Page 66 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

A gunshot rang out in the dark, immediately followed by the jump of earth at their feet.

She ran faster, ignoring Seth’s moan of pain as he struggled to keep up with her.

“Stop right there!” Jake roared and fired again.

Missed again. Cursed and howled like a wild animal.

A series of rapid gunshots followed. Shots in the dark. Any one of which could hit their mark any second, but they jumped in the earth around them, ricocheting off rock formations.

“Move,” Seth demanded and somehow found the strength to dig a little harder, run a little faster.

“You can’t get away from me!” Jake shouted, sounding winded and pissed and a whole lot desperate. “I won’t let you get away from me!”

He was less than a hundred yards behind them now and closing fast. His voice grew closer every second.

Just as the river had grown closer. They’d reached the end of the line. Stood on a precipice overlooking the swiftly running current forty feet below.

“Tell me you can swim,” Seth said.

Elena nodded. “I can swim.”

The next thing she knew she was free-falling in midair, arms flailing, her scream caroming off the canyon walls as she plummeted off the cliff toward the muddy depths of the wild Colorado.

SIX

THE FIRST THING THAT registered was pressure. On his lungs, in his ears. The next was the current. Swift and reckless and strong. Then the cold set in. And finally snapped Seth to his senses.

Sensing he was about at the end of his capacity to hold his breath, Seth kicked his way to the surface. Burst through on a gasp only to have the current suck him under again.

This time he was ready. He pushed, clawed, muscled his way above the waterline, sucked in air and searched the dark ahead for something—anything—to grab on to as the river propelled him forward at warp speed. He found it in an uprooted tamarisk tree, snagged a root as the river whisked by, determined to wash him all the way to the gulf—or drag him under again or beat him to death on the rocky rapids in the shallows farther downstream.

Hanging on for his life, fighting for breath, he searched frantically for Elena. Could see nothing but the rush of water and dark shadows stretched out like ghosts along the shore on either side of him. Then one of those shadows moved.

“Elena!” he yelled above the low baritone rumble and hissing roar of the rapids less than a hundred yards downstream.

“Seth!”

She was within a few yards of him, clutching a boulder while the water waked around her like liquid in a blender, trying to dislodge her from her precarious grip and drag her further away.

“I … I can’t hang on much … longer!”

“You can!” he shouted above the rushing water. “You can do it! I’m coming.”

Head cleared by the cold and by panic for Elena, he worked his way toward her, grabbing the next root, letting go, hand over hand, floating quickly to her side.

He wedged himself against the boulder, grabbed for her outstretched hand. Missed.

Grabbed again.

And latched on just as her other hand let go.

“I’ve got you! I’ve got you!” he assured her, slowly pulling her in while cascading water washed around his head and the current did its damnedest to tug her away.

Finally, he reeled her to his side, shifted until she was wedged between him and the boulder while the cold Colorado washed around them in a swift, deadly caress.

“You hurt?” he asked against her soaking hair, yelling to be heard above the roar of the rapids ahead.

She shook her head, her body quaking with cold against him. “N … no. Fr … reezing.”

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