by Penny Jordan
She skirted the lake using the footpath, hurrying past the sign that warned against anyone entering the grotto because it was unsafe. A padlocked iron gate guarded the entrance, and Suzy frowned to see that there was a key in the lock. She must mention it at the villa, just in case the children should stray down this way!
Once she reached the other side of the grotto she paused, looking around uncertainly and then tensing when Jerry suddenly stepped out of the shadow of the trees and shrubs where he had been waiting for her.
'Jerry! What are you doing? How did you get in here?' she demanded apprehensively.
'Never mind that.' He stopped her curtly. 'I want to know what's going on here. Come on, Suzy, spill the beans. What a piece of luck, finding you here. We got a tip-off that there was something important going on.'
'There's nothing going on,' Suzy lied determinedly. Jerry's comments had confirmed her worst fears. She was certainly not going to tell him anything! But perhaps if she found out what Jerry was up to the information might actually be useful to Luke—as well as help to prove her own innocence.
'Oh, come off it! If that's true what's Soames doing here? And how did you get hooked up with him anyway?'
'We're here on holiday, that's all—and as to how Luke and I met, that's not really any of your business,' Suzy told him coolly.
In his office Luke frowned as he listened in on their conversation. Had Suzy somehow realised that they were on to her?
"'Luke and I"?' Jerry mimicked sneeringly. 'Typical that you'd go for someone like Soames—he's as bloody moralistic as you are! Met those kids of his yet, have you?'
Suzy's heart somersaulted. Kids? Luke had children? And children meant a mother, a woman he loved. No, that couldn't be true.
'Just as well he's wealthy. I've heard that their medical bills will run into thousands. Risking his own life to save some refugee brats! I'd have left 'em, myself. Got shot for his pains, didn't he?'
Refugee brats? As she rcoiled from Jerry's unpleasantness Suzy felt the tight band of pain around her heart slacken a little. There was no woman Luke loved enough to give her his children. But this was no time to think about her own feelings.
'You've got to leave, Jerry,' she insisted shakily.
'There's nothing happening here of any interest to you or the magazine.'
'You're lying,' Jerry accused her, putting his face so close to Suzy's that she stepped back. 'The boss has had a tip-off. That's why I'm here. Knew I'd got lucky when I saw you with the Verey kids.'
'They're here on holiday with their father.'
'They may be on holiday, but Verey's here for something more than that—and that's why Soames is here as well. They've got guards on the gate, for goodness' sake.'
'The owner of the villa employs the guards,' Suzy fibbed inventively. 'And, as I have just told you, Luke and I are here on holiday. Sir Peter is a friend of Luke's and he invited us to stay.'
'Sleeping with Soames, are you?'
Luke heard the small indrawn breath Suzy took before she told him firmly, 'Yes, of course I am.'
'Well, that's turn-up, isn't it? Little Miss Don't-Touch-Me-I'm-Only-Just-This-Side-of-Being-a-Virgin crawling into bed with Soames. The boss wasn't too pleased with you for leaving like that, you know. He'd got a pretty heavy bet set up that he'd be the one to teach you a thing or two about sex.'
Jerry was leering at her and Suzy had to fight down her furious disgust.
'Good, is he? Soames? I reckon you owe the boss one for depriving him of his pleasure. Come on, Suzy, tell me what's going on—for old times' sake.'
Suzy had had enough.
'For old times' sake?' she snapped, her eyes flashing with fury. 'You and the rest of those disgusting men at the magazine made my life a misery. And if you think for one moment that if there was anything to tell—which there isn't—I would betray national secrets to someone like you…Well, if you want my advice, Jerry, you should leave here right now—before—'
'Before what?' Jerry stopped her, an ugly look on his face. 'Before you go running to Luke to give the game away?'
A chilly little breeze seemed to have sprung up, and Suzy shivered. Suddenly she felt not just cold but frightened as well.
'Jerry, I don't know what you want,' she began, but Jerry stopped her.
'You know damned well what I want,' he told her viciously. 'I want to know what's going on here, and one way or another I intend to find out.'
As he spoke he reached out and grabbed Suzy's arm, looking past her at the grotto.
'Jerry—what are you doing? Jerry, let me go!' Suzy started to protest, trying to resist as he dragged her towards the grotto and unlocked the iron gate.
'Let's see if you feel a bit more like talking after a few hours in here,' he told Suzy, panting heavily as he released her and gave her a savage push.
Suzy cried out as she lost her balance.
'Jerry, it isn't safe in here,' she protested anxiously as she struggled to get to her feet. But Jerry wasn't listening to her. Instead he was locking her inside the grotto and walking away with the key.
Luke cursed as he got to his feet, rapping out a message to Hugh Phillips to apprehend Jerry. Giving a cursory glance through the office window, he started to hurry out of the villa.
