Proximity (Wanderlust Series Book 2)

by Amber Lea Easton

"It's over now. Bill is safe. I'm safe. It's all going to be okay," she whispered to herself.

  She stood, swayed a bit, and forced one foot in front of the other. If she were dehydrated, then so were the others. Derek had a filtration packet to syphon the brackish water into something drinkable, but Bill wasn't with Derek and, for all she knew, no one else was either.

  Spikes of agony shot through her legs with every step. The dive had been more of a challenge than any of them had assumed—of course, no one could predict an earthquake—but her muscles screamed in protest.

  Tears slid freely down her cheeks as if she'd been broken open and couldn't locate the shut-off valve. They flowed from the pent-up fear, the frustration of being lost, the terror of spiraling downward into an abyss, the exhaustion of always being the strong woman who pretended not to care what people said when she truly did, the loneliness she hid so her father wouldn't worry about her, the guilt she'd always felt for her fiancé's death, and the release of finally being able to love the only man who truly embraced her darkness as well as her light.

  She leaned against a palm tree and pressed the back of her head against the trunk.

  "I need to get myself under control. I'm acting like a lunatic," she said to the swaying palms above. "I'm traipsing through the rain forest in wetsuit bawling my eyes out after crawling out of a hole. Anyone who finds me is going to be scared to death. C'mon, Savannah, cowboy up."

  Inhale...exhale. Repeat.

  Steadier on her feet, she continued trekking through the knee-high vegetation until seeing the back of one of the jeeps they'd rode in that morning. A quick scan revealed two men hunched over a hole with a rope.

  "Did you find them? Are they here?" She yelled and tripped over a vine before pushing herself back up and running toward the men.

  "Savannah!" Derek stepped from the shadows, looking almost as bad as her with cuts on his face. He grabbed her in a hug that lifted her feet from the ground. "Thank God. Where's Bill?"

  "He's hurt. I climbed out. We have to go get him." She held on to her friend with both arms wrapped around his neck. "I'm so glad you're all okay."

  "We're not." He set her back on the ground, face sober, and held her firmly in his embrace. "Paul, Jon and Stewart are still missing. I'd hoped they were with you and Bill."

  "No, we lost them in that first cave after the waterfall." The sinking feeling that she'd left three behind created a pit in her heart. She motioned to the two other men lowering down the rope. "Who are they getting then?"

  "Matt needed a stretcher. He hurt his legs pretty badly." Derik sighed and looked over her shoulder to where she'd come. "Let's go get Bill."

  "He probably needs a stretcher, too." She sagged against his chest and sighed. "We can't leave here without everyone. One way or another, we leave all together."

  "They're survivors," he whispered against the top of her head. "We need to keep believing they are okay."

  "I need water." She untangled herself from him and walked to the jeep.

  She sank onto the back seat, grabbed a water from the cooler, and gulped it down. Trees had toppled, she noticed for the first time since stepping foot back on the surface.

  "Category 7 earthquake. The damage across the coast is severe. The entire country is under a state of emergency." Derek sat next to her. He'd changed from his wetsuit into a t-shirt and shorts.

  "I'll go back down, if you will," she said despite the fear pulling at her throat. "Matt's out of commission, the country is in chaos with saving people who probably weren't putting themselves intentionally at risk. We can go."

  She met his gaze and sighed.

  "You'd go back down there?"

  "For my friends? Yes."

  "We may not find them alive."

  "I know." She grabbed another bottle of water and held it against her ripped fingertips. "They deserve to go home with us, though, don't you think?"

  "Okay. Let me fix up your hands first. Drink some water, have a sandwich. We'll head back to where Bill is, get him up, and we'll go."

  "It will be night soon." She glanced at the sun that continued its descent.

  "It's an endless night down there. Does it matter?"

  "No. I guess it doesn't." She held out her hand when he lifted up the first aid kit. "Let me throw some ice on my face, have a sandwich and some more water, and I'll be good to go. You know me...I rally."

