alex. We’re almost out of water and I’m tired of
just sitting here roasting in the heat.”

Well, hell, if she was game, so was he. “All right, but if we
do this, we do it my way. We walk during the morning, rest and sleep during the
hot part of the day, then walk again in the evening as it starts to cool off. I
figure we can make it in two days if we don’t run into problems.”

“All right!” She grinned. “I’m already packed and ready to
leave.”

“Very funny.” All she had was the clothes on her back. He
walked over to where he’d rested his gear bag. He was sporting a three-day
growth of beard and wearing his shirt again, magnanimously handed back to him as
soon as it had warmed a little this morning.

“I’ve got a couple of things to do, then we’ll leave. We’ll
walk for a couple of hours, rest, walk again before we make camp for the
night.”

“Sounds good to me.”

He left her sitting there while he collected a few more rocks
and made an arrow pointing due west in the sand not far from the burned-out
chopper. If anyone was looking for them, they’d see the arrow and know they were
walking toward the road. The crutches were going to be a problem. As soon as the
ground turned to sand, the ends would sink into the soft soil. He’d wind up
carrying her but there was no use telling her that and she was too bullheaded to
believe him if he did.

Alex checked the wrapping on Sabrina’s ankle, then shouldered
his pack. Since her head had apparently stopped hurting but her ankle hadn’t,
they each swallowed a handful of Advil and started off across the desert.

Alex took it slow, giving Sabrina the chance to keep up on
those ridiculous crutches he had made with no intention of her using them beyond
the camp. They weren’t making much time and the sun was getting higher, the
temperature rising. By the end of the third hour, it was obvious this was going
to be just as tough as he’d imagined.

Sabrina was hot and tired, the underside of her arms chafed
from the wooden crutches and pulling the tips out of the sand was exhausting. So
far she hadn’t complained.

He was letting her go as far as she could before he told her he
was going to have to carry her. It wouldn’t sit well, he knew, but sooner or
later, she wouldn’t have any other choice.

By the time he called for the third rest stop of the day, even
after using sunscreen, Sabrina’s cheeks were red, and her good leg was shaking
with fatigue. She sat down in the sand beneath a mesquite tree and drew her
knees up beneath her chin, used them to pillow her head.

When Alex sat down beside her, she looked up at him, her
expression so weary it made his chest ache.

“Alex?”

“What is it?”

“I think I’m going to cry.” Her eyes welled, and his chest
squeezed. He reached over, eased her into his arms and just held her.

“Go ahead, love. You’ve earned it.”

She let out a sob and her body started shaking; he could feel
the wetness against the side of his neck. He ran a hand over her back, hoping it
would soothe her, wishing there was a way to make all of this easier.

Just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Sabrina clung
to him for another couple of seconds before she eased away.

She wiped the wetness from her cheeks. “Thank you.”

“We’re gonna be okay. You believe that, right?”

She swallowed, nodded. “I’m glad I chose you, Alex.”

He knew what she meant. “So am I.”

“I didn’t want to like you. I tried really hard not to.”

He caught her chin. “Too late,” he said and then he kissed
her.

Six

A
s kisses go, it didn’t last long. But what
started as a tender, gentle kiss, expanded into a deep, greedy exploration of
mouths and tongues that had her shaking with need, her arms winding up around
his neck. She could feel Alex fighting for control against the hunger burning
through him. The same hunger that burned through her. It had her skin tingling
and heat flaring in the pit of her stomach.

Alex ended the kiss long before she wanted him to. Breathing
hard, he came to his feet and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean for
that to happen.”

Rina licked her lips, tasted him there. “I know. It just
did.”

He took a couple deep breaths. “We need to keep going.” His
voice was gruff as he reached down, grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet.
The hunger was still in his eyes, but it was guarded now. Whatever was happening
between them wasn’t something he wanted any more than she did.

That was good, she told herself, still working to catch her
breath. Certainly better for her.

She gazed across the barren expanse of desert that seemed to go
on forever, and exhaustion washed over her. Her ankle was killing her and the
strength in her good leg was almost gone.

“Stand still,” Alex said.

“Why? What are you doing?”

“You’re wearing the pack.”

“What?”

“I’m going to carry you. We’ll be able to make better
time.”

“No way! You can’t carry me
and
the
gear all the way to Rio Gordo!”

“We aren’t going to Rio Gordo. We’re going to the road. We’ve
covered some ground this morning. It’s probably no more than ten or twelve miles
away. It might take us a while, but I can carry you there without a
problem.”

“What about your ribs? You’re going to make them worse.”

“Let me worry about my ribs. We made the decision to leave. Now
we need to get where we’re going.”

Her good leg trembled. Her mouth was as dry as cotton. A drink
of water sounded better than a glass of Dom Pérignon. “I can make it a little
farther.”

