Two Alone - Page 44
“The flare gun?”
He was all but foaming at the mouth. “Where’s the flare gun? There’s a plane buzzing overhead.”
Her feet hit the floor. “Is it looking for us?”
“How the hell should I know?” He tore through the cabin, uprighting everything he laid his hands on in his frantic search for the flare gun. “Where is that...here!” Brandishing the gun, he raced outside, leaped over the porch, and scanned the sky. In stocking feet, Rusty hobbled after him.
“Do you see it?”
“Shut up!” He cocked his head to one side while he listened carefully. The unmistakable hum of the engine reached them at the same time. They turned simultaneously and were met with a dismal sight.
It was an airplane, all right. Obviously a search plane, because it was flying low. But it was flying in the opposite direction. Firing the flares now would serve no purpose except to waste them. Two pairs of eyes remained on the diminishing speck until it grew too small to see and the whine of the engine could no longer be heard. It left a deafening silence in its wake. As the noise had died, so had their chances for a probable rescue.
Cooper came around slowly. His eyes looked cold and colorless and so laden with murderous intent that Rusty took a step backward.
“Just what the hell were you doing asleep?”
Rusty preferred him shouting. Ranting and raving she knew how to deal with and respond to. This soft, hissing, sinister-as-a-serpent voice terrified her. “I...I finished the wash,” she said hastily. The words tripped over themselves. “I was exhausted. I had to lift—”
It suddenly occurred to her that she owed him no stuttering apologies. From the beginning, he’d assumed charge of the flare gun. It hadn’t been out of his possession since they’d left the wrecked aircraft.
Belligerently, she placed her hands on her hips. “How dare you blame this on me! Why did you go off without the flare gun?”
“Because I was mad as hell this morning when I left. I forgot it.”
“So it’s your fault the flare wasn’t fired, not mine!”
“It was your fault that I was so damn mad when I left.”
“If you can’t control your short temper, how can you expect me to?”
His eyes turned dark. “Even if I’d had the gun and fired it, they could have missed it. But they damn sure could have seen smoke from our chimney. But, no. You needed a beauty rest. So you went to sleep and let the fire burn out.”
“Why haven’t you built a signal fire, a big one, one a potential rescuer couldn’t miss?”
“I didn’t think I’d need one. Not with a chimney. Of course I didn’t count on you taking afternoon naps.”
She faltered, then said defensively, “Chimney smoke wouldn’t have attracted their attention anyway. That’s nothing out of the ordinary.”
“This far off the beaten track it is. They would have at least circled around to investigate.”
Rusty groped for another valid alibi. “The wind is too strong for a column of smoke to form. Even if the fire had been going, they wouldn’t have spotted our smoke.”
“There was a chance.”
“Not as good a chance as seeing a flare, if you had had the gun with you.”
It would have been prudent not to point out his dereliction of duty at that particular moment. His lower lip disappeared beneath his mustache and he took a menacing step forward. “I could easily murder you for letting that plane go by.”
She tossed her head back. “Why don’t you? I’d rather you do that than keep harping about my shortcomings.”
“But you provide me with such a wealth of material. You’ve got so many shortcomings that if we were stranded here for years I would never get around to harping on all of them.”
Her cheeks grew pink with indignation. “I admit it! I’m not qualified to live in a rustic cabin in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t a lifestyle I chose for myself.”
His chin jutted out. “You can’t even cook.”
“I’ve never wanted to or needed to. I’m a career woman,” she said with fierce pride.
Source: readsnovelonline.net