  "You'll wear your diving gloves this time." Derek grinned despite the sorrow in his eyes. "You need a keeper, Savannah, look at these hands. How did this happen?"

  "I keep myself just fine." She arched an eyebrow, determined to shake off the dread. "Besides, Bill has offered to take on that job should I decide to accept."

  "Has he?" Derek flashed a smile. "So you finally noticed, huh?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "That man has had a thing for you for—"

  "You all knew?"

  "Yeah." He shrugged and returned his attention to fixing her fingers. "You're a smart girl, I assumed you knew, too, and were just ignoring it."

  "Why would I do that?"

  "Why do women do anything? Hell if I know."

  She leaned back against the seat and allowed him to bandage her as best as he could before slipping dive gloves over her hands. Had she truly been blind to what everyone else had known to be true? Or had she simply not wanted to see?

  Chapter Seven

  When he heard her voice, he thought for certain he was dreaming. He blinked open his eyes and saw her swimming toward him, towing something, with Derek next to her. Two long ropes dangled from the opening with their land crew leaning over the edge.

  "Oh, how the mighty have fallen," Derek joked as he pulled himself onto the ledge. "Poor little Savannah had to scale a wall—"

  "Yeah, yeah, save it." He pushed up on his right elbow and squinted at the stretcher. He wished he could act all manly and tell them he didn't need it to get out, but he knew better. "Everyone's okay then?"

  Savannah shook her head 'no' and knelt next to him. She looked better, light had reentered her eyes and she had a renewed energy about her. She held up her gloved hands and grinned. "Derek patched me up."

  He knew by the shifty look she shot the other man that they were going back down. Both had looks of intention—purpose—and had obviously gotten a second wind. "Is it bad up there? From the quake?"

  "Yeah, it is. Costa Rica is under a state of emergency. Thousands of people are missing or injured. They are under a tsunami watch on the beaches, no one is allowed near them." Derek looped his hand under Bill's back and lifted him to the stretcher. "I don't know what you did to yourself, man, but I hope all you need is a cast and cold beer."

  He nodded, too, thinking he may have gotten a slight concussion when thrust out of the waterfall, a broken wrist for certain, and perhaps a cracked rib or two. He'd been moving his legs while waiting here and both seemed fine, just banged up.

  "I'm getting old." He frowned and situated himself on the stretcher. "I'm sorry I won't be joining you two. Be careful."

  They stacked their old tanks on top of his chest and asked him to hold them. He met Savannah's gaze.

  "We have fresh tanks and an opportunity to regroup...we'll be fine," she said. "You and Matt are going back to the resort where they have their own medical staff. There are a lot of downed trees so it may take awhile. Derek and I are going to weave our way through a series of tunnels to get back on what would have been our original course."

  "But the rock slides—"

  "We have full air tanks and are prepared for all scenarios," Derek said. "Don't worry about Savannah and me. We've got this. Maybe we'll stay down here and become cave diving guides."

  "That will never happen," she answered with a wink.

  Together she and Derek swam with his stretcher to where the ropes dangled down.

  She grabbed his right hand after attaching the rope to her side. "We have it all planned out."

  "We did earlier, too," he reminded her. "I am not
trying to talk you out of going, I'm just going to ask you to go on date with me."

  She blinked with confusion. Derek smiled and swam back to the ledge where they'd stashed their gear.

  "We still have a week here. I doubt we'll be diving." He forced a weary smile, wishing he didn't look so pitiful strapped to a stretcher. "We'll go on a date. Have dinner. Drinks. The two of us. The whole sha-bang."

  "You don't look up to that." She gave the men above the sign to pull him up. "But if you think you can handle me, I'll give it a shot."

  He twisted his head to see her already swimming toward Derek as he continued to be lifted toward safety. He hated the idea of her going back into those caverns with unstable ground, but knew he couldn't stop either of them—and wouldn't because he'd do the same thing if he could.

  He closed his eyes once on the ground, inhaled the rich jungle air, and winced as the men undid his straps.

