Chapter 15 Carmen
CARMEN
“Fine,” Carmen said tightly. “What’s your plan?”
Zane’s gaze swept upward toward his SUV. “I’ve got a winch.”
Carmen stared at him. “Of course you do.”
Zane gave her a look that suggested he would have preferred she not sound impressed.
“It’s for sea rescue,” he replied, as if that explained everything. “I can anchor it to the frame. It should hold the vehicle in place long enough for you to assess and for us to maybe get them out if we can.”
Carmen’s eyes narrowed. “It should hold?” she repeated.
Zane met her gaze. “We’ll do it carefully.”
Carmen forced her breathing to slow, then nodded once. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
Zane moved back up the embankment at a controlled pace, keeping his footing, and Carmen followed, her heart pounding.
At the SUV, Zane opened the back and pulled out gear. He moved with practiced efficiency, retrieving a length of steel cable, hooks, and straps.
Carmen watched his hands, the certainty in the way he worked. Whatever she thought of him personally, the man knew what he was doing.
He glanced at her. “You’re going to operate the winch controls.”
Carmen blinked. “Me?”
“Yes,” Zane said, already attaching the cable. “Because I need to be down there to secure it properly to the car. If the vehicle shifts, I need to adjust the anchor point.”
Carmen frowned. “I’m not an engineer.”
“You don’t need to be,” Zane replied. “You need to follow my instructions.”
“All right,” Carmen said. “Talk me through it.”
Zane did. He kept the instructions clear and calm, explaining how to feed the cable, how to keep tension steady, how to stop if the vehicle shifted, and how to avoid yanking too hard and pulling the car in the wrong direction.
Carmen absorbed it quickly because she had always been good at absorbing procedures under pressure.
They moved down again, this time with the cable.
Zane anchored the cable to a solid point on the SUV, then carefully fed it down the embankment toward the vehicle.
Carmen held the control unit in her hands, fingers tight around it.
Zane crouched near the car, testing the frame, finding a stable point. He moved with caution, shoulders tense, eyes narrowed.
Carmen stood a few feet above him, braced, watching.
“Hold steady,” Zane called to her.
“I am,” Carmen replied, trying not to let her voice shake.
He secured the hook, then lifted his head. “Tension. Slowly.”
Carmen exhaled and eased the control, feeding tension into the cable.
The vehicle did not move, but Carmen felt the shift in weight and pressure through the line, a low, dangerous sense of potential energy held back by steel.
Zane watched the car closely, eyes scanning.
“Stop,” he said.
Carmen stopped immediately.
Zane tested the car with a careful push. It held.
He glanced up at her. “Good.”
Carmen didn’t answer. She didn’t trust her voice right now.
Zane moved closer to the vehicle’s side, finding an opening.
Carmen’s stomach twisted as she saw the person inside, hanging upside down, still and limp.
Zane looked at her. “You can go now.”
Carmen moved and approached the car carefully, keeping her weight light, keeping her steps slow.
The ground was uneven, gravel shifting beneath her boots.
She leaned in, reaching through the opening, mindful of the broken glass.
Her focus narrowed. Carmen reached for the person’s neck, fingers searching for a pulse, careful not to jostle the body too hard.
She felt it. It was faint and thready, but it was there.
Relief hit so hard it made Carmen’s knees weak.
“She’s alive,” Carmen called sharply to Zane. Her voice carried urgency and disbelief all at once. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Then Carmen’s gaze dropped, and she saw blood.
A gash, and blood dripping downward, slow and thick, catching on hair before it fell.
Carmen swallowed hard and forced herself not to react too strongly. She needed to stay calm.
She pulled back carefully, stepping away from the car. Her breath came faster than she liked.
Carmen turned, and in her haste, she stepped right into Zane.
He was suddenly there, solid, close, a wall of muscle and heat that startled her.
Carmen’s pulse spiked, and she had a sharp, absurd moment of awareness that she could smell him, not cologne, not anything polished, but the clean, slightly sharp scent of someone who had been working, someone who had been out in the sun and air.
Zane’s hands went to her arms instinctively, steadying her as her boot slid on loose gravel.
“Careful,” Zane said, his voice low. “You don’t want to go down and fall on the car right now.”
Carmen steadied herself, jaw tight, refusing to let her body betray her in front of him.
“Thank you,” Carmen managed, stepping back into her own space.
