Crash Site (Fiona Carver), page 3
He’d written it off as impossible fantasy, but now here she was. Not a fantasy, and he wasn’t dead. Fiona Carver was here.
She collapsed to her knees before him. “Oh my God! Dean! I thought you’d . . . I thought I—” She threw her arms around him and burst into tears.
He pulled her tight against him, his hands sliding beneath her backpack, cradling her to his chest as he rested his cheek on the top of her head. His mind had gone helter-skelter at this change in circumstance.
He’d almost died and now had Fiona in his arms.
This wasn’t the first time she’d cried as he held her. And it probably wasn’t the first time she’d cried because of him. But it was the first for both combined. At least these were tears of relief. Joy even.
He felt the same surge of emotion. Dammit, he was alive, and the woman who haunted his dreams was in his arms.
He raised his head to kiss her when Nico said, “Only you, Dean, could pick up a woman immediately after surviving a helicopter crash.”
THREE
Fiona wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry, so she did both as she released Dean and rose to her feet. She’d been so focused on him, she’d forgotten that others might need medical attention. It occurred to her that there could have been still more people in the helicopter as it fell in pieces into the sea, and horror rippled through her once again.
“Is—is everyone accounted for?” she asked as Philip limped toward them. She’d met the Hispanic Puerto Rican pilot several times over the last two weeks as Jude and his chief executive, Kosmo Andreas, made frequent trips from Ruby Island to Dominica and elsewhere in the Caribbean. The pilot lived in one of the larger bungalows behind the plantation house but joined the shipping company staff and archaeological survey team for meals in the main house.
“Yes,” Dean said as he stood. “Battered, but we all jumped out in time.”
Philip knelt in front of the woman who clutched her shoulder. “Dislocated, or do you think it’s something worse?”
She moved her arm ever so slightly and sucked in a sharp breath as her face leeched of color. “Not sure. Landed hard. Can’t move it.”
“Do you have a first aid kit in your pack?” Dean asked, nodding toward the heavy bag on Fiona’s back.
“I do. After Chiksook, I’m a little paranoid whenever I set out.”
His thumb brushed away a tear that still stained her cheek. His vivid blue eyes held her gaze for a brief but intense moment. There would be energy flaring between them at their sudden reunion even in a normal situation, but he’d just had a near-death experience. The energy that zinged around was off the charts.
All the things she would have said to him today were sidelined. Irrelevant.
A corner of his mouth kicked up in a fleeting and somehow ironic smile. “Never a dull moment with you.”
She wanted to laugh and cry again. “Hey. This is all you. I’m just here to do my job and interview these kind people.” She waved to the entourage behind her.
“What are you—” He cut off his own question. “Never mind. Later. My brain is too jumbled to make sense of anything right now anyway.”
“Let’s tend your wounds,” Keili said, reaching for Fiona’s pack, which she still wore.
Fiona slipped off the pack and introduced the others while she dug inside for the first aid kit. Dean then introduced the two-person documentary film crew.
Fiona and Gordon cleaned and bandaged the gash on the cameraman’s forehead while Chad and Keili made a sling out of gauze to secure the sound engineer’s injured arm and shoulder. Dean used tweezers to pluck cactus spines from the pilot’s side, then gave him a cold pack to ice the contusion on his hip. Isaac—who insisted they all stop Dr. Finching him—assisted by prepping bandages and ointments.
“Fiona, do you have your sat phone?” Philip asked.
“Oh! Of course. I’m so sorry I didn’t think to offer it before.” After all, they needed to notify someone—or rather, everyone—and Philip’s phone had probably gone over the cliff with at least half the helicopter.
Holy hell, the helicopter had crashed.
The historic site—Fort Domingo—was now a crash site.
She unlocked, then handed Philip the satellite phone she’d been issued when she’d arrived on the island, because cell phones worked only in the immediate vicinity of the estate, and even then it was spotty. They couldn’t get Wi-Fi calling to work with Jude’s network, so she’d given up on her personal cell and used only the satellite phone.
