by Alicia Scott
“Yeah, maybe. I just wanted you to know I was sorry…in case.”
She silenced him with her fingers over his lips. “Straight Arrow Stryker,” she whispered.
His lips, warm and soft, curved against her finger ruefully. “Still trying to hold all the pieces together,” he admitted quietly, filling in her unspoken thought. “I can’t help myself, Josie. I…I don’t want anything to happen to you. And I can’t help but feel like this whole thing is my fault. I should’ve listened to you—”
“You did. You checked out my house.”
“I should’ve trusted my instincts—”
“A cop can’t write instincts on an arrest form.”
“I should’ve been there for you, Josie. I shouldn’t have left you feeling all alone.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. But, news flash, Stryker: You’re not perfect. Another news flash—neither am I. Hmm, maybe that’s how we ended up handcuffed together racing through the mountains. It’s a thought.”
“Josie—”
“Come on, Stryker. We’re both chilled to the bone and who knows when Super Chick will appear again. Let’s walk, okay? Later, you can tell me how sorry you are. I’m thinking flowers, lots of tiger lilies. No, rare orchids. Hmm, maybe wildflowers, bluebells, daisies, sunflowers. No, no, peach roses. I want a lot of peach roses. And dinner, of course. Then we’ll move on to fine gems. Have I mentioned yet how much I like opals? I like fiery opals. Think about it, Stryker.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Josie nodded, satisfied, and turned back toward the rising mountain. The opening of the mine was barely visible from here. It gaped like the hole from a missing tooth in a monster’s gruesome smile.
Dark, stale, and most likely filled with bats.
Josie started walking, and Jack understood completely then why he was so enraptured with her. Not too many women would walk willingly into an abandoned mine. Not too many people could make him feel better about his own mistakes.
It made him want to kiss her again. Kiss her and hold her and wrap his arms so tightly around her nothing would harm her. She would always be safe. Because if something happened to her, his father was right—he would shoulder the burden of the failure, adding it to the load he already carried. He knew how to forgive everyone but himself, and he had never learned how to forget.
He followed her toward the mine. Behind them, the trees remained undisturbed.
* * *
“Fasten it here, and fasten it here. How’s that?” Jack pushed at the hard yellow mining hat experimentally, but it remained firmly attached to Josie’s head. He turned on the lantern bulb resting on her forehead, then found a hat for himself. The entrance to the mine held half a dozen miner’s caps. He figured on Friday night, they were all put to use, and he didn’t know whether to curse or praise the recklessness of the local teenagers.
He’d half hoped to find dry matches, a canteen of water or leftover snacks. No such luck. Only the hats were left at the mine.
He turned on his own light, illuminating the dark, dank tunnel. Oak beams held the hand-carved ceiling in place above them. Farther on, the sides turned to rock, still bearing the marks from the dynamite that had blasted the tunnel so many decades ago.
The tunnels had been mined out two decades ago, but they remained popular, particularly for serious explorers—or Boy Scouts who had read Tom Sawyer one too many times. When Jack had been a teenager, he’d spent an entire summer coming to know first the man-made tunnels, then the labyrinth of natural caves and canyons that formed catacombs inside the mountainside.
Here, he hoped to find the home court advantage at last. He finished adjusting his hat, took one last look at the gathering dusk, then turned to Josie.
“Ready?”
She looked the palest he’d ever seen her. “I don’t like dark places.”
“It’s stable.”
“It’s wet and cold.”
“It twists down below the water table.”
“Oh, goody, if it rains, we’ll drown.”
“Only if the water rises forty feet.”
Josie was still holding back. She finally wrenched away, unable to meet his eyes. “I really…I really don’t like closed-in places,” she whispered at last.
“You’re claustrophobic?” He tried to keep his voice patient, but felt a small thread of panic. The best path he knew was tough enough for experienced explorers, let alone a woman who suffered from claustrophobia.
“I have a healthy respect for oxygen and sunshine,” Josie hedged.
“Take my hand?” he suggested gently.
“I’m handcuffed to it, what else can I do?”
“I’ll get you through, Josie. I know these tunnels. I even have a plan.”
“A plan?”
“A plan.”
“When this is over,” Josie said weakly, “I want to take the longest vacation in history.”
“When this is over, Josie, I will personally take you to Montana and we will both stand in the middle of the fields and watch the sky spread out forever.”
“Is that a promise?”
“That’s a promise.”
