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“I promise.” His gaze reassured her as much as his words.
“Will you stay by my side?”
“You just try and get rid of me,” he said with a charming smile.
“Bless you.” She relaxed, releasing his arm. This was a man as true as a Southern gentleman. He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t let harm come to her.
The men landed and stepped over to them. The one thumped Curtis on the shoulder, a big smile on his face.
“Thanks for coming, Chad.” Curtis’s voice was muffled by the helicopter, but his eyes were as serious as she’d seen them as something passed between the two men.
“Anytime.” Chad nodded to him, then turned to her. “Nothing to worry about, milady. We’ll load you onto the board and have you feeling better soon,” he said loudly, giving her a charismatic smile. He was a handsome man with unique green eyes wearing a gray military uniform.
“Bless you,” she said. She’d noticed Curtis’s unique and charming accent, but this man’s accent was thick and suave. On his days off from the military, she imagined he was quite the ladies’ man.
The other man gently put a soft collar around her neck and held her head as Chad and Curtis slid their hands under her back and legs and eased her onto a hard board. She couldn’t understand why Curtis’s hands produced a strong tingling sensation but Chad’s were just hands. They strapped her onto the board. She didn’t like that. It was awful to feel like she was bound, but she instinctively trusted these men.
They loaded her and the board carefully on top of the basket, securing it. The two men conferred for a brief moment and then Curtis stood on the edge of the basket, grasping the rope and smiling down at her. How did he know she didn’t want to be away from him for a moment? It was terrifying to think of being lifted while laying helplessly on this board, but she trusted Curtis and Chad. They had been nothing but kind. She was anxious to get away from whoever was out in the woods. Would they have followed her? Was she safe now? How could she find Gracie?
She and Curtis lifted off the ground, and she cried out. He crouched down as the cable pulled them up, holding on to the ropes.
“It’s okay,” he called to her.
Aliya focused on his face, his blue eyes. It was okay. Curtis was here.
They were quickly level with the helicopter. A man waited inside while the pilot held the helicopter steady. The man offered a hand, and Curtis took it and leaped inside. Then the two of them carefully maneuvered her and the board into the helicopter, sliding her in and away from the door.
The basket and cable descended back down.
Curtis took a blanket from the other man’s hands and squatted next to her. He removed the crinkly plastic blanket and tucked the soft fleece blanket around her, making fire race through her body as his hands brushed her hand, her side, her leg, and then her neck.
“Are you all right?” he called to her.
“Yes. Bless you.”
He nodded and started to straighten.
“Curtis.” She tried to reach for his hand but grasped his warm leg instead.
He immediately squatted back down, those blue eyes holding her in his grasp. “Yes?”
“Can they look for Gracie?”
“Of course.”
The other two men swept into the helicopter. They pulled in the basket and cable, shut the door, and the helicopter climbed up above the trees and then swooped over the mountains.
Curtis and Chad put on headsets and talked rapidly into them. Curtis gestured to her a few times and his eyes swept over her often. Aliya was the farthest thing from comfortable, lying on the hard plastic board, her head throbbing, in wet clothes, worrying about Gracie, but with Curtis here, she knew it would be okay.
She fought to keep her eyes open but found them sliding closed. It seemed only moments later that she was lifted into the air. Her eyes sprang open. The helicopter had landed, and Curtis and another man carried her off the helicopter, settling her on a waiting hospital bed, still attached to the board.
A man and a woman wearing scrubs and name badges that identified them as nurses smiled down at her as they rolled her through some double doors and into the sterile, clean-smelling whiteness of what could only be a hospital.
She tried to look back out at the helicopter as the bed progressed into a surgical area. “I didn’t thank them,” she managed.
Curtis was right there. He pulled off the blanket from the helicopter and tucked a warm blanket over her. The warmth and Curtis were both very welcome. Even though her clothes were still damp she was finally un-thawing.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll tell them. They’re going back to search for Gracie and the men from the air. Chad deployed men to search from the ground as well. Do you remember if you were on a trail above the waterfall?”
