“I’m okay. But something is burning. We need to get out of here as quickly as possible.” He unbuckled himself. “We’ll have to go out your door. Mine won’t open.”
Elizabeth unfastened her seat belt and stood, unsteady on her feet as her head reeled with a sick pain. She managed to push her door open, then turned back to Talbot, who still sat in his seat.
“Are you coming?” she asked, worried now that she saw flames flaring in what was left of the plane behind them.
“My left leg seems to be trapped,” he said between clenched teeth as he used his hands to tug on his leg.
Elizabeth watched him working to free himself. As the flames grew hotter, illuminating the cabin, she saw dots of perspiration above his upper lip. He cursed and yanked, half falling from his seat as the leg finally came free.
“Go!” he shouted, and pushed her toward the door.
She hesitated and stared out the opening at what was left of the plane. The wings had been torn away, leaving only the small fuselage, which was now wedged between two towering trees and suspended about eight feet from the ground.
“We’re caught in the trees,” she said.
“How far to the ground?” he asked, urgency apparent in his voice.
“I don’t know for sure. About eight or nine feet—” Before the words had completely left her mouth, he shoved her from behind. She screamed and flailed her arms for an instant, as if by some miracle she might take flight.
She hit the ground and her knees buckled, throwing her facedown into the ground. Before she could lift her head, she heard Talbot hit the earth nearby. His landing was punctuated by a loud groan.
A moment later, he was towering over her. He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. “We’ve got to get away from the plane,” he said. “I don’t know if it will explode or not, but we can’t take the chance.”
He took a step, then crumpled against her.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m all right—it’s just my leg. It got wrenched or something.” He tried to take another step, then cursed soundly as he nearly fell. “We’ve got to get some distance. You’re going to have to help me.”
She positioned herself beneath his arm, allowing him to lean heavily on her shoulder. Step by step, they inched away from the plane, deeper into the dense forest that surrounded them.
Trees were everywhere, as were mangled parts of the plane, and as they walked away from the smoldering crash site, Elizabeth marveled at the fact that they had escaped with their lives. A few inches to the left or the right, they would have hit a tree trunk head-on, and neither of them would have survived.
“Okay, we should be far enough away now,” he said when they’d moved about a hundred feet from the wreck. He eased himself to the ground, and Elizabeth sat down next to him.
Both of them stared at the burning aircraft. Flames licked hesitantly as if unwilling to fully commit to consuming the plane.
“How long before it explodes?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know for sure that it will. There wasn’t any fuel left, so it might not. Pray it does.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”
He turned to eye her, his taut features visible in the orange glow of the flames. “An explosion might be the only thing that gets somebody’s attention and brings help faster. Otherwise, who knows how long it’ll take for somebody to find us.”
They sat watching the flames flickering here and there without actually bursting into a full inferno. With each minute that passed, the adrenaline and the shock that had momentarily gripped Elizabeth began to ebb.
Andrew. Her son’s name was her first rational thought. She shivered as she realized just how close he’d come to being motherless.
She was aware of body pain where she hadn’t known she had body, and her head ached with a nauseating intensity.
The night was silent, other than the crackle of the dwindling flames. And as the flames grew dimmer, the blackness of the night grew more profound. The sky wasn’t visible through the tops of the trees, so no moonlight broke the descending darkness.
For the first time since the crash, she felt a flutter of fear in her stomach. “Where are we?” she asked.
“My best guess is somewhere between Kansas City and Branson.”
“Well, that certainly narrows it down,” she said. With the fear came a healthy dose of anger. “I thought you said you were an excellent pilot.”
“I am. You aren’t dead, are you?” He didn’t look at her, but instead, kept his gaze focused on the last of the fire. “I’m sorry I can’t be more specific about where we are.”
“I guess we aren’t going to make it to Twin Oaks.” She desperately attempted to embrace her anger, finding it more palatable than the fear she was desperately fighting. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you crashed the plane.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said dryly.
Her cheeks flushed and she drew a deep breath. “Of course you didn’t. I’m sorry,” she said grudgingly. “I’m upset.”
“It must be contagious, because I’m a little upset myself.” He drew a deep breath and plucked at the torn sleeve of his suit jacket. “This was my favorite suit, and now it’s ruined.”
She stared at him in disbelief, then saw a small curve at the corner of his mouth. “Talbot McCarthy made a joke?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I do have a sense of humor.”
“You could have fooled me,” she replied. “In all the years I was married to Richard, I don’t think I saw you smile once.” In fact, she’d always found him rigid, cold and slightly disapproving—and exceptionally attractive. That dichotomy had made her extremely uncomfortable. “So what do we do now?”
“If I had my cell phone, I’d call for help. Unfortunately it must have slipped from my pocket during the crash or when I scrambled out of the plane. So now the smartest thing to do is stay here close to the plane and hope help is on the way.”
But what if help wasn’t on the way, she wanted to ask. But she was afraid of what the answer might be. She scooted back so she could lean against a tree trunk, unsurprised when he followed her example and joined her.
She cast him a surreptitious glance as he leaned back and closed his eyes. Under different circumstances, she would have taken pleasure in his disheveled state.
In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him in such a state of disarray. His rich dark hair was tousled beyond style, and a smudge of smoke or oil decorated a cheekbone. His suit jacket was ripped and dirty, and the shirt that had been so pristine when they’d taken off was now wrinkled and blackened.
She frowned, remembering how he’d looked when he’d first appeared on her doorstep earlier that evening. He hadn’t just stood in her doorway, he’d filled it with his presence. At six foot two, Talbot had the body of a natural athlete. Broad-shouldered, slender-hipped, he carried himself with a masculine grace that drew women’s attention.
However, he wasn’t handsome in the traditional sense. He had bold features, dark eyes that revealed nothing of the inner man, a thin mouth that rarely smiled and a hawklike nose that gave his face a cool arrogance.
She gasped as her gaze now drifted over his legs. His slacks were torn, exposing his knee. The skin