at Raffaela’s home in Bolivia a good part of the year now, she still called Houston home, and in three years, when both the girls were in boarding school, she would return to get a doctorate and hopefully a teaching position at the university. Until then, she had agreed to be nanny for her two nieces.
“Dammit, I think we should turn around and go back!” Raffaela cried.
“I’ll talk to Jose.” In the seat in front of Rachel, Burr Brogan unbuckled his seat belt and stood, unfolding his six-foot seven-inch frame carefully as he went forward to talk to the small dark-haired pilot, Jose Escajedo. Raffaela’s Bolivian husband, Hector Granillo, had hired Jose years earlier, and Rachel knew Hector had great confidence in the pilot’s flying ability.
Just as he had confidence in Burr’s ability to serve as a family bodyguard. Rachel felt the man’s blue eyes on her as he returned, and she looked down at one-year-old Angelica and smoothed the toddler’s red hair. Rachel disliked Burr’s brashness. Often when they were alone, he suggested going out together—which she had no inclination to do. Lately, he’d become quite pushy.
Burr paused in the aisle between Rachel and Raffaela.
“Jose thinks it will be better to keep going. The storm is all around us. It won’t help to turn around. We’re already over Central America now. Jose’s altering course and doing the best he can.”
“Are we going to crash?” Sophie asked, her brown eyes wide.
“No, sweetie,” Rachel replied, while the plane bounced violently. “There’s a bit of roughness because of rain clouds.”
Angelica gazed up at Rachel with wide eyes. Sophie had her father’s dark brown eyes while Angelica had inherited her mother’s green eyes.
Burr leaned down to whisper in Raffaela’s ear. “Move over, babe. I’ll hold your hand.”
Rachel clamped her lips together. All their lives Raffaela had been the wild and daring one, and Rachel had accepted it. But after marrying Hector and having the two girls, Raffaela’s flirting was starting to disturb Rachel. She worried about the girls, thankful that they were too young to know the significance of their bodyguard buckling up in the seat beside their mother and taking her hand in his.
The plane bounced, and Raffaela snatched her hand away from Burr. “Dammit, can’t Jose do something!”
Rain began to pour over the plane, closing off the view of the clouds surrounding them. They were wrapped in gray and rocking violently.
“I scared!” Angelica exclaimed, hugging Rachel.
“We’re all right, love. Let’s get one of your books, and I’ll read you a story—”
A bolt of lightning struck with a bang like an explosion. With a blinding flash it rippled along the fuselage. Flames shot out from a wing, and the engine whined loudly.
Raffaela screamed while the nose of the plane tilted. Angelica’s thin arms clung tightly to Rachel. Sophie began to cry. “Aunt Rachel, I’m scared!”
“Get your heads down!” Jose yelled from the front of the plane. “We’re going down.”
With her heart pounding violently, Rachel wound one hand as tightly as possible around Angelica, leaning over the girl, while she put her other arm across Sophie’s shoulders. Praying, she clung to them while the girls sobbed.
The engine began to whine, and Rachel could feel Sophie shaking. Wishing she could protect them completely, she tightened her arms around the girls.
With a jolt and a deafening sound of metal ripping, the plane tore through the trees. As it rocked and bounced, Raffaela’s screams blended with the noise of metal tearing.
Suddenly there was a bang and an enormous jolt and everything went black.
Rachel regained consciousness. The interior of the plane was twisted and smoky; rain hissed over it and lightning flashed. The cockpit and Jose had totally disappeared. There was only thick green vegetation and trees where it had been. Memory returned to her and with it came panic. Rachel knew they had to get out of the plane.
Both girls squirmed, and Sophie sat up. “Thank heavens!” Rachel gasped, relief making her weak when she saw the girls were all right. Sophie had a cut across her forehead, but it looked superficial. Both were sobbing, and Angelica clung to Rachel.
“We have to get out,” Rachel exclaimed. Terrified that the plane might catch fire, she fumbled with Sophie’s seat belt and then her own. As she stood, she glanced at Burr who was leaning over an inert Raffaela.
“Get her out, Burr. Hurry! I’ll get the girls.”
Leaving her own purse behind, Rachel grabbed the bag with the girls’ clothing, Angelica’s bottles and cans of formula. Realizing they might have to wait to be found, Rachel yanked down her own carry-on.
Picking up Angelica and the bags, Rachel tugged Sophie behind her, going toward the gaping hole in the side of the plane. “Wait, love,” she said to Sophie and tossed out the bags. Then she climbed down onto a smashed tree and set Angelica beside her.
In spite of the rain, flames had begun to burn beneath the wing and belly of the plane. “Burr, the plane’s on fire. Get out!” she shouted again, grabbing Sophie out of the wreckage. Tumbling down over branches, ignoring scrapes, Rachel reached the ground.
She lifted the girls down one at a time. Slinging the bags over her shoulder, she picked up Angelica and grasped Sophie’s hand. Smoke burned her eyes, and terror gripped her, because she knew the plane could explode.
Rachel tried to run, but she found the bags cumbersome, so she tossed away her carryon. She scooped up Sophie instead. As she ran, vines, ferns and palmetto fronds tore at her. She glanced back to see Burr carrying Raffaela over his shoulder as he climbed out of the plane.
Rachel was fifty yards from the plane when it exploded. The deafening blast knocked her off her feet and sent a fireball rolling skyward. Heat seared her, and the flash of light was like a bolt of lightning.
She fell, the breath knocked from her momentarily as she scrambled to get the girls, who were sobbing wildly.
“Aunt Rachel! Help!”
She tried to cover both of them, holding them close against her body while parts of the plane rained down over them. Something struck the back of her thigh, and she cried out. Hot metal stung her shoulder.
And then quiet descended, broken by the crackle of the burning plane and the girls’ sobbing. The rain had suddenly stopped, now just lightly dripping from the trees. A shard of glass stuck out of Rachel’s arm and she pulled it free. She brushed bits of glass and metal from Sophie’s curly black hair.
Moving carefully, she tried to stand, biting back a cry as pain shot up the back of her leg. The smaller cuts stung, and she ached where metal had struck her, but nothing seemed broken. “Sophie—”
Something slammed against the back of her head. Dimly, Rachel heard Sophie screaming. Pain enveloped her, and then blackness closed in as she pitched forward.
One
Micah
