AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Visibility is shit right now, so I need you to move closer to the lights. I’m coming down for you.”
There was a pause of silence. “Don’t be ridiculous. Just call for help or something. You come down here and we’ll both be stuck trying to climb up a mudslide.”
My lips twitched. “Have a little faith, would you?”
“I have plenty of faith in AAA. The fire department even. Not some random wannabe hero.”
Even with the rain dripping into my face and the cold air puffing out of my lungs, I had to stifle a laugh.
“Listen, lady, you want to stay down there longer than you have to? It’s cool. I’ll call the fire department, and we’ll wait the extra twenty minutes it will take them to get out here. Or I can come and get you now, and by the time they get here, you’ll already be safe. Then it will just be a rescue mission for your car. I mean, it’s cold and rainy, but it’s really up to you.”
There was another beat of silence. And then her voice came again, this time sounding as if she spoke through clenched teeth. “Okay, fine.”
“See, I knew you could be reasonable. Give me one minute.”
I couldn’t be sure, but I was pretty certain I heard her say, “You better know what you’re doing.”
I ran back to the driver’s side and pulled my car up several feet, then threw it into park and engaged the hand brake. Next I walked to the trunk and pulled out my rappelling gear. I had my harness on in seconds. I just hoped she didn’t ask too many questions about why the hell I had rappelling gear.
What would I say to that?
Oh, you know, I just like to do a little building scaling on the weekends.
And this was why I could never have a normal life.
Once I had the harness on, I dropped the rope as close to the lights as possible. When I was secured in, I steadied myself on the ledge and stepped backward. Then, foot by foot, I dropped gently, calling out to the woman down below. She was right; the mud was slippery as hell. When I reached her, she was only a few feet up from where the car was. She wore only a thin dress, and her feet were bare.
Shit. She was lucky she didn’t have hypothermia.
“Hi. I’m Rafe. I’m going to help you out of here.”
Even wet, shivering, and resembling a tiny drowned animal, she was beautiful. Her dark eyes bore into me as she blinked at me.
“You were serious about coming down for me?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know, as rescuees go, you are a tad ungrateful.”
I had the harness around her in seconds and wrapped my arm around her waist, pulling her close. I inhaled for a moment and caught a whiff of vanilla.
So not the right time to realize she was cute and smelled amazing.Focus, man.
Her lips twitched as she met my gaze. “Oh, I’m grateful. I just think you’re crazy. You better have a whole army up there ready to pull us up. Because this mud—”
“Do you always talk this much?”
She opened her mouth, very likely to give some kind of scathing retort, but then I pressed the electronic switch on the rope ascender and we were zooming up. Definitely not as fast as the system was capable of, given my weight and my rough approximation of hers, but it would do. I had to physically pull us up the last couple of feet, but she helped, mostly by not getting in the way and just clinging to me tightly.
Once we were on solid ground, she still clung to me and I let her. For several beats we stood like that, with her wrapped around me and me encasing her in my arms, giving her some of my warmth.
But then she pulled back. And that mouth of hers started again. “So, are we going to talk about why you have burglary equipment handy?”
Despite everything, I laughed. “So, this is you being grateful? And for your information, I’m a rappeller. It’s a sport.” It was the best I could do in a pinch.
“This is me making sure I haven’t been rescued by a serial killer.”
“I promise you, I’m not Dexter. Why don’t you sit in the car and warm up while we wait for an ambulance to come and check you out.”
Her eyes went wide. “I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance. Just point me in the direction of downtown, and I have it from here.”
