Rescued (Navy SEALS Romance Book 1) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Rachel Hanna
things, where she was. She was on the top of Mount Palomar. She was scared because she was disoriented and that was making her dizzy and sick. Didn't make any sense, but not knowing which way she was supposed to go did that to her. So now she didn't know where she was, didn't know where her friends were, and she felt sick and dizzy.
She also knew circles made her dizzy. When she went to malls or libraries or anywhere else based on a wheel, spokes being corridors that led out, she got lost. Give her a straight square or rectangular or even L-shaped mall and she found her way just fine, usually to shoe stores. Give her a circle no matter how small and she wandered around miserably reading you are here signs and not believing them.
The top of a mountain was the ultimate circle. She could descend in any direction. She just didn't know which was the right one.
In the end, it didn't matter. Any descent would put her much closer to help from other hikers or rangers or her friends if she accidentally got the right path and she might as well face it the only way she was ending up on the right path was by mistake, or at least by chance.
So she should just go down . Especially since the smoke was starting to sting her eyes.
Only down was burning.
"So the opposite of down is out of this nasty little oubliette," she said, recalling a word from Labyrinth which meant some kind of hole-like puzzle.
Or something. She thought she had both the meaning and the word wrong.
But the consideration had calmed her. "Monster? Over here." She'd head out of the circle of trees, away from the cliff. She wanted to head down the mountain only down was currently on fire.
So what other courses of action were open to her? Staying on top of Mount Palomar made no sense. The air was only just becoming thick and she could hear ranger planes and trucks starting up but they had no way of knowing she was here. Unless her friends had reached the rangers. Then she might be blundering around here and be perfectly safe – maybe the rangers knew where she was, knew where the fire was, and would be round to fetch her before nightfall.
"Not knowing sucks" she told Monster, and crouched down to wrap her arms around the Lab's neck. His whining didn't improve her outlook. If he was afraid, so was she.OK, so sitting still wasn't an option. She never had been the type to just sit and wait for rescue. Time to go. Down might be dangerous. But up might be a terminal trap. If the fire came, it would climb the fall-dry foliage up the side of the mountain in a heartbeat.
Taylor bit her lip. Down, then. She'd see as much as she could and she'd go through the far end of the clearing when she went, just to the inside of the circle of trees. She'd eschew the path because she at least knew where down was from where she was now. The coyotes had gone down. She'd follow in their footsteps only a quarter turn of the circle back – down the way she thought she'd come.
T aylor took a very deep breath .
When it made her cough instead of clearing her mind, she panicked again. Her footsteps to the side of the mountain were just short of a run. The way the coyotes had taken wouldn't work for her – she was neither coyote nor mountain goat. Even Monster might have trouble with this decline. To her left when she faced off the mountain into the valley the clearing blending into mountain. That way's up, she thought, which corresponded with her belief in which way she'd entered the clearing.
Keeping that in mind, she reversed her steps and looked out the other way. That side was more gradual and probably just beyond the wall of trees she'd come through would be the path that led the same away, and far more gradually. Enough so she might be able to run it, though she'd promised herself nothing as inadvisable as running down a mountain path she was unfamiliar with.
Her glance down there showed she was right. It was a more gradual descent. It was almost undoubtedly the direction of east,
She also knew circles made her dizzy. When she went to malls or libraries or anywhere else based on a wheel, spokes being corridors that led out, she got lost. Give her a straight square or rectangular or even L-shaped mall and she found her way just fine, usually to shoe stores. Give her a circle no matter how small and she wandered around miserably reading you are here signs and not believing them.
The top of a mountain was the ultimate circle. She could descend in any direction. She just didn't know which was the right one.
In the end, it didn't matter. Any descent would put her much closer to help from other hikers or rangers or her friends if she accidentally got the right path and she might as well face it the only way she was ending up on the right path was by mistake, or at least by chance.
So she should just go down . Especially since the smoke was starting to sting her eyes.
Only down was burning.
"So the opposite of down is out of this nasty little oubliette," she said, recalling a word from Labyrinth which meant some kind of hole-like puzzle.
Or something. She thought she had both the meaning and the word wrong.
But the consideration had calmed her. "Monster? Over here." She'd head out of the circle of trees, away from the cliff. She wanted to head down the mountain only down was currently on fire.
So what other courses of action were open to her? Staying on top of Mount Palomar made no sense. The air was only just becoming thick and she could hear ranger planes and trucks starting up but they had no way of knowing she was here. Unless her friends had reached the rangers. Then she might be blundering around here and be perfectly safe – maybe the rangers knew where she was, knew where the fire was, and would be round to fetch her before nightfall.
"Not knowing sucks" she told Monster, and crouched down to wrap her arms around the Lab's neck. His whining didn't improve her outlook. If he was afraid, so was she.OK, so sitting still wasn't an option. She never had been the type to just sit and wait for rescue. Time to go. Down might be dangerous. But up might be a terminal trap. If the fire came, it would climb the fall-dry foliage up the side of the mountain in a heartbeat.
Taylor bit her lip. Down, then. She'd see as much as she could and she'd go through the far end of the clearing when she went, just to the inside of the circle of trees. She'd eschew the path because she at least knew where down was from where she was now. The coyotes had gone down. She'd follow in their footsteps only a quarter turn of the circle back – down the way she thought she'd come.
T aylor took a very deep breath .
When it made her cough instead of clearing her mind, she panicked again. Her footsteps to the side of the mountain were just short of a run. The way the coyotes had taken wouldn't work for her – she was neither coyote nor mountain goat. Even Monster might have trouble with this decline. To her left when she faced off the mountain into the valley the clearing blending into mountain. That way's up, she thought, which corresponded with her belief in which way she'd entered the clearing.
Keeping that in mind, she reversed her steps and looked out the other way. That side was more gradual and probably just beyond the wall of trees she'd come through would be the path that led the same away, and far more gradually. Enough so she might be able to run it, though she'd promised herself nothing as inadvisable as running down a mountain path she was unfamiliar with.
Her glance down there showed she was right. It was a more gradual descent. It was almost undoubtedly the direction of east,
Readers choose
Genevieve Pearson
Meg Benjamin
Nara Malone
Danie Ware
Dan Rhodes
Jessica Sorensen
Debbie Viguié
Annie Solomon
Monica Alexander
Ana W. Fawkes