Page 73 of Final Approach

Violent waves jostled me back and forth while I considered the woman I’d left behind. When I’d watched her body go under—when she hadn’t come up for air—dread wasn’t a powerful enough word to describe my terror. My heart seized as if I’d lost a piece of it, the reckoning so fierce it had shocked me with its force.

Adrenaline pumped through my heart and out to every limb as the current pushed me farther and farther from her. I let it take me, waiting for an errant tree limb, or something with enough substance to grasp. As long as my head was above water, I couldn’t waste energy fighting something with the entire strength of Mother Nature behind it.

The thought of living through this deluge and never seeing her face again …

I couldn’t bear it.

Apparently, all it took was a near-death experience to uncover my true feelings. Marley West wasn’t just my captain, my colleague, or my friend. She wasn’t even a courtesy crush or my most sensual fantasy in living color.

Marley West was the person I’d rather live with here in the rainforest than live without in the real world.

And it wasn’t near death—I was still floating in this river like a Queen Elizabeth bobblehead, relying on the whims of nature’s queen to keep me alive.

I had to get back to her.

The river narrowed, and the rushing water picked up speed at the bottleneck, shoving my head back underwater. The rapids zigzagged my body through the muddy water like a released balloon and I desperately clawed for purchase at anything around me while holding the little air remaining in my lungs.

My trepidation became hysteria when the length of my body smacked against a hard and smooth surface with such impact, every part of me was instantly tenderized.

The plane. I was pinned against the plane.

Pushing against the metal with all my might, I crawled along its surface. Sparks burst behind my eyelids from the lack of oxygen, but before I could successfully pass out and drown the saddest, loneliest death known to man, I launched upward, barely breaching the surface again before unconsciousness won.

Each inhale felt as though my chest could collapse in on itself from the pressure of inflation. I climbed up over the plane’s nose and straddled it, collapsing to collect more oxygen to satiate the burn.

Clinging to the smooth aluminum surface with all the strength I possessed, I felt the rush of water flow beneath the nose and against the hull, but it wasn’t high enough to wash over me.

Jesus. That meant the water was at least ten feet deep, and the passenger cabin and cargo hold were mostly submerged.

How silly were we to not consider a bloody flood could wash away all our sins?

I hastily placed my glasses on my nose and squinted through the misty air. Now truly above water, I could see the rain had stopped, but the air held tightly onto the steam as if the entire jungle had become a Turkish bath. It was hard to see through it, far harder with just one lens, but my gaze landed on a thick vine the thickness of my calf, hanging three feet from where I sat. It was shorter than was practical, thinner than I’d prefer, but the only way off this metal island.

Fear pricked at my heart like I’d walked into a cactus. If I leapt now and the vine gave way, I’d be sucked under the dagger-like blades of the front propeller for an instant, bloody death.

I clung to this plane for dear life because I’d chosen to place my faith in jungle foliage. Experience would tell me this was a terrible plan.

The alternative, though, was waiting for the flood to subside and cautiously swim to safety, then follow the riverbank back to where we’d settled.

That could take ages—if it happened at all. Biology wasn’t my strong suit unless we were talking human sexual reproduction. What if we’d landed on a floodplain in a drought and this was the river’s normal state?

What if it didn’t settle until nightfall and I was a sitting duck for another famished predator? Weren’t jaguars excellent swimmers? Ambrose would know.

Ambrose. The sexy, grumpy man had warmed to me, and I liked him. I wanted to see him rescued. He had a world to save with his computers.

And where had Maddox gone? Even in the floodwater's swell and the chaos of making it to safety, he hadn’t been present. Ambrose was still injured, and Diaz was still suspect. Was I really entrusting the safety of the woman I cared for to Tessa and Brooks?

My chest twinged at Danny and Vanessa’s deaths, but their suffering had ended quickly. Drowning was a blessing compared to more days steeped in immeasurable discomfort. I didn’t assume responsibility for nature’s wrath, but Marley would.

Marley would suffer from her guilt far more than either of them had suffered in their pain. Watching her almost drown had nearly broken my heart. What would I do if I found her in a few days’ time mauled or maimed by some creature? Or so mentally overwrought she’d given up fighting altogether?

The back of my nose and throat burned with the imagery, threatening tears.

I couldn’t bear it. We could live together or die together, but I was not leaving this jungle without her by my side.

Feeling around my pockets, my palm landed on the gun, incredibly still safely tucked within the netted mesh insert. My other pocket held my last bottle of vodka.

I’d been saving it, a part of me finally acknowledging the hold the love of drink had on me. Denial had been my mistress far longer than any other woman, but I was ready to trade her for a real woman who might love me back.