WILD MEN OF ALASKA

chapter TWO

Wren moaned and wiped at her face. Her head hurt like a son of a bitch. And why was she wet? She winced as her fingers bumped a tender area on her forehead, and she opened her eyes a slit. Blood painted her hand.

Why was she bleeding?

What kind of partying had she done this time? Oh please, no. Not again. She hadn’t relapsed, had she?

No. NO. The price of relapse was too high. People had been hurt because of her and her weaknesses. She blinked and forced her eyes farther open.

The place was a mess, like it had been tossed. Why was she hanging upside down in her seat? Wind whistled like a sick siren, chilling her further. She needed a blanket, a warm wash cloth, and some thick band aids.

Suddenly everything came rushing back. The plane, the threatening weather front. They’d crash landed.

They?

Oh, God. “Skip?” His name screamed in her mind but only came out as a whisper. “Skip,” she said louder. The wind stole her words. She couldn’t see him or the pilot and wiped at her face with her sleeve again. She wouldn’t panic. They always say head wounds bleed a lot. Who the hell were they anyway? Her head hurt, she was bleeding, and it was really cold.

This was Alaska.

It was September, which by anyone else’s standards meant winter. They needed help, and they needed it fast or they were as good as dead.

Crap, they were in more trouble if she was the only help.

Wren struggled to release the seatbelt with one hand, the other on the ceiling—er, now the floor—of the plane, helping to brace her weight. She still fell with an oomph when the belt released. She scrambled to her knees, her shoulders bumping into the seats as she crawled forward, wiping at more blood as it smeared her vision now that she wasn’t hanging upside down.

“Skip? Jim?” No one answered. A coldness traveled up her spine that had nothing to do with the wind leeching through the cracks and broken window of the plane.

Both men hung upside down in their seatbelts just as she had. They looked somewhat like bats, which had her stifling a hysterical giggle. With trembling fingers, she checked Skip’s neck for a pulse.

“Please, God, please.” She felt nothing, and a whimper of dread escaped her. She pushed harder. In the cramped space, her knees dug into whatever the hell the manufacturer had placed in the ceiling. Probably never took into account anyone having to kneel on them.

Still no pulse.

She felt around, blindly. “Come on, damn it.”

Skip suddenly coughed. “Stop,” he said, his voice hoarse. “What are you trying to do? Choke me?”

A relieved sob bubbled up. “Oh, thank God. You’re alive.”

“Guess you never thought to hear yourself utter those words,” he muttered.

She ignored him and turned toward Jim. She didn’t have to feel for his pulse. His eyes were wide open, but he would never see out of them again.

“Skip?” she whispered. “Jim...?”

“Yeah. I think he had a heart attack or aneurism. One minute he was there, and then he wasn’t.” Skip rubbed his eyes. “Damn it. The man had a son. Sixteen I think.”

“Mother?”

“Ran off years ago. Drugs.” He glanced at her and then away. “Come on. We need to get some things done before that weather front hits.” Skip winced as he moved to release his seatbelt. He braced himself much the way she had, but there was more of him hanging on the strap. “I can’t get out of this thing. Do you see a knife anywhere?”

Wren glanced around the twisted frame of the plane. She didn’t see a knife, but she saw smoke.





“The plane’s on fire!” She scrambled back. Where the hell had Jim said the fire extinguisher was? “Will the plane explode?” She didn’t want to die that way. Though it would be better than freezing to death.

“Wren! Calm down. Tell me where you see fire.” There was an urgency in his voice that focused her panic.

“I-I don’t. There’s smoke in the tail of the plane.”

Skip let out a heavy breath. “There isn’t anything to burn back there. The engine’s up front, gas is in the wings. It’s probably dust or fog from the crash.”

She took a closer look. It could be dust, but it sure looked a lot like smoke.

“Help me get down.” Skip’s words captured her attention. “Find a knife.”

“Don’t you carry a knife? You’re a cop. Aren’t you supposed to be prepared for anything, like the Canadian Mounties?”

“Huh?”

“The motto for the Canadian Mounties.”

“No. That’s, ‘They always get their man.’”

“Well, what the hell is the motto for Alaska Wildlife Troopers?”

“Just cut me down. There’s a Leatherman clipped to the right side of my belt.

“Then get it.”

“I think my arm’s broken. You’ll have to reach it. The faster the better.”

“Great. I’m gonna have to save your sorry ass.”

“It’s not like I haven’t saved yours.”

Smoke or dust started to seep into the cabin from the tail of the plane. They needed to get out of here. She didn’t trust that the plane wasn’t ready to go up in flames at any moment. She’d seen plane wrecks before. She watched the Discovery Channel.

Wren reached around his seat, groping around his hip.

“Too far to the left,” Skip said, adding in a softer, sexier voice, “Though I am enjoying your hand there.”

Shit.

Good thing he couldn’t see her as the heat flaming her face was enough to help her forget about the cold. She blindly found his belt and traced it until she located the Leatherman clipped in its leather case. She released the snap and worked the blade free. She crawled to the left in between the two seats, trying to forget about the dead pilot staring sightlessly forward into nothing. Her fingers shaking, she fought to open the damn blade. The seatbelt was pulled tight with Skip’s two hundred plus pounds hanging on it. She slid the knife under the belt where it clicked into place, giving her some space where it wasn’t digging into Skip’s body.

“Wait!”

Too late, Skip came crashing down in a crumpled mess.

“Shit. I told you to wait.”

“Sorry, the knife was sharp. I didn’t think it would slice through the belt like that.” She regarded him lying upside down on his back, his legs flopped forward. He had nowhere to go in the cramped space.

He angled around on his shoulders, keeping his hurt arm next to his side and used his feet to kick open the door. Wind, bearing teeth, rushed in. It aided in pushing the smoke back.

She grabbed the fire extinguisher Jim had haphazardly mentioned right before they’d taken off, but miraculously, the smoke was no longer there. Skip might be right about that, but she was holding onto the extinguisher until they knew for sure.

“Come on, we need to take a look outside and see what kind of condition we’re in,” Skip said, his voice strained with pain.

Condition? They were screwed.

Skip struggled to climb out of the plane, and she crawled out after him. He cradled his arm, and her head pounded, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. They stood outside the plane and regarded the wreckage.

Cushioned somewhat by the mossy tundra, she lay upside down on her wings looking like a squashed bug.

“Guess, I’m not much of a pilot,” Skip said.

“I don’t know. They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.”

He choked out a laugh. “Thanks for that.”

“But I wouldn’t fly with you again,” she added.

The wind blew at the plane, making it shudder. Good thing it was laying on its wings or the wind would probably pick it up and toss it off the bluff and into the rolling surf below.

“Wow, you could have dumped us into the water.” They were seriously within twenty feet of the bluff where the deadly ocean could have swallowed them.

“Yeah, crash landing could have been worse.”