There were so many things that could go wrong.
“What do we do now?” Bret asked.
“We need to figure out plan B,” Colton said.
“Which is?” Joseph asked.
“Drive straight up the dune,” Colton said.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Joseph said.
“You’ve got to be kidding! That’s crazy!” Lexi grabbed the headrest and leaned forward. “It’s too easy to roll.”
“I’m pretty sure that other vehicle doesn’t have enough power to make it over the top,” Joseph said, apparently buying into the idea.
“And if we don’t make it all the way up?” Lexi asked.
“We’ll end up rolling back down the dune,” Joseph said. “But that won’t happen.”
Lexi frowned. “And this vehicle...you think it can handle it?”
“I’m not sure we have a choice. Which means everyone needs to grab on to something now.”
Lexi leaned back in her seat and felt the pull of gravity fighting against the vehicle as Joseph took a sharp left and headed up the dune. What if they didn’t make it to the top? And even if they did go over the hill unscathed and lost whoever was behind them, they still weren’t out of the woods yet. There could be other insurgents coming after them, and then there was Colton’s brother-in-law. He was weak after two months of captivity and needed to be checked out by a doctor.
Joseph had his foot on the accelerator, fighting with the engine to keep up the momentum. If he tried to turn or cross the slope, they’d end up popping a tire or flipping the car. And if they didn’t maintain their speed they’d never make it.
Lexi turned around just in time to see the other vehicle rolling back down the steep hill. There was still a chance they would meet the same end as they weren’t at the top yet.
Finally they crested the top of the ridge. Joseph had been right.
“I think your zany plan worked,” Bret said.
Lexi let out a lungful of pent-up air, and realized she’d been holding her breath.
“We’re not out of here yet, but we’re close,” Joseph said, reading her thoughts. “Your Cessna’s parked about ten minutes ahead.”
Lexi caught the worry in Colton’s expression as Joseph sped across the desert. All they had to do now was make it to Colton’s plane and take off before anyone else tried to stop them.
* * *
Get them in the air and fly them out of here.
A piece of cake, Colton thought, still trying to convince himself they were out of danger as the Cessna took off from the runway fifteen minutes later. Thanks to Joseph’s skilled driving, they’d made it to the plane.
There was no human settlement for as far as he could see. Nothing growing in the harsh desert sands except for a few scraggly bushes. Nothing to stop them. They might actually make it out of here in one piece after all.
Colton felt the muscles in his shoulders begin to relax as the six-passenger aircraft continued climbing toward its cruising altitude. He drew in a deep breath, then glanced down at the familiar terrain below him from the pilot’s seat. Endless ripples of orange shimmered in the afternoon sunlight.
He glanced behind him at the seat where his brother-in-law had his head back and his eyes closed. Colton took a moment to study Bret’s profile. His beard had grown, his face was tanned and he’d lost a significant amount of weight. But he was alive. And for now, that was all that mattered.
Besides the loss of weight, he still looked fairly strong, though there was no way at this point to measure the emotional effects of what he’d gone through. Now he just needed to get Bret home.
Colton shifted his attention to the passenger sitting beside him, letting his gaze linger longer than necessary before turning back to the controls. Lexi Shannon had intrigued him during the one, brief time he’d met her. First impressions had revealed she was smart, compassionate, adventurous and, on top of that, beautiful. Not that he was interested in pursuing anything at this point. A broken relationship was one of the factors that had sealed the deal on him taking a job flying missionary bush planes across North Africa. There was no way he was ready to hand in his pilot’s license for another rocky romance.
“You okay?” he asked her through his headset, deciding that a bit of conversation couldn’t hurt. He needed a distraction, and he was pretty sure she did, as well.
She turned and smiled at him with a mixture of both determination and fatigue in her gaze. “Besides the fact that my adrenaline’s still pumping, and I will probably forever be leery of men in fatigues...yeah. Or I will be...eventually.”
Colton laughed. “I don’t blame you.”
Her dark eyes intensified. “Thank you. You risked a lot to get us out of there.”
“All in a day’s work.”
“Something tells me that today was anything but normal,” she said. “At least I hope so.”
“I don’t know. Rescuing a damsel in distress isn’t a bad way to spend my time if you ask me. And on top of that you can’t beat the view from up here,” he said. And besides, after today’s flight, the chances of him seeing her again were pretty slim.
“Absolutely stunning.” She shot him a smile that somehow managed to melt away one of the outer layers of protection he’d built up around his heart.
“See that row of camels?” Colton ignored his heart and pointed toward a thin line of camels that looked like a trail of smoke against the sand.
Lexi leaned forward, searched the landscape below them, then nodded. “Wow. One of the things I want to do before I move back to the US is camel trekking along with a night spent in the desert. I’ve heard that both the night sky and the sunrises are incredible.”
“They are,” Colton said. “Though here’s an interesting fact. Did you know that camels really don’t store water the way most people think? Their humps are actually made of fat, allowing them to keep their body temperature down.”
Lexi laughed. “I didn’t know I was getting a rescuer, a pilot and a tour guide today.”
“Camels also have three eyelids,” he added with a grin. “Though don’t get too excited. That’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge.”
Lexi laughed again. “When I first flew here, I arrived at night, then we drove in the rest of the way, so this is my first up-close view of the desert from the air. But I know you make these flights all the time. Does it ever become routine? At least when you’re not rescuing damsels in distress?”
“Routine?” He shook his head. “Hardly. This is the third largest desert in the world after the Arctic and Antarctica. Some might call it barren—and a lot of it is—but I find it fascinating. Have you ever been up in a Cessna before?”
“My grandfather’s a pilot, though he doesn’t fly as much as he used to. I always wanted to take flying lessons myself, but for some reason I’ve never taken the time to learn.”
“It’s never too late.” Colton said. “What does your grandfather fly?”
“He used to have a 1979 Super Viking.”
Colton let out a low whistle. “I flew one of those once. Loved it.”
“He named her Abigail after my grandmother. She—well, both the plane and my grandmother were his pride and joy.”
“I