rewarding, but it also tested his skill and ingenuity at outwitting the forces of nature and near-certain death in the aftermath. A part of him craved that element of risk.
Often he was halfway across the world. Today, however, he was in his own backyard, so to speak. Somehow that raised the stakes.
He thought of the elderly woman’s assessment of Allie and grinned. He had to admit that his anticipation was heightened ever so slightly by the promise than when this particular rescue was over, for the first time he might be face-to-face with an angel.
Chapter Two
Allie fell in and out of consciousness. Or maybe she only slept. She just knew that every once in a while her eyes seemed to drift shut and her pain faded away. When she awoke, there was always the throbbing, more intense than ever.
“Help!” she cried out again. Surely by now there were rescuers in the area. If they could hear her, they could find her. Gasping at the pain, she steadied herself, then shouted again, “Help!”
When her shouts were met with nothing but more of the same silence, she felt as if she were calling into some huge void. As her cries continued to go unanswered, she began to lose hope. What if they never found her? How long could she stay alive in this unrelenting heat without water? Despair began to overwhelm her.
Then, suddenly, just when she was about to give up, she thought she caught sight of a faint movement far above her. Was it possible? In the pitch-blackness, she couldn’t be sure. Had there been a glimmer of light?
“Here,” she called on the chance that it hadn’t been her imagination playing cruel tricks on her. “I’m down here.”
A chunk of what once had been her roof—or maybe a wall, considering how topsy-turvy everything was—was eased away, allowing her a first glimpse of sky. Ironically, given the storm that had raged so recently, the sky was now a brilliant blue, too beautiful by far for anyone to imagine that such destruction had been wreaked by the heavens only hours before.
Relieved that she still had her sight, she wanted to simply stare and stare at the sunshine, but she was forced to close her eyes against the brilliance of it. Still, she could feel the blazing heat on her cheeks and vowed she would never again complain about Miami’s steamy climate. It felt wonderful.
When she finally dared to open her eyes again, there was a face peering back at her, the most handsome face she had ever set eyes on. Of course, at this point, she would have been entranced by a man with whiskers down to his knees and hair the consistency of straw if he’d come to save her. This man was a definite improvement on that image.
Even with his hard hat, she could see that he had black hair, worn a little too long. He had dark, dark eyes and a complexion that suggested Hispanic heritage and dimples that could make a woman weep. It was all Allie could do not to swoon and murmur, “Oh, my.”
He was too far away for her to read his lips with any accuracy, but she could see his mouth slowly curve once again into that reassuring, devastating smile. She clung to the sight of that smile. It was a reminder that life could definitely be worth living. No man had smiled at her like that in a very long time, if ever.
Or maybe she just hadn’t noticed, she admitted candidly. From the moment she’d lost her hearing, her life had taken on a single focus. Everything had been about learning to adjust, learning to cope, opening that new door…and forgetting about the social life that had once consumed her. She discovered that not many men were interested in a woman who couldn’t hang on their every word, anyway.
For fifteen years now she had had male colleagues, even a few men she counted as friends, but not a single one of them had made her blood sizzle the way this one had just by showing up. She figured it had to be a reaction to the circumstances. After all, this hardly seemed to be an appropriate time for her hormones to wake up after more than a decade in exile.
As time slid by, she kept her gaze locked on that incredible face. She sensed from the way the debris was slowly shifting above her that there was a scramble to free her, but that one man stayed right where she could see him, easing closer, inch by treacherous inch.
“Hi, Allie,” he said.
By now, he was close enough that she could read his lips. And she guessed from the way he’d spoken, being so careful to face her, that he knew she was deaf.
“Hi.” She breathed the word with a catch in her voice, even as relief flooded through her. It was going to be okay. As long as he was there, she knew it.
“Can you read my lips?”
Eyes glued to his face, she nodded.
“Good.” He reached out his hand. “Can you take my hand?”
She tried to move her arm, but it felt as if it, too, were weighted down, just like her pinned leg. She almost wept in frustration.
“That’s okay,” he said. “Hang in there a little longer. You’re being incredibly brave, and if you give us just a little more time, I’ll be able to reach you and this nightmare will be over.”
She nodded.
“Anything hurt?”
“Everything,” she said.
He grinned. “Yeah, dumb question, huh?”
He turned his head away. She could see a change of expression on his face and guessed he was speaking to someone out of sight.
More debris shifted and bits of plaster rained down on her. She yelped, drawing his immediate attention.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his expression filled with concern.
She nodded, her gaze locked with his worried brown eyes.
“Good. Then here’s the deal, Allie. I imagine you want to know what we’re up to out here, right?”
“Yes.” She wanted to know everything, even if she didn’t like it. She’d learned a long time ago that she could cope with just about anything as long as she knew what she was up against.
“Okay, then. I’m going to disappear for just a minute. We’re not happy with this approach, so we’re going to come in a different way. It’ll take a little longer, but there’s less risk. Are you all right with that?”
She wanted to protest the delay, but he was the one who knew what he was doing. She had to trust him. Gazing into his eyes, she found that she did. And even though she didn’t want him to move, didn’t want to lose sight of him, she nodded again. “Okay.”
She turned her head away to hide the tears that threatened. Suddenly she felt what seemed to be a deliberate dusting of powder sprinkle down on her face. She glanced up to find him watching her anxiously.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I needed to get your attention. I promise you’ll see me again in no time. I never leave a pretty woman in distress.”
She almost laughed at that. Even when she wasn’t under a ton of debris, no one in recent years ever said she was pretty. Now she imagined she must look a fright. She had been dressed for bed when disaster struck, wearing a faded Florida Marlins T-shirt and nothing else. At the end of the day, her hair was always a riot of mousy-brown curls, thanks to Miami’s never-ending humidity. She imagined she looked pretty much like a dusty, bloody mop about now.
“Go,” she told him. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
He chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
And then he was gone, leaving Allie to wonder if it was possible that angels ever came with dancing eyes…and looking like sin.
Ricky was still chuckling as he eased his way off the mound of debris. Allie Matthews was something, all right. Scared to death but doing her level best not to show it. He’d caught the occasional glimpse of panic in her amazing blue eyes, but not once had she complained. She had to be in pain, as well, but beyond her one joking admission, she’d