  "Can you sit in the jeep or do we need to keep you on the stretcher?" The same young man from this morning asked.

  "I can sit. No neck injury. Broken arm, lots of pain, maybe some rib issues, I don't know." He allowed them to help him up and noticed Matthew in the next jeep. He looked much worse for wear. "You guys should have taken him, left me—"

  "The woman, she is scary, would not hear of us doing such a thing."

  He laughed then, thinking that, yes, she could definitely intimidate anyone when she chose to do so. "Okay, I get it. Fine. Let's go."

  He arranged himself in the back of the jeep, holding his arm to try to keep it as immobilized as possible because any jarring sent pure agony ripping through his body. When the driver asked if he wanted a sandwich, he shook his head 'no.' The idea of food made him want to vomit.

  With another glance at their banged up guide laying lifeless in the next jeep, he said a silent prayer for his missing friends that they would all come home. He dropped the back of his head against the seat, gripped his left arm against his chest, and stared at the passing trees, incredibly grateful to be amongst the living and out of that tomb.

  * * *

  She signaled for Derek to rise up, grateful to have a headlamp again. Although they were in a tunnel, they had enough headroom to rise above the water.

  "What's up?" he asked.

  "I thought I heard something."

  He glanced at the calm water. "Not another tremor, I hope."

  "No." She shook her head.

  A howling of some kind, almost ghostly in nature, echoed through the cavern.

  "What the hell is that?" he whispered, his eyes wide behind his mask. "Do you think a wounded animal fell in here during the quake?"

  "God, I hope not. That's all we need—some crazed jaguar. I thought maybe it was a cry for help." Her voice sounded overly loud in the cramped space.

  "It's coming from up there," he nodded toward the cavern they had on their list to check out, "Be prepared for anything."

  "Isn't that our motto?" She smiled despite fighting off exhaustion. She wanted to be back at the resort, eating a huge meal, and drinking a lot of Mai Tais. No dive had ever taken this much out of her and it still wasn't over.

  They submerged and swam side-by-side toward the next open cavern on the map. Although they needed to squeeze over rocks that had obviously tumbled during the quake, the absence of the shaking and fierce current that must have resulted from something breaking upstream, made the dive almost serene.

  Derek turned to her when they reached the opening, hand on his knife in case they needed to battle a wounded animal, and motioned for them to surface.

  "Oh, give me a home....where the buffalo roam...and the skies are not cloudy all day...." Their three missing divers sang horribly off key while perched on a ledge about five feet above them.

  "Are you fucking kidding me?" She slapped her hand on the water and startled the men. Anger immediately replaced all the fear and concern she'd had for these three buffoons whose bare feet swung over the ledge. They looked more like misbehaving boys than three missing-presumed-dead men who may wish they'd died if she got her hands around their skinny necks.

  "Have you guys been here the whole time?" Derek looked equally pissed off as he swam toward them. "Do you have any idea how scared we've been? We thought you'd died."

  "Died?" Stewart asked, peering over the edge at them. "We got lost and stayed put. Didn't your mothers ever teach you that if you were lost in a store to stay put so you'd be found?"

  "Do I look like your goddamn mother and is this a fucking store?" She splashed water at them with an intensity that felt really good given how her day had gone.

  "Matthew's legs are crushed. I had to pry him loose from between two rock formations and drag him to the rendezvous point. Legally, we're not supposed to be in here without a government guide. Savannah and I could go to jail because we came back to rescue you."

  All three men stared down at them from the ledge, their faces illuminated only by headlamps.

  "Bill broke his arm and I nearly drowned twice." Exasperated, she flipped onto her back and simply stared at the ceiling. "You've been in here singing."

  All were quiet for a minute until relief overtook the frustration of the day and they began laughing. She shoved the dive mask to the top of her head and wiped away another tear. Smiling, she hummed the chorus of the song they'd been singing.

  "Where the deer and the antelope play..." Paul sang out with gusto.

