A Forever Christmas - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,5

the time they were old enough to talk, Gabe got in behind the wheel of his truck, threw it into Reverse and ever so slowly backed up.

He never took his eyes off the sedan and its still passenger.

The ground was exceedingly wet after the storm and traction not what it could have been, but of the two vehicles, his, fortunately, was the heavier one. Otherwise, he might have found himself sliding toward the one in jeopardy, not away from it.

He held his breath as his truck continued to slowly move away from the edge of the ravine.

Little by little, inch by inch, the sedan began to tilt toward him, away from the ledge, until finally he managed to get all four of the vehicle’s wheels on the ground. Still in Reverse, he got the sedan far enough away from the edge of the ravine so that it no longer was in any danger of tumbling into it.

The second he got the other vehicle securely on flat ground, Gabe quickly turned off his engine and jumped out of the truck. Rushing over to the banged-up sedan, he found that the doors on both sides were jammed shut. Rather than attempt to wrestle with them, trying to pry one of them free, he took out the firearm that the sheriff had issued to him.

Turning it around so that the butt of the weapon was facing the window, he struck at the windshield as hard as he could. Two attempts later, the glass finally cracked. Under the forceful pressure of his hand, the small, spidery cracks began to spread out. As they did so, they weakened the glass enough so that when he swung the hilt of his weapon against it, the windshield finally shattered. Parts of it fell into the car.

Which left the rest for him to deal with. Moving quickly, Gabe removed chunks of the glass until he’d managed to clear a sufficiently large enough opening for him to snake through. He made it into the passenger seat, glass fragments clinging to his hair, casting small rainbows.

The woman was still strapped into her seat. There was blood over her right eye thanks to the head wound directly above it.

She was blonde and probably not more than about twenty-six, he judged. Her eyes were closed and for a moment he thought she was dead. Feeling her neck for a pulse, he wasn’t sure if he detected any, or if what he felt faintly throbbing was merely the pulse within his own fingers.

He moved the blonde gently back so that she was in a more accessible sitting position. Gabe put his head against her chest, straining to detect even the faintest of heartbeats.

He didn’t hear anything.

But just as he was straightening up, he thought he felt the slightest brush of material against his cheek. Stunned, he stared at her chest intently. That was when he saw it. Just the smallest hint of movement.

She was breathing.

The woman was still alive!

His pulse began to race and he grinned.

She was still alive.

Chapter Two

Gabriel was torn between leaving the woman where she was until help arrived and trying to get her out of her totaled vehicle.

Weighing pros and cons, he was leaning toward the former since the ground was wet and he had no idea what sort of internal injuries she’d sustained. Since he had no medical training, he was afraid that moving her, if he unintentionally did it the wrong way, might make things worse for the blonde.

But the silent debate ended abruptly when he became aware of the very strong smell of gasoline. It was coming from her car, never a good thing considering the kind of damages the vehicle had sustained.

Staying in the wrecked vehicle was definitely not a safe choice for either one of them. Gabriel shifted, trying first one door, then the other, hoping that at least one of them was more pliable from the inside of the sedan than from the outside.

But they weren’t. Neither door gave an inch, nor gave any indications that they could be moved if enough pressure was applied.

They remained sealed even when he attempted to kick his way out.

The force he’d exerted reverberated all the way up his leg to his thigh. The door still didn’t budge.

Since the doors appeared to be permanently sealed, he thought his next best bet was the front windshield. He’d already crawled in through the windshield to reach the unconscious woman, but that had been at a price. He’d gotten half