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“We don’t have those in Texas, either.” Drake grinned and lowered his window.
Cassie enjoyed her view of Drake taking in the beauty of the Crazy Mountains. “Do you like it here in Montana?”
Drake nodded. “I love it.”
“Even with dead women and mechanics turning up?” she asked.
With his gaze firmly fixed on the curves, he said. “We have drive-by shootings in Houston and discontented teens attacking schools. We don’t have the Rocky Mountains with views to die for.”
A loud boom echoed off the sides of the mountains they were passing through.
Cassie frowned. “Did you hear that?”
Drake laughed. “Hard not to hear that. What was it?”
“Sounded just like the charges they use to manage avalanches. Only it isn’t something you hear in the summer.”
A rumbling sound followed, building in intensity and shaking Drake’s truck as he rounded a tight curve and slammed on the brakes.
Barely ten feet in front of them, tons of gravel, rocks, boulders and tree trunks slid down a steep slope.
“Holy shit.” Cassie shot a glance up the hill and yelled, “Back up!”
The landslide was widening. If Drake didn’t move quickly, it would take out the section of road where his truck stood and twenty yards behind him.
Drake slammed the shift into reverse and punched the accelerator.
They made it fifteen feet to the rear before the landslide caught up with them and swept the truck off the road and downward.
Cassie held on to the oh-shit handle above the door and prayed the truck didn’t roll or get swallowed by the crushing force of rocks, gravel and boulders.
The roar was deafening as the side of the mountain continued to slide to the bottom of the hill.
Drake reached out his hand and captured Cassie’s free one. “In case we don’t make it out of this alive…I’m falling in love with you!”
Cassie could barely distinguish his words over the mind-numbing sounds. But if she heard him right, he’d just admitted to falling in love with her.
Her heart swelled at the same time as anger burned inside. “Damn it, Drake! You don’t tell a girl you love her when you’re both about to die!”
“Quit cussing me and tell me you love me, too!”
“You’re ridiculous!” she shouted. “And despite it all, I love you, too. We damn well better not die.”
The truck rocked, lurched and tipped several times precariously, more or less surfing the wave of earth slipping into the valley below. Boulders pressed against the side panels, screeching across the metal, adding to the thunder of the landslide.
Cassie held onto Drake’s hand with a grip that defied death as the truck seemed to be consumed by rock, gravel and boulders, slowly rising up the sides, almost to the windows. If the truck sank deeper, the flow of rocks and gravel would crush the windows and fill the cab like water in a sinking ship.
Cassie clutched Drake’s hand and the oh-shit handle and prayed for a miracle.
