Courage Under Fire (Silver Creek #2) - Lindsay McKenna Page 0,90
body as they were hit by a pressure wave that sent them tumbling. The crackle of fire, pieces of metal hailing down upon them, made him tuck himself around her to protect her. Smoke rolled by them, black, thick, and choking. He braced himself for the fall and once again took the brunt of it, grunting. They rolled at least ten feet, and suddenly stopped.
Sitting up, making sure Cari was okay, he looked up at what was left of their truck. It was as if a bomb had taken it apart. Chase was amazed they were still alive.
He got to his knees, leaning over her where she sat, her head against her drawn-up knees, her arms wrapped around them. “Hey,” he rasped, his hands falling gently on her shoulders, “talk to me, Cari. We’re okay. It looks like those drug runners moved on. Can you stand? Walk? There’s a grove of trees down there and shade. I want to get us to them.” He didn’t add that he wanted to hide as soon as possible, in case those druggies came back looking for them. Hiding was his main plan.
“Yes, I think.” She lifted her head. “I just feel like a puppet with no backbone.”
He nodded. “We took a nine-hundred-foot fall.” He studied where the truck had gone off the dirt road. He had no idea how they’d survived it. If the truck had raced off the cliff lip? It wouldn’t have hit the cliff going down like they had. Instead, they would have nosedived in a long, large arc and he was sure, upon impact, it would have killed them instantly. Instead, the truck had slid off the road sideways at an angle, and it had saved them. He studied Cari, who alternately was in shock, and then clarity would come, and then she would go shocky again, her skin very pale looking, eyes dark with terror.
“What do we do now, Chase? Do you think those men will come back? Try to kill us?”
He turned his full attention to her. “No, I think they were racing to outrun Border Patrol that was probably behind them. I don’t really know. I don’t think they’ll be back.” At least not right away, but he kept that knowledge to himself. Cari was shaken up enough. He slid the safety on his Glock and pushed it down behind his waist. “I’m going to quickly check you out for broken bones.”
“Okay.” She looked at the truck, her lips parting, the vehicle utterly destroyed.
He started at her feet, squeezing here and there, gently manipulating joints to see if it caused pain. Nothing seemed broken. She had blood on her face from the windshield blowing in on them, and he was sure he had some himself. Her hands were bloody with scratches and so were his. “I think we have suffered whiplash of the neck and shoulders, plus we’re going to have one hell of a collection of bruises. Let me check your head and eyes . . .” He found blood here and there on her scalp, picked out a couple of shards of glass as gently as he could, but nothing serious. Looking into her wide, cinnamon-colored eyes, the pupils contracted and expanded, much to his relief. If she had a head injury, the pupils would not open and close in response to light, as they were supposed to. He heaved an inner sigh of relief.
“Let me help you up.” He slowly stood, offered her his hand, and gently brought her to her feet. Cari was dizzy and he placed one arm around her torso to steady her, bringing her against him.
“Aren’t you dizzy, Chase?”
“No.” Just hurting everywhere, but he was sure she was, too, so no sense in feeling any worse than they did already. “Let’s get the go-bags and then we’ll head down to that grove of trees at the bottom of the canyon.”
“I’m so glad you have those go-bags,” she said, stumbling and pitching every now and then.
“Makes two of us,” he said, continuing to look around. He leaned over and hooked a strap from each bag around his left forearm and straightened. As they got on the flat yellow soil, sunbaked and hard, he felt Cari become more stable and sure of where her feet were in relation to her body. She was still shaken badly. He liked that her arm was around his waist. Absorbing her, feeling her strength and determination, he was so damned proud of her.