Zane’s gaze flicked to the car again. “What’s her condition?”
Carmen drew a breath, forcing her mind back into assessment.
“She’s unresponsive,” Carmen said. “She has a head wound with active bleeding. Her pulse is weak and thready, but present. I can’t properly assess the airway from here, and we can’t reposition her safely without stabilizing the car further and preparing to extract her.”
Zane’s head tilted slightly. His eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward gently, reaching in and moving the curtain of hair before sucking in his breath, and Carmen saw something flash across his face.
“I know her,” Zane said quietly.
Carmen’s stomach dropped a fraction, and she lowered her head, her eyes widening.
“Oh no.” She breathed. “So do I.”
Zane looked at her for a moment, and Carmen had the sudden urge to demand how he knew her. She swallowed it down because there was no time.
“All the more reason we need her out now,” Carmen said firmly.
Zane’s gaze swept the scene again.
“We have to stabilize the car better,” Zane explained. “At the moment, the car is literally being held on by a thread.” He glanced back at the car. “We have to do it carefully, or she ends up in the water being sucked down by the car she’s trapped in.”
Carmen nodded. “Tell me what you need.”
They moved with purpose then.
Zane directed Carmen back up the embankment to adjust the winch tension.
He went down again and secured an additional strap to keep the car from shifting sideways.
Carmen kept the tension steady, her hands tight on the controls, her eyes fixed on the cable as if her will alone could keep the vehicle from sliding.
Zane climbed back up, grabbed additional equipment, and then returned down the slope.
He moved like someone who had done this before, not exactly this, perhaps, but enough similar scenarios that his body knew how to behave under pressure.
Carmen watched him and forced herself to focus on the task and not on the man.
Once the vehicle was stable enough, Zane signaled her.
“Now we can go in,” Zane informed her. Zane approached the car again and crouched beside the opening.
Carmen moved down with him, careful again, slower now because the risk felt even greater when they were both near the vehicle.
Together, they assessed how to get the person out.
The seatbelt was holding the body upside down, and releasing it too quickly would drop her weight abruptly, causing further injury.
The roof of the car was pressed into the earth, leaving limited space to maneuver.
Carmen’s mind moved quickly through options.
“We need a backboard down here,” she said.
Zane nodded. “I’ll get it.”
He moved up the embankment again, retrieved the backboard from his SUV, and returned, his breath controlled and movements efficient.
Carmen prepared straps, gauze, and a cervical collar.
“We need to support her head and neck. The bleeding is significant. If the wound is deep, she could be losing more blood than we can see.” Carmen felt a little foolish rattling medical advice off to him, knowing he was actually a qualified doctor.
Instead of taking over, he went with her direction. Zane nodded. “Tell me what you want.”
Carmen gave him instructions, and he followed them without argument. They worked together in a careful rhythm. They slid the backboard into position as best they could, angled it, and carefully supported the body. Carmen stabilized the head and neck while Zane controlled the seatbelt release.
The moment they released the belt, the weight shifted.
Carmen’s heart lurched as the car creaked slightly.
Once the body was supported on the board, Carmen worked quickly, checking the airway, adjusting the collar, pressing gauze to the bleeding.
“Her breathing is shallow,” Carmen said, voice tight. “We need to get her up. Now.”
Zane nodded. “Are you okay to carry the back of the board, and I’ll move us upward?”
Carmen nodded. They lifted the backboard together, carefully, slowly, and then they were climbing the embankment with a person’s life held between their hands.
It was harder than it looked.
The slope resisted them. Gravel shifted.
Carmen’s boots slid once, and Zane stopped when he needed to so she could steady herself.
By the time they reached the top, Carmen’s arms were shaking slightly, not from weakness but from adrenaline.
Zane guided the board onto flat ground. Carmen stayed crouched, pressing gauze to the bleeding, checking her pulse again.
It was still there. It was weak, but there, thank goodness.
The sound of sirens hit moments later, growing louder, and Carmen’s relief was sharp enough to sting.
The ambulance arrived first, followed by a fire truck, and Carmen’s team spilled out with equipment, their faces tense. Willa arrived at almost the same time, moving like a woman who had been born to command chaos.
Then, as if this day had decided to pile on one more layer of complication, two more people, Holt and June, arrived and stopped dead when they saw the woman being moved to a gurney.
Carmen saw it in their faces the moment they realized who it was. For a second, none of them moved.