Strong arms wrapped around her waist. Big masculine hands clasped beneath her breasts. Patrick’s breath warmed the side of her neck. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked. The tenor of his breathing alarmed her. That and his silence.
“It’s just a cut. Don’t worry about it.”
She might be inexperienced when it came to medical care, but she wasn’t stupid. Patrick needed a proper hospital, an IV of fluids and red meat. Instead, he was stuck down here with her.
“What time is it?” she asked, feeling her anxiety rise again now that the immediate crisis was past.
“We have to turn off the flashlights,” he said quietly, the words ruffling her hair.
She didn’t know which part worried her the most—the fact that he deliberately ignored her question, or the regression to pitch-black darkness. Without vision, the world seemed ominous.
“Do you sing?” she asked.
He groaned. “You don’t want to hear that, I promise.”
“I’m sorry, Patrick, but if you don’t talk to me, I might go bonkers.”
“Okay, okay.” The words held amusement.
“Tell me about your family. My mother used to keep in touch with Maeve all the time, but I don’t really know much about the Kavanagh clan. What are your brothers up to these days?”
“Liam is the oldest. He married a woman named Zoe who is sort of a free spirit. We love her, and she’s a perfect match for my stick-in-the-mud brother.”
“Go on.”
“You saw Dylan at the pub. His wife is Mia. Dylan adopted her little girl.”
“Next is Aidan?”
“That’s right. He and Emma divide their time between New York and Silver Glen. Then comes Gavin. He runs a cybersecurity firm here in Silver Glen. His wife is Cassidy, and they have twin baby girls.”
“What about Conor? Wasn’t he the big skier in the family?”
“Still is. He ended up marrying a girl he knew way back in high school. Her name is Ellie.”
“Which leaves you and James...is that his name?”
“Yep. My baby brother...who happens to be four inches taller than I am and thirty pounds heavier. We call him the gentle giant.”
“You love him. I hear it in your voice.”
“Well, when you’re the last two in a string of seven, you end up bonding. It was either that or be terrorized by our siblings on a regular basis. With James on my side, I had a tactical advantage.”
“Your mother takes credit for marrying off the first five. I suppose you and James are next in her sights.”
“Not gonna happen.”
The blunt, flat-toned response shocked her. “Oh?”
“Let me rephrase that. I can’t speak for my brother, but I’m not interested in tying the knot. Earlier, you asked me what I was afraid of and I never got a chance to answer you. The truth is, it’s marriage. I tried it once and it didn’t pan out. So I plan on being happily single.”
She turned toward him, which was dumb, because she couldn’t see his face. “You’re divorced?”
“Worse than that.”
“She died?” Libby gaped in the darkness, horrified, feeling as if she had stepped in the middle of a painful past Patrick didn’t want to share. But now that the door was open, she couldn’t ignore the peek inside this complicated man.
Patrick sighed, his chest rising and falling. He pulled her back against him. “No. The marriage was annulled.”
It was a good thing Patrick was willing to talk about his past, because the only thing keeping Libby from climbing the walls was concentrating on the sound of his voice. All around her, the dark encroached. Would they have to sleep here and wake up here and slowly starve to death?
Panic fluttered in her chest. “What happened?” she asked.
* * *
Patrick wasn’t a fan of rehashing his youthful mistakes, but he and Libby had to do something to maintain a sense of normalcy. The medicine had dulled the pain in his leg, though he still felt alarmingly weak.
He rested his chin on her head, inhaling the faint scent of her skin. Her upper-class upbringing meant she’d been taught the rules of polite behavior at an early age. He was sure Libby would never ask that kind of personal question under different circumstances.
But here in the mine, such considerations were less important than the need to feel connected.
He played with the fingers of her right hand, fingers that were bare. Where were the diamonds, the pearls, the precious gems this young, wealthy woman had worn? All sold for her mother’s treatment. Libby’s mom had betrayed that sacrifice by killing herself.
The picture of Libby he’d had in the beginning was fading rapidly, the colors blurred by the reality of who she was. She’d been a Madison Avenue heiress...no doubt about that. But Libby Parkhurst was so much more than the sum of what she had lost.
His feelings toward her were confusing. He wanted to protect her, both physically and emotionally. And though it was disconcerting as hell, he was beginning to want her. In the way a man wants a woman.
Even here in this dank, dark mine shaft—and even though he had a throbbing wound in his leg—his body reacted to the feel of her in his arms. Their relationship had been thrown into fast-forward. He was bombarded with emotions—tenderness, affection and definitely admiration. For a woman who had barely been able to contemplate walking into the mine shaft and back out again, it was nothing short of remarkable that she was still able to function, considering what had happened.
He realized she was still waiting for an answer about his marriage. “My girlfriend got pregnant,” he said. “One of those terrible clichés that turns out to be true. I’d been careful to protect both of us, but...”
“Accidents happen.”