Alex ignored her. The next thing she knew the pack was securely
in place across her shoulders and she was riding piggyback style, clinging to
Alex’s strong neck while he held on to the legs she wrapped around his
waist.

He started walking. “It’s getting hot. We’ll be stopping pretty
soon. Just hang on and let me do the work.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “What about my
crutches!”

“Sorry, love. I’ll have to make you a new pair.”

Her heart sank. The last of her independence was gone. As Alex
started over the rugged landscape, she clung to his broad back and prayed he
could get them out of the desert safely.

Another hour passed. Alex was sweating, his jaw set against the
pain in his side. Even though she knew he was tired, he kept going, trudging
over the burning landscape, doggedly setting one foot in front of the other.

“We need to stop, Alex. You said we would rest in the middle of
the day.” Rina was as hot and sweaty as he was, her ankle throbbing.

He took a few more steps, then blew out a breath, clearly
wishing he could continue. “All right. We’ll rest until it cools off.”

She held on tightly as he crossed a deep ravine, making his way
to the opposite side, headed for a patch of shade beneath an overhanging
rock.

That’s when she heard it. The
whop, whop,
whop
of a chopper. Alex set her down and shot out into the open,
madly waving his arms. The chopper circled, spotted Alex and swooped lower, then
began a slow descent.

For the second time that day, Sabrina started crying.

* * *

The Rio Gordo County Sheriff’s helicopter settled into
the desert, blowing dust and sand and hot air around them. The two EMTs aboard
made a cursory check of Rina’s ankle and Alex’s ribs, pronounced the two of them
stable enough to make the ride back to the airport. Sabrina refused a stretcher
and instead let Alex help her aboard the chopper.

For a moment as she glanced around the interior, she forgot
about her ankle. She was too busy remembering the crash that had nearly killed
them and praying they would make it safely back to Rio Gordo.

As soon as everyone was back aboard and she and Alex were
strapped into their seats, the helo lifted off the desert floor and swung away,
heading back in a different direction from the route they had originally
taken.

Rina had just ended her quick prayer when she looked down and
spotted the parallel lines of a tiny dirt road cutting through the desert, a
two-track path they hadn’t seen when they were searching from the air before. At
the end of the road was a cluster of wooden buildings and what looked like a
hole in the side of a cactus-covered hill.

“Alex! There it is! It’s the mine!”

Sitting next to her, Alex leaned forward, spotted the buildings
and the mine and let out a hearty laugh. He grinned at her, his gorgeous dimples
popping out, and just shook his head.

Seven

T
he helicopter flew them to a clinic in Rio
Gordo where an older Hispanic doctor named Navarro had Alex’s ribs and Sabrina’s
ankle x-rayed. The doctor grumbled about the stitches Alex should have had in
his back, but said neither of them had any broken bones. They were dehydrated
and a little sunburned, but they were alive. A miracle in itself.

“We’ll be going over the chopper,” the sheriff told Alex as he
sat outside the emergency room, waiting for Dr. Navarro to finish with Sabrina.
“It might take a while, but we’ll do our best to find the cause of the
crash.”

Sheriff Beau Dickens, a heavyset man with a leonine main of
silver hair and a thick Texas drawl spoke with a sincerity that made Alex
believe he would do his best to find out what had gone wrong.

“Not much left to work with,” Alex told him, thinking of the
pile of burned-up metal sitting in the middle of the desert.

“We’ll be bringin’ in an aviation forensic expert. Dan
Baldwin’s one of the best.”

“I’ll want to know what he comes up with.”

“No problem.”

He and Sabrina were both released that day. That night, they
took two rooms at the Eazy Eight Motel near the airport. In the room next to his
Sabrina slept twelve hours straight before they headed for his plane late the
next morning and the flight back to Houston.

That had been two weeks ago. He was home now, back at work in
his office. Sabrina was recovering in her apartment while she waited for her
ankle to heal. Her mother had driven down from Uvalde and spent a couple of days
fussing over her, or at least that’s what Sage had told him. He’d sent flowers
and a get-well note, but hadn’t seen her since he’d flown her back from Rio
Gordo.

Staying away from her was better for both of them—which was
clear from the moment he had kissed her. He wanted her, but with a girl like
Sabrina, a one- or two-night stand was out of the question, and more than that
was out of the question for him.

Instead, he was determined to focus on work, to find another
case that interested him. He had begun to thumb through the messages on his desk
when the bell rang above the door and his sister and her five-year-old daughter
walked into the office.

Grinning, Alex stood up from behind his desk and opened his
arms. Little Ginny ran straight into them.

“Uncle Alex!”

“Hi, sweetheart!” He planted a smacking kiss on her cheek.
Ginny Wyatt was a towheaded little imp with the same blue eyes Alex had
inherited from his father. She was smart and sweet, and he was flat-out crazy
about her.

