Page 74 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

“Which means, they’re most likely around here somewhere.”

“But above us. On the cliffs. That way they’ve got both areas covered. The chopper searches down here, the boys up there.”

She shot a nervous glance toward the jagged terrain above them while he continued.

“When they don’t find us, they’re going to double back, right?” he pointed out. “Keep looking. Only we’re not going to be here. We’re going to follow the river to the spot where the chopper will put down.” He X’d a spot on the sand map. “It’s got to be their rendezvous point. We’re going to be waiting for them when they get there.”

She drew a deep breath. “And we’re going to manage this without them spotting us how?”

He touched a hand to her hair. “You like the water, right?”

She closed her eyes and felt herself go pale. “I live for a good near-drowning experience. Can’t get enough of it. And dry clothes are highly overrated.”

He hugged her hard. “You’d have made a good cop, Martinez. You’ve got guts. And you’ve got try.”

“Yeah, well, right now, I’m about to get a bad case of the screamingohmygods. That a desirable cop trait, too?”

He turned her in his arms. Squeezed her shoulders. “Lady, there’s not a damn thing about you that’s not desirable.”

She grunted. “Said the man with the concussion.”

He laughed. Hugged her again. “Come on. We’re going to walk a ways past these rapids before we get ourselves wet again. No use taking any unnecessary risks.”

“No unnecessary risks. Right. I would laugh,” she said, not sounding one bit amused, “at the incongruity of that statement in the face of the risks we’ve already taken, but I lost my sense of humor about the time you pushed me off the cliff.”

Fifteen minutes later, they’d made marginal progress down the riverbank, sometimes walking the bank, sometimes wading the perimeter when the terrain got too rough. No sign of the boys. No return of the chopper. Not yet at any rate. But Seth knew they’d have another close encounter before long.

On cue, the whoop, whoop, whoop of helicopter rotor blades drifted to them on the faint breeze.

“We’ve risked being spotted as long as we dare,” he said when they reached a spot in the river where the water had quieted and the roar of the rapids was behind them.

He’d hoped they would have reached an area on the bank where they could find cover without taking the plunge. No such luck. They were as exposed as electric wires on a frayed cord—and their situation was just as combustible.

“I know,” she said when he glanced at her. “Into the deep freeze.”

He picked a spot where water washed over rock, stirring up the current, and yet was deep enough for them to submerge their entire bodies.

Even though the sun beat down and warmed the Canyon air to over eighty degrees, the Colorado’s average water temperature hovered just under sixty degrees in the main channel even in daylight hours. It was going to be hell. And they wouldn’t be able to stay in long.

“Ready?” He wrapped her hand in his.

“As I’ll ever be.”

With the chopper noise growing dangerously closer, they waded quickly into the frigid river. Her teeth were already chattering as they sank down until only their heads were above water.

“Here it comes,” he said. “Head down. All they can see is the back of our heads. Call on your method acting experiences. Be a rock. Be the rock.”

“You are so n … not funny,” she stuttered through chattering teeth, totally unimpressed by his feeble attempt at humor.

He drew her tightly against him, gathered her hair in his hand to corral it and started shivering himself.

They waited. Lips turning blue.

Several minutes passed. Several more.

And they still couldn’t move.

Hypothermia, Seth knew, would soon become a threat as the chopper continued a slow, low, back and forth crawl less than fifteen yards above the surface of the water.

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