He pulled down the last four mining hats from the makeshift pegs. He tossed them onto the ground and crushed their lightbulbs with his heel.
“All right,” he said firmly. “Now we go.”
* * *
The beginning wasn’t so bad. The mine was wide with old tracks running down the middle. Josie could walk beside Jack, holding his hand and watching the beams from their hats bob through the air. She decided she could handle it, and Jack had been right all along—this was the best way to escape.
But then the main tunnel ended. Jack took the right fork without hesitation. Then he took a left. Josie found herself struggling up steep slopes, then sliding down the other side. Dirt walls turned into narrow tunnels of stone, worn down from decades of wear. Loose rocks tumbled around them, bouncing off their hard hats.
Josie began to miss the light of day. Jack was beside her, steady and reassuring, but the thin yellow beams of their hats looked so feeble against the unending darkness. She felt the sides of the tunnel unbearably close. At times when they crawled, her head dragged against the ceiling while her hips brushed the side, and the only thing that kept her moving was Jack’s feet in front of her. If his large form could get through, then so could hers. They wound down deeper and deeper, making the walking easy on their lungs but hard on their knees. Josie had the impression that they were disappearing deep into the bowels of the earth, and she wasn’t so sure how they would get back out.
At last, they appeared in a small chamber, tall enough for them to stand, but wide enough only for six or seven people. It was pitch-black and filled with stale air.
“Now what?” There was a hint of desperation in her voice. She tried to rein it in because she had a feeling that if she gave in to the hysteria, there would be no going back.
“We go through the tunnel.”
“What tunnel?” Josie looked around. The idea of leaving this chamber appealed to her tremendously.
She felt a tug on her wrist and discovered Jack on his hands and knees. The beam of his hat illuminated what appeared to be a small indent in the wall.
“That tunnel.” He pointed at the crevice.
Josie shook her head. “That is not a tunnel.”
“Yes, it is. It’s just…a rather small one.”
“Stryker, a canary could not fit through that passage.”
Jack took a deep breath. Then she knew she was in trouble. “Josie, there are ten inches between the top of the tunnel and the bottom of this chamber. The human body can squeeze through a ten-inch height.”
She said the only thing she could think of. “My breasts aren’t that small.”
Her light illuminated Jack’s flashing smile. “Of course.” His tone grew somber. “I’ve passed through here before. It’s the Miner’s Squeeze and it’s tough. It’s three body-lengths long, and frankly, it will
probably take us an hour.”
“An hour?”
“An hour. Inhaling expands your lungs and will fill the space, so take only small half breaths. When you exhale, releasing the pressure, push yourself forward with your toes. You’ll move forward an inch or two—”
“Oh God, Stryker, I would rather face poison darts any day of the week than that tunnel. Please…”
“Josie,” he said firmly. “On the other side is a huge cavern. You could host a football game or fly a kite in the damn thing. Unfortunately, Mother Nature has a habit of connecting really large caves with really tiny passageways. This is our only option. You can do it.”
Josie shut her eyes. What if she breathed in too deeply and got stuck? What if it got so narrow, she could no longer move? She would be pinned in the tunnel, trapped by thousands of tons of rock. She would starve to death, like a roach that had crawled into an insect trap and couldn’t get back out.
And Jack would get to starve with her, handcuffed to her wrist.
“I…I can’t. I just…can’t.”
Jack rose to his feet. His hands felt warm and firm as he settled them on her shoulders. “You’re going to do this and I’m going to help you.”
“What if part of it has collapsed? What if I get stuck?”
“You’re not going to get stuck.” Jack was taking off his waterlogged dress shoes. Next went his socks.
“What if you get stuck.”
“Josie, we’re going to make it. Both of us.” He took her hand, but she barely felt it. She was shaking now. She was frozen to the bone and dangerously close to full-fledged hysteria. The walls were already closing in on her. The logical part of her brain fought it. She’d never been prone to hysterics, she’d never succumbed to panic attacks. She was Josie Reynolds, practical, efficient and quick-thinking. Spunky, spunky, spunky.
She wrapped her arms around Jack’s waist and clung to him desperately.
His free arm folded around her. “Shh,” she heard him whisper. “It will be all right. It will be all right.”
He was stroking her cheek, then pulling twigs gently from her hair. His hands smoothed down her back, rubbing small circles, then folding around her waist. He rocked her against him and she pressed her face farther into him.