“Me and Mommy went shopping,” Ginny said. “Mommy said we could
come by and see if you wanted to go to lunch.”

Alex thought of Melissa Carlyle, the last woman who’d come to
the office and asked him to lunch. He had dodged that bullet. But there was no
one he’d rather spend time with than the two most important people in his
life.

Well, maybe there was one other person he’d like to include,
but that wasn’t going to happen.

He hoisted Ginny up on his shoulder, leaned over and kissed his
sister’s cheek.

“Hi, big brother.” Rebecca was a pretty young woman with long,
straight blond hair, brown eyes and a slender figure. She was tall, like their
dad, but she looked more like his mother, with high cheekbones and a slim,
straight nose.

“I’d love to take you to lunch,” he said. “I have to be back
here in an hour, but we can go someplace close. Maybe Prego? Great Italian food
over there.”

“Ginny was hoping for the Texas Café. She loves the fries and
chocolate shakes.”

“Good idea. Great burgers, too.” It wasn’t quite as healthy as
salad and pasta, but Becca was good about watching what Ginny ate and staying
away from fast-food restaurants. The café was a local favorite, the place Trace
had first met his wife, Maggie.

As they headed for the door, he waved to Annie, who sat behind
the receptionist desk.

“We’re off to the Texas Café,” he said. “I’ll be back in an
hour.”

“How ’bout bringing me a chocolate shake?” Annie asked.

“You got it.”

Annie winked at Ginny, her penciled blond eyebrows going up and
down. “Don’t let your uncle forget, okay?”

Ginny grinned, showing a hole where one of her bottom teeth
should have been. “Okay.”

The bell rang again as they walked outside. “How’s the house
coming along?” Alex asked Rebecca. His friend, Joe McCauley, the guy who’d been
responsible for his move to Houston, had become a contractor after he’d left the
navy. Alex had recommended him for his sister’s remodel job. She’d bought a
beautiful old Victorian in the Heights District, already partially remodeled.
Joe was continuing the work.

Becca’s eyes cut away for an instant. “Joe’s good. He’s doing a
great job so far.”

There was something in her face. Joe McCauley was a
good-looking guy, and solid as a rock. “You like him,” Alex said, opening the
door to the backseat of Rebecca’s Ford Explorer. Since his sister’s car had a
booster seat, they were taking her vehicle instead of his. He settled Ginny in
the seat, took the keys from Becca’s hand and slid behind the wheel.

“Joe’s a nice guy,” she said, picking up the thread of
conversation once they were inside the car.

“That’s it? Nothing more exciting than nice?”

She shrugged. “I’m not ready for another relationship, Alex.
I’m not sure I ever will be.”

He wanted to say she needed to think of Ginny. That she had to
learn to trust again sometime. But since, for different reasons, he wasn’t ready
for a relationship either, he kept his mouth shut.

He glanced at Ginny in the mirror. “We’re off to shakes and
burgers,” he said with a grin, and little Ginny giggled.

Alex’s thoughts strayed to the woman who wasn’t going with
them, the person he would have liked Becca and Ginny to meet. He shoved her
image from his mind and started the engine.

* * *

Rina opened the door and stepped back to let her best
friend into the apartment. Sage Cantrell’s wavy dark hair swung forward as she
leaned over to give Sabrina a hug.

“How are you feeling?” Sage was about five inches taller that
Rina’s petite five-foot-one-inch frame, but the spike heels Sage always wore
pushed her up to nearly six feet. Which was probably good, since her husband,
Jake, was six foot five.

“I’m good,” Rina said. “Bored, but good.” On a pair of crutches
made of aluminum instead of wood and not nearly so dear as the ones Alex had
made for her, Sabrina led her friend into the living room. “Want a cup of coffee
or a Coke or something?”

“I can’t stay long. I’ve got a staff meeting this afternoon.”
Sage was the Vice President of Marketing and Acquisitions for Marine Drilling
International. She was a dedicated career woman in line for the presidency of
the company. “So the ankle is doing okay?”

“The sprain is pretty much healed,” Rina said as they sat down
on the cream sofa in front of a low, gilt, French table. “I’ll be off these
crutches in a few more days.”

She’d been back from Rio Gordo for a little over two weeks. She
was bored to tears and eager to be doing something instead of just sitting
around the apartment friending people on Facebook and playing solitaire on her
iPad.

And strange as it might seem, the
something
she was itching to do was get back to Rio Gordo. Now that
she knew where the mine was located and had seen the two-track road that would
get her there, she wanted to finish what she had started. She wanted to know if
Uncle Walter had found silver on his land.

Land that now belonged to her.

“I hope you had a good visit with your mom,” Sage said.

Her mother had stayed nearly a week. They’d always gotten along
great, so it was fun. “It was nice to catch up. And her cooking is terrific. I’m
sure I put on five pounds.”