Philip paced across the rocky ground, holding the phone to his ear with one hand and ice to his hip with the other as he called Jude Reynolds.
Once Jenni’s sling was secured and Nico’s head bandaged, Fiona turned to examine Dean’s wounds, but he was making a beeline for an object that lay on the ground several meters away.
He bent down and picked up the item, and she realized it was his camera. His soft curse carried the short distance as he scooped up a second item—a long and, presumably, high-powered lens.
She knew what Dean’s cameras meant to him, but they were replaceable. He turned and crossed to another item that lay on the ground, this one a much bigger, movie-type camera. “Holy crap, Nico. It’s still recording.”
“No damn way.”
Dean carried it back to the group and handed the camera to Nico.
Nico raised the viewfinder to his eye. “Hot damn. It is.” His gaze turned to the gouges in the ground where the helicopter must’ve hit the earth before it slammed into the side of the old stone fort. The tail of the helicopter rested against the high stone wall, along with other pieces of bright orange debris.
“If the lens was pointed toward the fort . . . it might have recorded everything.”
Dean nodded. “I think it was.”
Chad cleared his throat. “I was up on the fort wall, filming. I caught almost everything, except when it hit the wall. I jumped back, and it was below my line of sight.”
Fiona’s gaze jerked to his camera, which was on the ground, near where he’d sat as he made the sling for Jenni. Had he been filming when she’d hugged Dean? Had he caught their reunion after all?
Oh, hell. The crash will be part of the documentary. But then, maybe everyone involved will want it to be?
“I presume Dominica will send a team to investigate?” Jenni said.
“Reynolds will probably ask the United States to send someone from the NTSB. His helicopter. American pilot. All American passengers,” Chad said.
Fiona nodded to the two working cameras. “They’ll want both recordings.” At least the videos might hold some answers. Had it been a mechanical error? Pilot error? An unlucky combination of both?
The helicopter belonged to Jude Reynolds. Fiona had no clue what the guy’s net worth was, but he controlled a rather sizable island in the Caribbean. Leased or not, it was technically his, and the cost had to be exorbitant. And the family business was a shipping line that had started in the early twentieth century and expanded into an empire over the decades. Reynolds American Marine Freight—better known as RAM Freight—was worth billions upon billions, and a large portion of that belonged to Jude.
Had someone sabotaged his helicopter in an attempt on his life?
She turned to Dean, wanting to read his take on the situation, but it was too soon and everyone was too raw. It was a terrible time to make assumptions about anything.
And whatever had happened, the pilot had been able to save everyone by making it possible for them to bail before the crash. Even himself. That’s all that mattered in this moment.
Her gaze traveled down Dean’s body. He still hadn’t been checked for wounds. His shirt was torn at the left shoulder, and his slacks had a large rip down the left side. A couple of small, flat bulbs from a prickly pear cactus had attached to his hip, and she spotted more spines piercing his upper shoulder.
It was entirely possible he hadn’t even noticed the hitchhikers yet. Adrenaline was a potent drug.
He could have died.
For a few minutes there, she’d believed he had died. She didn’t even remember running up the path, but her cheek stung, telling her she’d charged into some whipping branches along the way. She’d been fueled by shock and terror, and her feet had moved of their own accord.
Her brain hadn’t started working again until she’d spotted him. Alive.
She wanted to call Dylan and share the joy with him, while at the same time she was glad Dylan hadn’t witnessed the crash. Hadn’t experienced the horror of watching the helicopter break apart and fall into the sea, knowing his brother was on it.
Would she be able to handle watching the video Chad had recorded if it was included in the documentary?
Her belly clenched. She didn’t think she could view it, even though she knew how it ended.
She cleared her throat as she grabbed her tweezers, then approached Dean. “We need to get those spines out of your skin.”
He glanced down at his side, and his face registered surprise at the skinny needles that projected from his arm. She plucked them with the tweezers and dropped the spines on the ground. She removed the prickly pears from his hip, then scanned him from head to toe. “Take off your shirt so I can see if there are more.”
