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it happened.
    Her feet slipped, her stomach gave a dull lurch, and she felt herself falling.
    She slid a few feet, managed to catch hold of a tree root, the tree itself long gone. Fear sent the air whooshing from her lungs, as if she’d been struck in the solar plexus, and she knew her grip would not last long. She had almost no feeling in her hands, and her feet dangled in midair. She did not dare turn her head and look down.
    â€œHelp me!” she called out, in a voice that sounded laughably cheerful, given the circumstances.
    Morgan’s head appeared above her, a genie sprung from a lamp. “Hold on,” he told her grimly, “and do not move.”
    She watched, blinking salty moisture from her eyes, as he unbuckled his belt, pulled it free of his trousersand fashioned a loop at one end. He lay down on his belly and tossed the looped end of the belt within reach.
    â€œListen to me, Lizzie,” he said very quietly. “Take a few breaths before you reach for the belt. You can’t afford to miss.”
    Lizzie didn’t even nod, so tenuous was her hold on the root. She took the advised breaths, even closed her eyes for a moment, imagined herself standing on firm ground. Safe with Morgan.
    If she could just get to Morgan….
    â€œReady?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” she said. Still clinging to the root, which was already giving way, with one hand, she grasped the leather loop with the other. Morgan’s strength seemed to surge along the length of it.
    â€œI’ve got you, Lizzie,” Morgan said. “Take hold with the other hand.”
    After another deep breath, she let go of the root.
    Morgan pulled her up slowly, and very carefully. When she crested the bank, he hauled her into his arms and held her hard, both of them kneeling only inches from the lip of the cliff.
    â€œEasy, now,” he murmured, his breath warming her right ear. “No sudden moves.”
    Lizzie nodded slightly, her face buried in his shoulder, clinging to the fabric of his coat with both hands.
    Morgan rose carefully to his feet, bringing Lizzie with him.
    â€œThe caboose,” she said, trembling all over. “There’s a stove in the caboose—and a c-coffeepot.”
    He took her there. Seated her none too gently on oneof the long seats. “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, moving to the stove, stuffing in kindling and old newspaper from the half-filled wood box, striking a match to start a blaze.
    â€œI was looking for food…blankets—”
    Morgan gave her a scathing look. Took the coffeepot off the stove and went out the rear door of the caboose. When he came back, Lizzie saw that he’d filled the pot with snow. He set it on the stove with an eloquent clunk. “You could have been killed!” he rasped, pale with fury.
    â€œHow did you know to…to come looking for me?”
    â€œJohn Brennan woke me up. Said he’d seen you leave the car. At first, he thought he was dreaming, because nobody would do anything that stupid.”
    â€œ You left the car,” Lizzie reminded him. “What’s the difference?”
    â€œThe difference, Lizzie McKettrick, is that you are a woman and I am a man. And don’t you dare get up on a soapbox. If I hadn’t come along when I did, you’d be at the bottom of that ravine by now. And it was the grace of—whoever—that we didn’t both go over!”
    He found a tin of coffee among the provisions, spooned some into the pot, right on top of the snow.
    Lizzie realized that he’d put himself in no little danger to pull her to safety. “Thank you,” she said, with a peculiar mixture of graciousness and chagrin.
    â€œI’m not ready to say ‘you’re welcome,’” he snapped. “Leaving that car, especially alone, was a damnably foolish thing to do.”
    â€œIf you expect an apology, Dr. Shane, you will be sorely disappointed.