“That’s okay, you lost that much out in the desert.”

“Snake and javelina aren’t big favorites.”

Sage laughed. “So when are you going back to work? You’ve never
been much for sitting around the house.”

“I...umm...guess I didn’t mention that my leave of absence is
open-ended. I may not be going back at all.”

Sage knew all about the land Rina had inherited, knew that was
the reason she had hired Alex to fly her out to Rio Gordo. In fact, it was Sage
and Jake who had demanded the sheriff’s department start a search when Rina
failed to call Sage the first night she was away as she had promised to do.

When Sage couldn’t reach her the next day and Jake couldn’t
reach Alex, Jake had called the airport and discovered the chopper hadn’t made
radio contact for two full days. It wasn’t until after a lengthy search that the
sheriff had spotted Alex stumbling toward the highway.

“So what will you do if you don’t go back to work?” Sage asked.
“You aren’t thinking about that mine again, are you?”

“I never
stopped
thinking about it.
I need to know if Uncle Walter found silver. If he did, there’s no reason I
can’t find a company to work with to help me mine it. I’m tired of working for
somebody else. And look where it’s gotten me. In the last twelve months, I’ve
lost most of what I worked for years to earn.”

“I guess you’ve thought this through.”

“I have. If it doesn’t work out, then I’ll find something else
to do.”

“Whatever you do, I know you’ll be successful. It’s just the
way you are.”

Rina smiled. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Sage’s gaze moved around the apartment, taking in the soft
curves of the rosewood tables, gilt-edged chairs and the Persian rug beneath the
coffee table. There were still a few vases of get-well flowers that had arrived
after she’d come back from Rio Gordo. One of them, a bouquet of yellow roses,
was pretty much wilted, but it had come from Alex and she couldn’t quite make
herself toss it away.

“So, have you heard from Alex lately?” Sage asked, her gaze on
the wilted bouquet she knew he had sent.

“I’m sure he’s busy. I hope his ribs are mending.”

“He’s back at work so he must be feeling okay. I’m surprised he
hasn’t called.”

Rina glanced away. “I gave him enough trouble on that trip to
last him a lifetime. I imagine he’s glad to be rid of me.”

“Jake said Alex told him you were amazing out there.”

Her interest sharpened. “He did?”

“He said you were tough when you needed to be.” Sage smiled.
“He said he wouldn’t have wanted to crash with anyone else.”

Rina’s heart pinched. She didn’t want to like Alex Justice, let
alone be attracted to him. She didn’t need that kind of trouble. Unfortunately,
she couldn’t seem to get him out of her head. “He was really sweet out
there.”

Sage’s dark eyebrows went up. “Sweet? Somehow that isn’t a word
I would think of to describe Alex. Tough, smart, loyal. Definitely good-looking.
I’m not sure the women he usually dates would think he was sweet.”

Rina didn’t want to think about the women Alex dated. The ones
he was probably seeing right now. “I’m going back out there,” she said instead.
“I’ve already made arrangements to fly commercial into Odessa and rent a car.
I’ll drive to Rio Gordo and go south from there.”

The narrow dirt trail to the mine came off the highway between
Rio Gordo and the border, she now knew. On the flight back out of the desert,
she’d asked the helicopter pilot to mark the location when they were in the air.
It was south of town about thirty miles. “I’m going back next week.”

“Wait a minute—you aren’t planning to go out there by
yourself?”

“I’m meeting a mining expert from Presidio, a man named Arturo
Hernandez. He’ll be joining me out at the mine.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sabrina.”

“Look, I’m not going to be flying around in a helicopter again.
Once I get to the mine and Mr. Hernandez and I take a look around, I’ll drive
back to Odessa and fly home.”

Sage glanced over at the wilted yellow roses. “What about
taking Alex with you? I’m sure he’d be willing to go again.”

Rina shook her head. Spending more time with Alex was exactly
what she didn’t want to do. “The last time I nearly got him killed. I’m not
asking him to go out there again.”

“But—”

“I can handle it, Sage. It’s important for me to find out what
I’ve got. If there’s silver in that mine, I’m going to find a way to get it
out.”

Sage bit her lip, but didn’t continue to argue. They respected
each other’s judgment. At least for the most part. Not that either was afraid to
speak her mind.

Sabrina changed the subject and they talked about the houses
Sage and Jake had been looking at, hoping to find something to buy.

“Jake’s going crazy in my apartment. He needs a yard, a place
he can get outdoors. We saw a house yesterday that might work. We’re going back
to look again tonight.”

They talked about the offer she and Jake were going to make if
they decided the house was what they wanted, but Sabrina’s mind kept drifting to
the trip she would be making early next week.

She wasn’t looking forward to going back into the desert, but
what little money she had was being stretched thinner and thinner. It was time
for her to make her next move.