“We do still have to walk back,” Neal cautioned. The rain had reduced to a faint drizzle again, and he even thought it might be clearing in one area of the foggy sky above them.
Mary winced. “The same way?”
Neal shook his head, and showed Mary where the trail switched back behind them. “It’s a little steep down here, and then we’ll be walking back along the cliffs to the resort.”
Mary looked dubious. “Along… the cliffs? Are they very high?”
Neal noticed that she was staying well away from the drop off by the waterfall. He wouldn’t be surprised if she were afraid of heights, too. “Oh, no,” he reassured her. “Twenty-five feet or so above the ocean?” They were twice that high here.
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” she squeaked, and she turned to lead the way down the steep switchback. One side of the trail was tight against the path they’d just followed, and the other dropped away over the little cove. It was narrow, narrower than the last time Neal remembered walking here, and rainwater runoff was spilling down from the upper path. The earth was soft and spongy underfoot, beneath the slick surface.
It took Neal a moment to put all the warning signs together, and just as he opened his mouth to caution Mary, the trail beneath her crumbled away into nothing.
Moving as only a shifter could, Neal reached for her and pulled her back to solid ground—only to find that the ground he’d assumed solid was anything but, and then they were both falling, crashing and sliding down the side of the cliff to the jungle foliage below.
Neal, still holding onto Mary’s arm, rolled to protect her. It was a far cry from his experiences of jumping from aircraft, hindered by Mary and her handbag and distinctly missing a parachute, but he was able to turn them so that she was protected in his arms, just as they crashed into the first of the trees.
Branches whipped them across every exposed surface and snapped beneath them, jarring impact after jarring impact that Neal could only grit his teeth and weather. One against his head had him seeing stars, then another smashed against an elbow, but all he could think was that he had to keep Mary safe, at any cost.
Air was impossible to draw into lungs. Every blow drove it out again. Then there was blazing pain and he lost his brief battle with consciousness.
Chapter Seventeen
Mary left her eyes shut even after they’d at last been lying still for a long moment, catching her breath and trying to make sense of the last few crazy moments. Neal had only let her go at the very last moment, and they lay close enough together that she could hear his labored breathing.
When she finally opened her eyes, she was alarmed by how pale and still he looked as he lay in the sand, and the awkward angle of his body. She moved to sit up, and cried out in surprised pain. The arm of her raincoat was ripped open, and a broad gash beneath was oozing blood. Her shoulder felt wrenched, and when she tested the rest of her limbs, she suspected a sprained ankle, if it wasn’t actually broken. Her sides ached and she guessed she would be peppered in bruises the following day.
She glanced up at the tree they had fallen through, littered with fresh broken branches, and the cliff beyond. Shrouded in fog, it looked very high above them indeed. The scar of the mudslide they had started was darker than the rest of the rock around it.
It was a miracle that they had survived.
Neal groaned, and Mary scooted to his side just as his eyes fluttered open.
“Are you okay?” she asked, feeling ridiculous the second the words were out of her mouth.
“Are you… okay?” he asked in response, voice rough and weak.
“I’m fine,” she said, and she had to laugh a little in relief that he could speak. At no other time in her life would she have considered her current state ‘fine.’
She winced to see that all of his exposed skin had been whipped raw by the tree. Several of them qualified as gashes, bleeding freely. He lay oddly, still looking dazed, and Mary struggled to remember her first aid training.
“I’m going to look you over,” she said properly.
Neal started to try to sit up, and Mary told him sharply, “No! Let me have a look first!”
He protested less than Mary thought he should, sinking back into the sand with a low sound of pain.
Starting at his head, she found the lump at the base of his neck that was probably the cause of his dazed state. He moaned when she touched his chest, and offered, “Probably a broken rib.”
She was gentle, working her fingers down his side, but he still sucked his breath in sharply and added, “Maybe two.”
Moving his elbow made him give a hiss of pain as she examined his arms. Mary suspected a sprain. At any other time, would have been delighted for the excuse to run her fingers over the magnificent muscles, but now, she was simply concerned for him. None of the abrasions seemed major, and she moved to his chest and stomach, not finding any problems. His legs lay in odd ways, but he was able to help her move them straight, which is when Mary found the worst of his problems.
“Oh,” she said in quiet alarm.
“Hurts,” Neal admitted shortly.
“You… landed on your machete,” Mary said, moving the tool out of the way. Blood was flowing down into the sand below him. The wound was along the outside of his right hip. She didn’t think he could have nicked the artery, but the amount of blood was alarming. “I don’t know how bad it is, but Neal, you should shift.”