NATALIE WAS STILL dreaming when the first fat raindrop hit her cheek. That raindrop was followed by another—and a kiss on her forehead.
Zach ran his knuckles over her cheek. “Wake up, angel. We need to get out of here—and fast.”
She opened her eyes, felt herself being hauled to her feet. She blinked, looked around, still groggy and confused. “Is it raining?”
Thunder crashed overhead.
“A monsoon has moved in. If we don’t haul ass, we’re going to get caught in a flash flood. Get your pack on, and let’s leave this death trap.”
And then she remembered.
They’d taken shelter early this morning at the bottom of a dry wash. He’d warned her that it was dangerous because they were in the middle of monsoon season and people died every year when the washes, which were dry most of the time, turned into raging rivers. But she’d been so tired that she’d barely been able to put one foot in front of the other, so he’d relented.
She grabbed her pack, shook it to dislodge anything that might have climbed into the harness, then slipped it on her aching shoulders. She hadn’t come all this way to die in a muddy ditch. “Let’s go.”
Zach grinned, his stubbled face turning from rough to handsome as hell in a heartbeat. “Yes, ma’am.”
By the time they reached the spot where they’d descended into the wash, it was raining hard, the fine desert silt turning to butter beneath Natalie’s feet. Zach climbed out of the wash, and she tried to follow, but the bank was too slippery and too steep.
A flash of lightning. The crash of thunder.
She tried again, grabbing on to a clump of grass and digging hard with the toes of her boots, but she just wasn’t strong enough to lift both her body weight and the weight of the backpack. Breathing hard, she felt herself sliding backward. Below her, the water was already ankle deep—and rising.
She hadn’t been afraid before, but she was now.
“I can’t do it!” She looked up only to be blinded by raindrops.
Zach was shouting something to her, but she couldn’t hear it over the rumble of thunder and the rush of water and wind.
Again she tried, and again she slipped, the water up to her knees and tugging hard, threatening to pull her off balance.
Oh, come on! You can’t drown in the damned desert, girl!
Then something hit her face.
A rope.
A loop had been tied on the end of it.
She didn’t need to hear what Zach was saying to know what to do. She slipped it over her head and beneath her arms and held on tight, the current sucking at her feet.
And slowly Zach dragged her up the muddy embankment until she lay at the top, covered head to toe in mud and breathing hard.
Then he was there beside her. “You okay?”
She nodded, still trying to catch her breath, the shock of what had almost happened catching up with her. “I could’ve drowned.”
“That was too damned close.” He got her to her feet, lifted the rope over her head, then tucked a gloved finger beneath her chin and kissed her. Rain spilled over his face, catching in his stubble. “Let’s get out of this storm.”
She glanced over her shoulder and felt her knees go weak.
The place where she’d just been standing was now a deep, roiling current.
THE THUNDERSTORM LASTED for almost an hour, changing the landscape. Low-lying areas were now muddy marshes. The washes were brimming and impassible. And everywhere the fine desert silt was slick and muddy. This slowed them down considerably and left footprints that any idiot could follow. But it also made the journey more difficult for Natalie, her feet slipping with each step.
Zach slowed the pace, trying to find a dry place where they could rest until dark, some place that wasn’t already occupied by snakes or arachnids trying to avoid the wet. He was about to explain to her why it would be okay in these circumstances to sit next to a spider, when he saw an outcropping of granite a bit farther up the hill to their right. He helped her up the slippery slope, then shooed away the bobcat that had taken shelter in a deep alcove on the north side of the outcropping. Larger than the space they’d camped in that first day, it would get them out of the wind and the rain and give them a safe place to rest until nightfall.
He took Natalie’s hand and helped her inside, dropped his pack and then took hers. “Take your jacket off. It’s drenched.”