He flashed a grin. “Already trying to undress me, Fiona?”
She laughed even as tears rose again, so utterly grateful that he could turn on the cocky charm now, even if it was some sort of autopilot reaction. “You know it, Hot Bird Man.”
“I’m getting the feeling you two know each other,” Nico said with a snicker and a wink.
“What gave it away?” Fiona asked.
The man laughed as Dean unbuttoned the top two buttons of his Aloha shirt, then pulled it over his head.
Fiona eyed his chest—her reasons were noble, truly—but she couldn’t stop the pleasurable jolt at seeing his perfectly sculpted torso, complete with violet tattoo over his heart.
She wanted to reach out, run her hands over his skin, and feel the beat of his heart. Confirm he was here. Alive. And perfect.
But they had an audience. This wasn’t the time.
She spotted a small spine protruding from his biceps and plucked it with the tweezers, then circled to check out his back. Four long red welts ran in parallel lines across his left shoulder blade. “Ouch,” she murmured as she gently touched the healthy skin below the scrapes.
“What’s there? I don’t even feel it.”
“You scraped pretty badly on some rocks, I’d guess. Looks like you tangled with a very big cat.”
She dabbed antiseptic ointment on the welts and used the tweezers to pluck bits of dirt and gravel from the wound, remembering the night on Chiksook when Dean had tended her injured knee.
What a wild turn of events this was.
Another isolated island. Another disaster. Hell, they were even on the lower slope of another volcano.
All they needed was a map and a quest.
Instead, her quest was to make the map.
FOUR
Chad led the group down the path to the beach, where Jude had sent a boat to pick them up. The decision to skip the interviews today had been unanimous. Dean couldn’t take photos without his camera, Nico wasn’t in the mood to film, and Jenni’s sound equipment had tumbled into the sea.
Dean had eavesdropped on the discussion among Fiona and the three interviewees, and they all agreed to return to the fort tomorrow. It would mean they’d skip visiting the caves and a few of the interior sites, but Keili and Isaac said they could stay an extra day if more time was needed to finish the interviews.
Fiona took the rear of the long chain of hikers heading down the hillside. Dean took the penultimate spot in the lineup, giving him the opportunity to slow his pace so they could talk in semiprivate. The initial shock of seeing her was wearing off, and now he had questions.
After allowing the distance between them and the rest of the group to expand, he said, “You knew I was on the helicopter.” His gut clenched at the idea that she’d known he was coming and hadn’t warned him.
“Dylan texted me minutes before you arrived.”
He stopped in his tracks and faced her. “Dylan knew? How? When?”
“I emailed him this morning to tell him about the project. I’d avoided emailing him because I knew you were on Hawaiʻi together, but knowing I was going to hike the lower slopes of the volcano today, I was thinking of him and wanted to tell him about the project.”
She hadn’t emailed Dylan sooner simply because he was with Dean?
Dylan had never hinted at that. But then, Dean had made it clear months ago that he didn’t want Fiona updates. Sounded like she was just as happy to avoid hearing about him.
And there was Dylan, stuck in the middle.
Dean was a crappy brother.
He looked at Fiona, a woman who meant more to him than he could say, and acknowledged he was a shitty friend too.
She stood before him, sweaty and disheveled, with her honey-brown hair pulled back in a messy french braid, exactly as she’d worn it in the field on Chiksook the first day. In the shadows of the rainforest, the reddish hues in her hair were muted, but even in the dim light, with streaks of dirt on her freckled skin and a welt across one flushed cheek, she was more beautiful than he’d allowed himself to remember.
His gaze fixed on the freckle on her full bottom lip. He wanted to pull that lip between his teeth and kiss her senseless.
He’d almost done exactly that in the first moments after the crash, but thankfully Nico had yanked him back to earth with a quip about Dean’s well-known promiscuity.