  "Get your asses in the water and let's get out of this cave," Derek said with a laugh. "I cannot believe you have been sitting here this entire time."

  "Morons," she muttered as they jumped in one by one. To say that her nerves were shot would be a gross understatement. She'd spent hours believing her friends were dead and blaming herself for leaving them behind.

  She met Derek's gaze and reluctantly smiled.

  "Their our morons, like it or not," he said, relief lighting his eyes. "Let's get the hell out of here."

  "You guys are buying drinks all night and all day tomorrow," she said once they were all together.

  "She's going on a date with Bill tomorrow night, though, so you'll be off the hook for that tab," Derek informed them.

  "Ooo..." they threesome said at once.

  "Bill and Savannah....no surprise there," Jon said before shoving the regulator into his mouth.

  "So it took a major earthquake for Bill to make a move? He's not much of a genius." Paul laughed.

  "Seems like we missed a lot," Stewart agreed while adjusting his headlamp.

  "You have no idea," she said, a myriad of emotions flooding her system at once and completely exhausting her. "You all owe us drinks for the rest of the week, not just two days," she announced before focusing on Derek. "Why is that the first thing you had to announce?"

  "After a day like today, we all deserve a celebration, don't you think?" He winked, adjusted his gear and slid into the water.

  She submerged, took one last look at the twisted white formations reaching up from the abyss and the marine fossils embedded in the limestone walls, and followed her boys out of there.

  Chapter Eight

  They all slept for well over twelve hours before spending the next afternoon volunteering with the locals to help repair the damage done by the earthquake. Bill couldn't do much with his broken arm and bruised ribs, but he managed to help out as best as he could.

  All day he'd been thinking about yesterday's dive and how lucky they were to be amongst the living. Tomorrow would be another day of volunteering where they were needed. Perhaps it wasn't the trip any of them had planned, but travelers adapted to changing circumstances and appreciated the privilege of immersing themselves in foreign cultures.

  "Are you ready for your big date?" Derek asked from where he lounged on the other bed in the room with a laptop resting next to him.

  He glanced down at his black t-shirt and jeans. "I didn't exactly pack for a date night."

  Derek shut the lid on the computer and frowned. "Did you mean it the other ni
ght when you said you were moving to California and leaving the group? Savannah's like a sister to me, man, and I don't want you messing with her just because you want to fulfill some fucked up fantasy before you head out to parts unknown."

  He met his friend's gaze before sitting on the narrow sofa lining one side of their tree house bungalow. "I came down here feeling like I was at a crossroads of sorts. Maybe I said some things the other night that I shouldn't have, but Savannah has been my best friend for years now. I guess I sort of thought we were stuck there because she wasn't interested in crossing that line and I want more from my life. Know what I mean?"

  "Not really. Seems like you've divided your life into two areas over the past year or so. We're your best buddies out of the country but when we're home—"

  "That's not true." He frowned and shook his head. "I see Savannah all the time, multiple times a week."

  "Did you invite us to your housewarming party? You were one of the groomsmen at Jon's wedding, we all were, but when your company goes public, where were we?"

  He had no answers that made any sense. "You guys keep me real. I protect you all, I guess. I want you all to myself. Why is that so wrong?"

  "And Savannah? Will you hide her away, too? Maybe she's not good enough for your other friends." Derek stared at him, as serious as he'd ever seen him. "I wouldn't have thought any of these things if you hadn't declared your intentions to move and quit the group, Bill. You suddenly hit the big time and your good ol' buddies aren't worthy of your presence anymore. We've all been talking today—"

  "All?" Dread smacked him in the gut.

  "Not Savannah, no."

  He'd never assumed they'd think he wanted to hide them from his so-called new friends. He scrubbed his right hand across his forehead and winced at his impetuous decision to announce his departure from the group as if he were someone more important than the rest. "It's been a confusing time for me. I had no right to dump on you guys before the dive. You need to trust me when I say that you all are closer to me than my own family. I'm really sorry if I came off as something other than genuine."