“Oh, god we’re going to crash?”
“A controlled crash,” he corrects, jaw tight. “We will be fine. Ya just hold onto that yoke, aye? I have this.”
I’ve never been in a jet this small and nimble, and when it starts shuddering, I know it’s getting bad. Everything seems sluggish, every move, every turn. The ground is coming up at us with terrifying speed and I force my mind to go blank. I won’t think about Nate. I can’t.
“As tight as ya can, lass,” Ethan says, “dinna let up, all right?”
“I won’t,” I promise feverishly, “please just get us down in one piece, okay?”
I can’t see this mythical logging road he’s talking about. All I see is a river on one side and the viciously stark peaks on the other, but we’re going down.
The yoke is fighting me like the horse he compared it to and I grit my teeth, digging in my feet and pressing back hard against the seat. My arms are already screaming in agony but I’m not letting go. There’s a terrifying, high-pitched whine as the jet fights against the abrupt drop in altitude and the nose dips.
“Keep her steady!” he shouts, and I pull back harder, fingers white against the yoke and slippery with sweat.
Then he says the two words that kill my hopes.
“Brace yourself.”
Chapter Eleven
In which we learn that any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
Sloan…
“Sloan! Wake up lass, come on now, open your eyes.”
Everything hurts so much. I force my eyes open and wish I hadn’t. What’s left of the jet is in six hundred pieces. The cockpit is intact, but the rest of the body of the plane is torn into chunks of jagged metal, one wing is driven into a rock face, the other is crumpled upside down in the field. Bizarrely, the row of seats I’d been sitting in are sitting upright in the middle of the road, handcuffs swinging from the arm and the cream-colored leather undamaged, even though there’s burning bits and pieces scattered around it.
“Darlin’ look at me.” Ethan’s hands are gliding over me, checking for injuries. He’s got a nasty cut at his hairline with blood coursing down his cheek.
“There goes your modeling career,” I say. I start laughing at the expression on his face and I can’t stop.
“Aye, you’re in shock.” His big, warm hands cup my face. “Listen to me. We’re alive. Are you hurt? Move your legs and arms for me.”
I try to obey him and bite down on a scream. Two of my ribs are rubbing against each other with an ominous, splintery feel. I’d broken a rib during a fall when I was jumping my horse at fifteen, it’s not a feeling you forget.
“My ribs,” I grit out, “right side. I think there’s a couple of broken ones.” When I try to push up off the ground, a vicious bolt of agony sears through my shoulder and this time I do scream.
His touch is featherlight. “Ya dislocated your shoulder. I’m gonna set it, but it will hurt.” Gently lifting my arm, he angles it over my head, bending it at the elbow. Putting his other hand on my shoulder blade, he looks me in the eye. “Take a breath, love. As deep as ya can manage.”
As I suck in some air, he pulls my arm up and sharply pushes in on my shoulder with his other hand. A blue-white flash of light blinds me for a moment and the pain is so acute that I’m speechless, mouth open and gasping like a goldfish out of its bowl.
“Ya did so well, love.” He wraps his jacket around me, holding me carefully while I cry like a baby. “Ya were so good for me.”
For a minute, we just sit there in the middle of the smoldering remains of his fancy jet. He’s warm and I don’t want to move. “What’s the saying,” I ask, wiping my nose with the sleeve of his jacket, “that any landing you can walk away from is a good one?”
Ethan chuckles tiredly, “Aye. That’s right.”
The blood’s stopped coursing down his face but the gash on his forehead still looks bad. “We need to fix that cut,” I touch it gently, “head wounds can bleed forever. I’m sure you have a first aid kit. Or did it disintegrate with the rest of the jet?”
Carefully lifting me, he carries me over to those ridiculous seats and puts me down. “I’ll take a look.”
“Wait, where else are you hurt?” I ask, “Should you be moving around and carrying me places?”
He shrugs. “I’ve been hurt worse in a Saturday night bar fight.”
“Show-off,” I mumble as he looks through the wreckage. My shoulder has dulled to a low throb and if I don’t move much, I can’t feel my ribs rubbing against each other.
