The wind from the explosion came after them in a wave of heat which knocked Linzi off her feet. She fell on her face in the wheat, the smell of it made her nostrils quiver, the rasp of the stalks on her skin was an intensely felt experience.
"Linzi! Are you OK?" Ritchie asked with harsh anxiety as he knelt beside her and lifted her in his arms. She looked up at him, her lips curving in a smile of happiness, she had never felt so intensely alive before, nor so conscious of how beautiful the world was. Ritchie stared into her blue eyes , his face taut and pale. "Oh God, Linzi, I was afraid you might be dead, I was terrified," he whispered, and then his mouth was on hers, compelling, hot, passionate.
It was like being hit by lightning. One minute she was laughing, happy to be alive, the next she was burning with a response to his kiss which shook her to her very depths. Her mouth quivered widly for an instant, her eyes closing, then she began to kiss him back with mounting hunger, trembling from head to foot in his arms. As suddenly as the storm began, it ended. Breathing thickly, darkly flushed, Ritchie broke off the kiss, took a long, ragged breath and pulled her to her feet.
She was appalled. She couldn't meet his eyes, she didn't know how to handle the moment and hastily turned away only to stop dead, her eyes huge and shocked. Behind her Ritchie had just seen what she was staring at, too. She heard the harsh intake of his breath. Ted lay on his face unmoving, several feet away. Ritchie ran over and knelt beside Ted, saying his name.
"Ted.., Ted, are you OK?" He gently turned him over. Linzi heard his intake of breath. She was shocked, herself, to see the blood running down Ted's face. It hadn't been there when they first climbed out of the helicopter. Ted had visible bruises, no doubt caused by their crash landing, when they were all thrown around violently before the machine finally shuddered to a stop, but there had been no blood. "He's been hit by something, a fragment of metal from the chopper, maybe." Ritchie said slowly. "When it blew, it must have sprayed the air with something like sharpnel."
She looked around in horror at the burning helicopter, the flames were reaching up towards the sky and had set the field of wheat on fire. "We've all got to get out of here!" she gasped, and Ritchie looked round, followed the direction of her pointing finger, anxiety deepening in his eyes as he realised what she meant. "I don't think it's safe to move Ted!" he muttered, putting a long, brown index finger against Ted's neck, searching for a pulse. "What choice do we have?" Linzi was watching the fire, the wheat was tinder-dry and burned fiercely, and there was something terrifying in the speed with which the fire spread. The smell of burning filled the air, a column of black smoke climbed upwards.
"Someone's bound to see that," Ritchie thought aloud. "Ted's heart sounds fine, but we've got to get him to a doctor fast." He stood up, frowning, then suddenly swore angrily, making Linzi jump.
"Shit! Damn! Fuck!"
He gave her a scowling look. "Sorry, I don't usually swear like that in front of women, but I've just realised, the maps were all in the chopper, so I can't work out exactly where we are. I had a good look around as we were coming down, there's a main road across a couple of fields and I spotted a village some miles away but heaven knows where the nearest hospital is." He ran a hand despairingly through his dark hair. "Oh, why did this have to happen to us?"
The cracking, roaring sound of the fire was making Linzi very nervous. "We must get out of here, Ritchie!" He nodded, then went up to the hedge and peered over it, gave a little grunt. "That's lucky! There's a ditch here on this side of the hedge, half full water. That should act as a natural fire break, so long as sparks don't fly across the hedge. At least it will delay the spread of the fire." He turned to look at the burning helicopter. "The fire's moving away from us, look -- watch the way the wheats bends, that means that whatever breeze there is, is blowing in that direction. Right, I'll take Ted's shoulder, you take his feet. We'll carry him into the next field, and then I'll have to try to get help. But we can't leave Ted alone."
"No, of course not, I'll stay with him," she said, gripping Ted's feet and watching as Ritchie lifted him by the shoulders. "Sure you won't be scared?" he asked her.
"Sure."
His eyes searched her face again. She gave him a faint smile, nodding. "Don't worry about me, I'll cope." Ritchie gave her a brief, wry smile. "I'm sure you will. OK, but listen, if he recovers consciousness, try to keep him awake, talk to him, tell him where I've gone, say anything to grab his attention and keep him from passing out again." "I understand," she said, moving carefully so as not to jolt Ted too much as she manipulated him through the open gate.
Ritchie kicked the gate shut behind them. "We'll carry him as far as possible around this field. Look, Linzi, it at least I could carry him over my shoulder to the road." She looked back. "The fire is still moving away from us, though." Ritchie frowned.
"OK."
They paused, breathing heavily. Ritchie lowered Ted to the ground. "You should be fine here, it would take the fires ages to get this far." He looked down into her face. "Sure you'll be all right?" She nodded. "Just hurry, Ritchie." "I'll flag a car down and come back with the driver," he promised, and began to run, his lithe body loping rapidly across the field towards the main road. Linzi watched him go, feeling very odd. Her heart was beating much too fast, she felt as if she was weightless, floating. It wasn't the effect of the accident, of the explosion, or the fire now raging across the field they had just left. It was a symptom of something far more disturbing, a trauma that could have serious after-effects.
She had to stop working for Ritchie Calhoun. She saw that suddenly. She had to get away from him. If she didn't, and soon, she would be in danger of falling in love with him, and she was very afraid that Ritchie could be getting interested in her. Her marriage might be in serious trouble, she might no longer love Barty in quite the way she had once, but he was her husband, and she did still love him. She knew he loved her too, even when he got drunk and knocked her about. The feeling between them had deep roots, going back many years. He was more than a lover to her, he was the only brother she had ever had, the bestfriend she had ever had, her only family, as she was his. For all the pain and bitterness of the last two years her marriage was still alive, and she had no intention of walking away from Barty.
She certainly had no intention of getting involved with Ritchie Calhoun. The end result of an affair was always pain, either when it broke up or if it grew more intense, and she had enough pain in her life already. A groan made her start and look down at Ted. He was moving, a hand to his head.
"What the hell...?"
"Lie still, Ted,"
Linzi said, kneeling beside him again and bending down to smile into his dazed eyes. "Don't move. Ritchie has gone for help. He won't be long." I hope.
YOU ARE READING
Guilty Love (Completed)
Romance"Everything I did was for you!" "For me? You killed my husband for me? Do you really think I wanted him dead? I loved him!" It was an obsessive passion. It had gone too far, and Linzi's husband had died as a result of it. Ritchie Calhoun was sexy an...