He had been wrong about Suzy! Utterly and completely wrong. And beneath his surprise at the discovery, and his concern for the danger she was in, he could feel a swift, deep tide of joy running through him.
Locked in the grotto, Suzy tried not to give in to her fear. Someone was bound to come past and rescue her, surely? One of the gardeners, or one of Luke's men.
She tensed as she heard a low, threatening rumble. Stones and debris were falling all around her. Panicking, she ran to the back of the grotto, to avoid being hit by the growing avalanche of boulders, and then gave a terrified scream as the ground suddenly gave way beneath her.
She was falling down some kind of tunnel, Suzy recognised, with twigs and soil raining down all around her in the darkness. And then suddenly her fall came to an end, and the air jolted out of her lungs as she hit the cold dampness of a hard earth floor.
Somewhere in the distance she could still hear rumbling, but as she strained her ears to listen to it abruptly it ceased and there was silence.
Silence and darkness.
Her body hurt, but her fear was much greater than her physical pain. She was trapped somewhere underground beneath the grotto. Dust filled the air above and around her, making her cough and gag. How long would it be before someone found her—if they found her at all?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LUKE had once run for his school—and, alerted by the sound of falling rocks, he reached the grotto just as it started to collapse in on itself. White-faced he looked at the pile of rubble beneath which Suzy was now buried.
Whilst his mind was coolly and mechanically planning what had to be done his heart was racing, thudding, swelling with emotions he couldn't afford to allow to torment him.
'Get on to the emergency services!' he shouted over his shoulder to Hugh, who had followed him. 'And then get the men down here!'
Suzy! Anguish, guilt, despair—he could feel all of them. Why had he waited so long? Why hadn't he come for her the moment he had realised she had not lied to him? Why had he allowed her to be placed in danger in the first place?
Suzy, Suzy, Suzy. He could feel her name ringing inside his head, inside his heart.
The guards had arrived and quickly he began to instruct them, telling them what to do as he began to move heavy boulders.
As he worked, grimly Luke tried to blot out images of another place and another time. Another pile of debris oozing dust and silence. That one under the heat of the sun, with the taste of smoke and anger in his mouth, the shocked wailing of the bereaved rising from the throats of women as he had looked in bitter fury at the house so unnecessarily destroyed, people killed and maimed by their own. A young woman dead, her children buried beneath the rubble of their home.
'Luke, if they are in there they'll be dead,' one of his comrades had muttered to him, but Luke had ignored him.
They had found the baby first, perfectly still, and then the older child. Luke knew he hadn't been the only one who had wept.
Those images were inside his head now, those images and those desperate feelings. He had hurt then, for those children, but if he had feared for them then that was nothing to what he was feeling right now.
And, what was more, Luke knew that it would not have made one iota of difference to him right now if Suzy had been colluding with the magazine, if she had been about to betray a hundred security secrets—he loved her, and his love for her was the strongest and most powerful emotion he had ever felt. It was so strong, in fact, that he had been afraid of it—afraid of acknowledging its power over him, afraid of admitting it to himself.
Suzy! He had loved her, he suspected, from the minute he had felt the brush of her soft lips against his own.
'Luke! Take it easy!'
It was only when he felt Hugh's restraining hand on his arm that he realised that he was tearing at the fallen boulders, his throat blocked with the pain of crying her name.
* * *
They worked late into the evening, under searchlights which had been rigged up and with the teams of experts Luke had called in.
Several times Luke was told to take a break and allow others to continue with the task that their expertise equipped them for, but he refused to listen. What he wouldn't give for a team of trained sappers here right now, he thought bitterly, as he watched the painfully slow progress, grim-faced.
If Suzy died it would be his fault. He would have killed her, killed the woman he loved, the woman he should have cherished and protected above everyone and anyone else, even above and beyond his duty. That was how he felt about her. How he would always feel about her. Admitting his love for her had been like taking a bung out of a dyke. The pressure of his denied feelings was pouring through him, drowning out everything else.
Why hadn't he listened to his emotions? Why had he persisted in disbelieving her and them?
He knew the answer to that, Luke acknowledged, his gaze never wavering from the harsh beam of light directed on to the fallen rocks. He had been afraid of admitting the truth.
He had decided a long time ago not to marry. He had seen too many Army marriages fall apart under the strain it imposed on them and he had thought he could prevent himself from falling in love, from wanting to spend the rest of his life with that one special person. Until Suzy had come into his life.
Into his life! And out of it?
The harsh lights bleached the colour from his face, leaving it leached of blood, his eyes two dark, burning sockets of pain fixed on the spot beneath which Suzy lay.
* * *
For Suzy, trapped inside her small cave, time blurred.
She was a child again, trying to comfort her crying mother, telling her everything would be all right—only her mother wasn't there, and she was the one who was crying.