“Yes. My brothers and I had been brought up with a very strict code of honor. Her parents wanted us to get married, so I agreed. In hindsight, I doubt my mother was thrilled, but what could she do?”
“And the annulment?”
“When the little boy was born, he was dark-skinned... African-American. Even for a girl who was terrified to tell her parents she was involved in a mixed-race relationship and even though she was embarrassed to admit she’d been cheating on her boyfriend, it was clear that the gig was up. We didn’t need to have a paternity test done. The truth stared us in the face.”
“Oh, Patrick. You must have been devastated.”
He winced, even now reacting to a painful, fleeting memory of what that day had done to him. “We’d been living together as husband and wife. We had both graduated from high school...rented a small house. Even though I’d been upset and angry and not at all ready to become a father, after nine months, I’d finally come around to the idea. I was so excited about that little boy.”
“And then you lost him.”
“Yes. I walked out of the hospital and never looked back. I went home. Slept in the bed where I’d grown up. But nothing was the same. You can’t rewrite history and undo your mistakes. All you can do is move forward and not make those same mistakes again.”
He wanted to know what Libby was thinking, but he kept on talking. It was cathartic to rehash what had been a chaotic, deeply painful time in his life. It was a subject never broached by the Kavanagh clan. They had swept it under the rug and moved on.
“I didn’t abandon the baby,” he said, remembering the infant’s tiny face. “I want you to know that. His father stepped up. As soon as the annulment was final, he married the mother of his child and they made a family.”
“You must have been so hurt.”
It was true. He’d been crushed. But he had never let on how much it affected him.
“Adolescence is tough for everybody,” he muttered.
Libby turned on her side, nestling her cheek against his chest and draw
ing up her knees until they threatened his manhood. “You’re a good man, Patrick Kavanagh.”
He stroked her hair. “I’m sorry about this,” he said.
Libby sighed audibly. “It will be something to tell our children one day.” She stopped dead, realizing what she had said.
“Don’t worry about it, Libby. I’m a very popular uncle, and I like it that way.”
“Have you told Maeve how you feel?”
“I think she guesses. She hasn’t quite put the marital screws on me like she has the others.”
“I’m warning you, it’s only a matter of time. You’d better watch your step around her. She’s wonderful, but sneaky.”
After that, they dozed. Patrick dreamed restlessly, always fighting an ominous foe. Each time he awoke, his arms tightened around Libby. She was his charge, his responsibility. He would do everything in his power to make sure she got out of this mess in one piece.
At last, they couldn’t ignore the rumbles of hungry stomachs. “What do you want?” he asked. “Beef jerky or peanuts?”
“I’ll take the nuts, I guess.”
He handed her the water. “Three sips, no more. We have to be smart about rationing.”
“Can we please turn on one of the phones and find out what time it is? Do you think there’s any hope of getting a signal down here? We’re near the surface.”
“I’ll look. And no. I don’t think there’s a chance at all of having a signal.”
“You really suck at this cheering up thing.”
He checked the time, oddly comforted by the familiar glow of the phone screen. “Seven fifteen.”
“So it’s dark outside.”
“Yes.” He turned off the electronic device and stowed it. “It doesn’t really matter, though, does it? Not to us?”
“I suppose not.” She sighed. “Tell me something else. Do you have big plans for the weekend?”
“I’m flying up to New York Friday morning to do an orientation for one of the teams coming in April. Peabody Rushford is a world-renowned accounting firm with A-list clients. We’ll sit around a big conference table, and I’ll go over the checklist with all of them. They’ll ask questions...”
“May I go with you?”
He paused, taken aback. Maybe Libby was simply trying to convince herself she wouldn’t still be trapped underground come Friday. “I’m not sure there’s any reason for you to be there,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but this job is not the one for you. I think you know that.”
“Maybe so. But I was thinking of a more personal agenda.”
His mind raced, already inventing sexual scenarios where he and Libby ended up naked on soft sheets. “What kind of agenda?”
“I haven’t been back to my building since the day my mother and I had to leave. I thought I could go see it. I can’t get inside the apartment, of course. Someone else lives there now. But I think even standing on the street would give me some closure.”
“Then of course you can come with me,” he said. “I wish I could fly us up there in my new toy. I bought a used Cessna recently, but it’s still being overhauled. So we’ll have to take the jet.”
“Now who sounds like the poor little rich kid?” she teased.
“You’ve got me. But to be fair, the Kavanaghs share the jet with several others owners.”
“Well, that makes it okay, of course.”
“If I were you, I don’t think I would alienate the only human being standing between me and solitary confinement.”
“Not funny, Patrick.”
“Sorry.”
They sat in silence. The teasing had kept the darkness at bay for a few moments, but the truth returned. They were trapped...with no hope of rescue until morning at least, and maybe not even then.
Libby stood up, accidentally elbowing him in the ribs. “I have to stretch,” she said.
“Don’t go far.”
“Hilarious, Kavanagh.”
