Page 76 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

“When they show up? What then?” she asked, rubbing the flat of her palm over her forearm and a red and bleeding welt from a scrape with a dead tree limb.

“When they show up, we’ll be ready for them.

“Come on.” He took her hand, promising himself he’d make up for all the pain she’d been through when he got her out of this. And he would get her out of it. He was going to make damn sure of it.

Even if it killed him.

“We don’t have much time. Let’s get you into position.”

“Position?” Elena pinned him with a look. “Position suggests you really do have a plan. Would now be a good time for you to tell me exactly what it is?”

He considered her, considered the cliffs above and around then. “Let me ask you this first. How’s your arm?”

“My arm? My arm is fine,” she said, moving it as if checking for pain.

“What I meant is, can you throw like a guy or do I have to go to plan B?”

“I throw like a girl,” she said, squinting up at him. “Like a girl who was the first team pitcher on an all-state softball team.”

Lord Jesus God, how did he ever get so lucky?

“You’re one amazing surprise after another, you know that? Tell me that, when we get out of this, you’ll marry me and have my children,” he said, hugging her and planting a quick hard kiss on her mouth.

He wasn’t altogether certain he was kidding. He’d sort that part out later, too.

“Yeah, sure. We’ll elope to Vegas. We’ll get an Elvis impersonator to do the deed. I’ll promise you anything if you can get us out of this alive.”

“Darlin’. Your golden, all-state arm just upped the odds of that happening by about a thousand percent.”

NINE

THE PLAN, ELENA DISCOVERED, depended a lot on luck, a lot on timing, and way too much on the accuracy of her aim.

Sweat tickled the indentation of her spine as she lay on her belly, still as the stone cliff above and beneath her, praying to God she was hidden from view of the chopper when it finally closed in on the LZ. Praying also that timing and luck smiled down on them today.

Rocks. She was supposed to take down the chopper with rocks. She judged the weight of the stockpile of stones they’d gathered. The rocks were the only thing joining her on her solitary perch on a six-foot-by-three-foot ledge jutting out of a rock wall approximately twenty-five yards above the Canyon floor.

Precarious at best. But the vantage point was perfect. According to Seth.

“A log or two would be better,” he had said as they’d scoured the shallow riverbed for weapons.

“A log?” She’d merely stared. “We both know that’s not going to happen, right?”

He’d just grinned, selected several big stones, tucked them into his shirt, then helped Elena climb up the cliff face so she’d be positioned above the chopper as it came in for a landing.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” he’d said, winded and panting, once they’d settled her in. “We’re going to hope the rotor blade is made of some fiberglass composite.”

“Do you know how often the words hope, luck and maybe have come up in the past twenty-four hours?”

He’d grinned again and went on. “Most rotor blades are made of fiberglass,” he stated. “Some aren’t. So we’re hoping with the odds. To pull this off, you need to drop or throw the rocks from above the bird into the main rotor.”

“Rocks. At the main rotor blade?”

“Yeah. Rotor blade. It’s the big blade that lifts the bird.”

That?

??s when her heart actually jumped to her throat, making talking—not to mention breathing—damn near impossible. “For God’s sake, I know what the main rotor blade is. What I don’t know is how you think I can hit it. And even if I could, how you think I can take down a helicopter with a rock.”

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