Now her brow furrowed and she pulled that plump lip between her teeth, biting the freckle that never failed to fascinate him. She cleared her throat and said, “Anyway, I guess he didn’t read the email until you were already in the air. He said he tried to text you, but he didn’t get a received notification.”
Her words pulled his attention away from her mouth and back into the moment. His brain was still scattered after surviving a helicopter crash. He shouldn’t be thinking about kissing Fiona. Ever.
“Dylan didn’t open your email earlier because he was on a flight to LA. He returned there to handle a few things and gather gear for both of us. He’s flying to Dominica in a few days.”
“Dylan’s coming here?”
He nodded. “Reynolds hired him to set up monitors and evaluate volcanic activity. Mount Asilo has been dormant for over four hundred years, but it’s far from extinct.”
Her jaw set in an angry line. “Jude is using us. For his documentary.”
“You and me, yeah. But Dylan . . . that one’s my fault. When Nat Geo called me about the job, they said something about taking pictures of the volcano because Reynolds wanted to include volcano monitoring as part of his environmental study to impress the government of Dominica. The volcanology and geology of Ruby Island would be part of the article for the magazine. So when I got on the phone with Reynolds, I suggested Dylan for the job.”
He grimaced. “It felt like a gift. He’s been looking for work and feeling discouraged.” He met her gaze again. “And now we know why you and Dylan didn’t compare notes. The offer came in just a few days ago. We decided to cut our vacation short to take it. I flew directly from Kona. Dylan stayed to close up our rental before heading to LA to collect our gear.”
“I was offered the job nearly five weeks ago,” she said, “right as you were leaving for vacation. The navy fast-tracked my request for leave.” She made a face he couldn’t interpret, then shrugged. “Signed the contract and next thing I know, I’ve been here two weeks already.” She nodded toward the trail where the others had disappeared. “I recommended Sadie and Chad to Jude. Sadie’s brilliant with lidar, and they have an underwater archaeology consulting business. The project is perfect for them. They arrived with their boat the day after I got here.”
His brain was still fogged from the crash—or maybe it was jet lag. He’d arrived on Dominica yesterday afternoon, and had spent the evening and this morning exploring the tropical paradise. He’d always wanted to visit Dominica. This assignment had felt like a godsend. A bucket list destination and a job for Dylan, who was literally back on his feet now after surgery nine months ago to repair a busted femur that had gone without medical attention for weeks.
“So . . . if it’s a fluke that Dylan’s going to be here too, is there any chance it was a coincidence that you were tapped for this assignment?” she asked. “I kind of made a big accusation to Chad, and I’m wondering if I need to apologize.”
He shook his head. “I was told Reynolds specifically requested me.”
“That’s what I thought. I think Chad’s in on it. He probably suggested Jude request you.” She ran a hand over her face. “If I find out Sadie was involved, I’m going to lose it.”
“I’m sorry. I’m still a little confused. Who is Sadie exactly? Besides an expert at lidar?”
“Sorry! I’m a bit out of sorts too. Sadie is Chad’s girlfriend. More than that really—they’re all but married, and they have a remote-sensing and underwater archaeology consulting company that bears the same name as their boat, Tempus Machina.”
“Time machine? Good name for an archaeological-research vessel.”
“Yeah.” She let out a soft sigh. “We’ve been friends for years, ever since I attended their underwater archaeology field school in Jamaica.”
“Why wasn’t Sadie at the fort today?”
“She’s at the estate, crunching the lidar data she got yesterday.” She paused and leaned in. “Do you have any sort of . . . feeling about the crash? Was it mechanical? Do you think it could have been deliberate?”
He hadn’t begun to wrap his brain around the cause of the crash, but given that the copter was owned by shipping magnate Jude Reynolds, it wasn’t outrageous to think sabotage could have been the cause.
“I have no idea. There was a noise, and the helicopter lurched. We cleared the tree line, then . . . next thing I knew the pilot shouted for us to bail. It all happened so fast. I don’t know anything about helicopters, but I’ve never heard anything like that before. It sounded like death.”