He might as well stand up, too. But when he moved, he cursed as pain shot up his leg, hot and vicious.
Libby crouched beside him. “Give me the flashlight.”
“Why? We need to save the battery.”
“I’m going to look at your leg. Don’t argue with me.”
She was cute when she was indignant. He surrendered the flashlight wordlessly.
In a brightly lit room, he would have been able to examine his own leg. With nothing but the thin beam of the flashlight, though, he had to rely on Libby for an up-close diagnosis. “How does it look?”
“Bad.”
“Bad as in ‘needs an antibiotic,’ or bad as in ‘heading for amputation’?”
She turned the flashlight toward his face, blinding him. “That isn’t funny. If we stay in here much longer, you could be in serious trouble.”
He covered his eyes. “I choose to laugh instead of cry.”
“I’ll bet you’ve never cried in your life. Alpha males don’t do that.”
“I cried when my father disappeared.”
Eight
“Oh, Patrick.” Libby’s heart turned over. She would bet every dollar of her first paycheck that he hadn’t meant to say something so revealing. She sat back down, feeling warm and almost secure when he enfolded her in his arms again. “I know we touched on this during my interview, and I’m sorry to open up old wounds... Did he really just go away?”
“I was a little kid, so some of my memories are fuzzy...but I’ve heard the story a hundred times. My father was obsessed with finding the silver mine that launched the Kavanagh fortunes generations ago. He would go out for days at a time...and then one weekend, he simply never came back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Libby had a blinding revelation, which was really pretty funny considering she was sitting in total darkness. She and Patrick had both been betrayed by their fathers. But luckily for Patrick, his mother was a rock.
“Did anyone have a valid theory about what happened?”
“In the beginning, there were lots of possibilities. The police posed the idea that he might have simply abandoned us, started a new life. But his passport was in the safe at home and none of his clothes or prized possessions were missing. He couldn’t have left the country, and since none of the family vehicles had been taken, the final conclusion was that he had been killed somewhere in the mountains.”
“You mean by wild animals?”
“It’s possible. Or he could have fallen.”
“But his body was never found.”
“Exactly. Which meant that everyone’s best educated guess was that my dad went down inside a mine—looking for remnants of a silver vein—and the mine collapsed.”
“Oh.”
Patrick’s arms tightened around her. “This probably isn’t the best conversation for us to be having at the moment.”
“It does have a certain macabre theme.”
“Remember, Libby...this mine we’re in didn’t collapse. It’s just that the entrance has been blocked.”
“A fine distinction that I’m sorry to say is not very comforting.”
“You have me. That’s something.”
Actually, that was a lot. Patrick’s reassuring presence was keeping most of her panic at bay...at least for stretches at a time. But their enforced intimacy had created another problem.
In the two weeks she had worked for him, she’d done her best to ignore the fact that he was a handsome, funny, intellectually stimulating man on whom she had a perfectly understandable crush. She’d kept her distance and been a model employee.
But now, with his strong arms holding her tight and his rumbly voice giving her goose bumps when his warm breath tickled her neck and cheek, she w
as suddenly, madly infatuated. That’s all it was. An adrenaline-born rush of arousal. Part of the fight-or-flight response.
The same thing would have happened if she and Patrick had been cave people fleeing from a saber-toothed tiger. Of course later, once they were safe, they might have had wild monkey sex on a fur pelt by the roaring fire.
Her mouth went dry, and the pit of her stomach felt funny. “Patrick?” Clearly her brain cells were being starved of oxygen. Or maybe she was truly losing it, because the next words that came out of her mouth were totally inappropriate. “Will you kiss me?”
She felt his whole body stiffen. “Never mind,” she said quickly. “That was just the claustrophobia talking.”
“We’re not going to die. I promise.” His voice sounded funny...as if he had swallowed something down his windpipe.
“And by extrapolation I’m supposed to understand that imminent death is the only situation in which you could see yourself kissing me? Because I’m one of your mother’s misfits, and a general pain in the ass?”
“You’re not playing fair, Libby.”
She turned in his embrace, her hands finding his face in the dark. His jaw was stubbly. She rubbed her thumbs over his strong chin. “Kiss me, Patrick,” she whispered. “I know I’m taking advantage of you in your weakened state, but please. I’ve wondered for days what kind of woman you want. I know it’s not me. Under the circumstances, though, you could bend the rules...right?”
“Libby, darlin’...”
The way he said her name was pure magic. “I’m listening.”
He made a noise that sounded like choked laughter. “You were never spanked as a child, were you?”
She shrugged. “My nannies loved me. So, no. Is that an offer?”
“What about the spiders and the mud and the dungeon ambience?”
“Are you stalling?”
“I don’t want you to be embarrassed when we get out of here.”
“Embarrassed that I asked for a kiss, or embarrassed that I kissed my boss? I don’t think that last one is a problem. You’ve pretty well admitted that my days are numbered when it comes to working for Silver Reflections.”
How to Sleep with the Boss Page 7