Images and memories came and went, sweeping over her in waves of semi-consciousness. Curled up in a foetal position, she relived the happiest of her memories and experiences. And thought of Luke, whose name, whose taste would surely be on her lips as she took her last breath…
* * *
Luke stood grim-lipped in front of the Italian in charge of the rescue operation.
'I do not care how well trained your men are,' he told him curtly. 'I go in first. And now.'
It was nearly midnight, and the rescue team had managed to tunnel down to where Suzy was trapped—thanks, in the main, to Luke's experience and leadership. The watch Suzy was wearing had registered the fact that she was still breathing, and the bugging device had also helped them pinpoint her location. They had discovered that Suzy had fallen down some kind of tunnel or shaft, and now lay in a small space below it.
'It is still too risky for anyone to go in!' the Italian protested, trying to sound authoritative but failing when confronted by Luke's implacable will and air of command. He tried to persist. 'It will be several more hours before we can send someone in to bring out the young lady.'
'I'm going in now,' Luke told him bluntly.
'The tunnel is not yet secure. It could collapse and bury you both,' he warned, but Luke wasn't listening to him. He had already gathered together everything he might need, including medical equipment, food and water.
As the leader of the rescuers had said, the newly dug tunnel still wasn't safe. Its roof needed strengthening before they could risk bringing Suzy out. But it was strong enough to allow Luke to go to her, and that was exactly what he intended to do. No matter what the risk to himself. He had to be with her!
Moving carefully, Luke crawled slowly through the tunnel. He had never liked tunnelling, it made him feel slightly claustrophobic and all too aware of his own vulnerability, but right now he wouldn't have cared how long the tunnel was just so long as it took him to Suzy.
* * *
The brightness of the torch Luke was carrying woke Suzy from the exhausted doze she had fallen into.
Confused, and half in shock, she thought for a moment that she was hallucinating when she saw Luke crawling into the small space illuminated by the torch.
'Luke!' Her voice shook, and so did her body.
'Luke!' she repeated. 'How…? What…?'
Her words were smothered against his chest as he took her in his arms and held her there—held her as though he was never going to let her go, Suzy thought. She made a sound. Something between a laugh and a whimper, shivering as she clung to the warmth of his body.
'It's so cold in here, and so dark. I thought…' She fell silent, unable to tell him that she had feared she would die here, in this small dark space beneath the ground. 'Are we going to get out now?' she asked him looking towards the tunnel.
'Soon,' Luke answered, giving their surroundings one searching inspection and then switching off the torch—partially to save its light for when they needed it, but also to save Suzy the reality of seeing how dangerous their prison was.
The feel of her in his arms was making his heart thud heavily with emotion. He was with her. He was holding her safe, as he should have held her all along. His hand cupped her face and stroked her hair whilst his other arm held her close to his body.
Half dazed, Suzy decided that she must be imagining the soft brush of Luke's lips against her hair, that it was a fantasy she was allowing herself to drift into.
Even so, she reached out a dusty hand to touch him. Something about the darkness and their intimacy was allowing her to drop the barriers she had put up against him to protect herself.
'I'm so glad you're here. I was afraid I was going to die here.'
Something about the quality of his silence made her tremble.
'We are going to get out of here, aren't we, Luke?' They must be—otherwise he wouldn't be here with her, risking his own life.
There was just the merest pause, the merest missed rhythm in his heartbeat before he told her calmly, 'Yes, of course we are. But we could be here for a while yet.'
'A while?' Suzy's own heart started to thump. 'But if it isn't safe what—? Why—?' Her mouth had gone dry.
'I owe you an apology, Suzy,' Luke told her lightly.
'And now that I've got you to myself, I have got the perfect opportunity to deliver it.'
He was trying to make light of the situation, Suzy recognised, her heart flooding with bittersweet emotion.
There was so much Luke wanted to say to her, but he was fully aware that up above them every sound from their chamber was being monitored via Suzy's watch—hardly an asset when one wanted to whisper words of love and regret.
As he touched her wrist Suzy opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, but Luke silenced her, placing his finger against her lips as he removed the small device and muffled it.
'What—?' Suzy demanded when he'd finished.
'It's what's commonly referred t
o as a "bug",' Luke told her wryly.
'You bugged me?'
The pain in her voice tore at his heart.
'I had no choice,' he told her quietly. He gave a small sigh. 'I do owe you an apology, Suzy—we both know that.'
'You were just doing your job.'
Her defence of him made him wonder grimly how he could ever have thought of doubting her. Her honesty was so patently obvious.
'How long are we going to be down here, Luke?'
'I don't know,' he admitted honestly. 'Are you feeling okay? I've brought some water, and they will be putting an airline through the tunnel.'
'An airline?' Suzy's body trembled. 'You mean in case the tunnel collapses again?'