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“You realize your arm is fractured?” he said
His eyes held hers. “Of course you do.” There was a flash of something like respect in his steady gaze.
It was surprisingly difficult to break the eye contact until Jennifer found a way to change the subject. “What about you?” Fresh drops glistened on the dark grey rock at their feet. “If you keep bleeding like that I’ll be the one who has to deal with it.”
Silly, pointless tears were threatening to clog her throat. They were lost on a mountaintop and nobody had any idea where they were. They were all injured to varying degrees and a sub-zero night was about to enfold them.
“Tell you what. I’ll splint your arm and you can bandage up my leg.” Guy’s forefinger touched Jennifer under her chin and she was startled into raising her face to meet his gaze again. “We’ll look after each other,” he continued softly, “and that way, we’ll all get through this. Okay?”
“Okay.” For an instant, Jennifer really believed that everything would be all right. Together, they would survive.
I’m lucky enough to live in one of the most beautiful countries on earth. New Zealand is unparalleled for its forests, mountains and lakes, and they deservedly attract many people into our wilderness areas. Some places are untouched—wild and dangerous. Even people who think they are well prepared to deal with the terrain have to be rescued sometimes. Others have such an ordeal forced on them and they have to deal with it the best way they can.
I love survival stories so this time I took my hero and heroine—Guy and Jennifer—and crashed the light plane they were in on a mountainside in one of New Zealand’s most remote places. They have to deal with the situation and the terrain. Together. They also have to deal with the equally wild attraction that develops between them en route.
It was an unforgettable journey for Jennifer and Guy. I hope it will be for you, too.
Happy reading,
Alison Roberts
Her Emergency Knight
Alison Roberts
For Sue—a woman of the mountains. With thanks for your help with the reseach and lots of love.
CONTENTS
‘MAYDAY…Mayday…’
‘Cessna Bravo Papa Tango…Three zero niner…Engine failure…’
‘Mayday…Mayday…’
The pilot sounded way too calm for the emergency to be real, Jennifer Allen decided. Mind you, she probably sounded equally dispassionate when calling for, say, a scalpel, buzz-saw and rib spreaders to crack someone’s chest in the ED in a desperate last-ditch effort to save a life.
Failure was virtually inevitable in such a scenario. Maybe a radio message requesting assistance for a light plane about to crash into the side of a mountain was a kind of formality as well. Part of a predetermined protocol. Something you did to demonstrate that you’d done absolutely everything possible when any real hope was lost.
‘Mayday…Mayday…’
The scenes were badly disjointed. The budget for this movie must have been incredibly low. A wingtip dipped sharply. A woman screamed. The rocks and scree slopes of the terrain were close enough for her to pick out a single alpine flower in a tussock. A mountain buttercup, the real name of which was a Mount Cook lily. That was a nice touch, Jennifer thought, showing the setting to be a New Zealand mountain. Despite only a split-second view, every white petal could be counted, framing the golden centre and looking rather like a floral poached egg. The image was frozen onto her retina by the shock of being suddenly plunged into…nothing.
How had they achieved that total blankness? And why was the theatre so damn cold? Jennifer reached out to pull her bedclothes more securely over her body but she was still too deeply asleep, trapped in the odd dream featuring a disaster movie. She tried to roll over, instead, but the rest of her body was as uncooperative as her arm had been. One foot had gone to sleep and Jennifer could feel the pins and needles of awakening nerves. But wasn’t her whole body asleep? The confusing notion made Jennifer want to give up and admire the buttercup again but the image had vanished.
The weight on her body was far more than bedclothes could account for and, strangely, it was steadily increasing. Jennifer didn’t have a dog and she had slept alone for years. The weight was now enough to be causing pain—even to make breathing difficult and she made a huge effort to surface from sleep and that lingering dream. To open her eyes and reach out to push the weight away.
Something was terribly wrong.
Jennifer couldn’t move. And what she could see only inches from her face had to be an illusion. Part of a dream that wouldn’t quit. The hand dangling in mid-air with the fingers an inch or two from the floor was that of a woman. The one that had screamed so piercingly perhaps? The skin texture was that of someone a generation older than herself and the rings that the hand displayed on its fourth finger included a beautiful eternity band of diamonds and sapphires.
The