He smelled like soap and sweat and pine. He felt so lean and strong. She could feel his rib cage, hear the rhythm of his heart. And suddenly she wanted him so much. She wanted to kiss him and touch him and taste him. She wanted to rip off his clothes until his skin was hot and naked against her. She wanted to lose herself in him, to feel alive and safe, to have the darkness melt away. And she wanted him moving inside her. She wanted them looking into each other’s eyes, knowing they were as close as two people could be and thinking that it was absolutely right.
She loved Jack Stryker, for every stubborn, righteous, honorable bone in his body.
She pulled away and scrubbed furiously at her cheeks.
“All right, I’ll do it.”
Jack caught her chin. He tilted her head until she was forced to meet his steady blue gaze. She didn’t want to look him in the eye. She was afraid he’d see every emotion she felt and even more afraid that he wouldn’t. That this vulnerable, fragile, wonderful bond between them would be severed once more and send them both adrift.
That they would succumb to the tunnels without a chance to make everything right.
“Take it slow,” he said quietly. “You enter feet first and I’ll follow head first, with our handcuffed hands between us. We’ll be facing each other the whole time. Talk to me if you need to. But don’t panic, Josie. You absolutely, positively, cannot panic.”
“Okay.”
“Take small breaths and at regular intervals. You don’t need a lot of oxygen, just a steady supply.”
“I’ll take small breaths.”
She looked at the black indent once more. She looked at him and the wide breadth of his shoulders. She tasted the fear rising like bile in her throat.
“You’ll get through, right?” Her voice wasn’t steady.
His thumb ran down her cheek. “Of course.” He smiled one last time, but it was a somber expression. As she watched, his hand moved to his waist, and a minute later, he’d stripped off his pants. Next, he shrugged out of his jacket. It dangled on the handcuffs joining them. With two fierce tugs, he ripped it off. Then he discarded his tie and unbuttoned his white dress shirt that he left hanging on the cuffs between them.
He finally met her confused expression.
“You’ll fit okay,” he said quietly, “but the last time I did this, I was nineteen years old. I think I may have filled out an inch or two since then. Probably, there will come a time for me when the extra millimeters taken up by clothing will matter.”
“Jack…” She wanted to get the words out. She tried to get the words out. If something went wrong, she wanted it all said between them. She valued honesty as much as he did, and after life with her father, perhaps even more. But she couldn’t get the three syllables past her throat. She kept choking on the tears.
“Come on, Josie. Let’s do this.”
He pulled her down to the floor. She flattened onto her stomach, the light from her hard hat stabbing at the narrow crawl space. With her head up, she would never fit. She reached in her hand and tried to memorize the space by touch. It was unyielding, craggy and tight. She turned around and looking in Jack Stryker’s eyes, she stuck her feet into the crevice and began.
And the darkness closed around her, squeezing her chest like a vise.
* * *
She went slow. She took small breaths. When she inhaled too deeply, her rib cage pressed against the stone floor and her shoulder blades squeezed against the ceiling. The uneven rocks cut her cheek and gouged her skin. Her toes searched for leverage to pull while her hands fought for handholds to push. The only sound was her thin cotton prisoner’s suit slithering over rock.
In front of her, Jack entered the tunnel, his bare shoulders hunching to thrust into the narrow space. His skin raked along the harsh stone walls and she saw him wince. She sought out the next foothold, found a sharp edge and tried to recoil. Her knee slammed against an outcropping rock. She bit her tongue and felt her lower leg go numb right before exploding with white hot pain.
“Easy,” Jack whispered.
She kept wriggling along and tried not to cry as her light illuminated the long, thin welts of blood being etched onto Jack’s skin. Minute lapsed into silent minute. Progress was slow, halting, excruciating. Her foot was on fire. Her hands were scratched. Her chest was beginning to burn. She kept moving, having no idea whether she was close to the end or not. The lack of light, air, and sound disoriented her, while the whole mountain pressed in on her. For one moment, she tried to push forward and couldn’t. She was stuck. She was trapped.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. She wanted to go home.
Jack’s hand curled around her wrist. His fingers rubbed her hand in wordless encouragement. She felt tears trickle down her cheek, but they were soundless.
She struggled to push herself forward. Her palm was slippery. Probably with blood.
She lost her grip on the protruding stone and had to find another source of leverage. She still only moved an inch. Experimentally, she raised her leg. She almost immediately hit the ceiling. The tunnel was getting narrower.
She froze. She wouldn’t fit. The tunnel was worse than the birthing canal, and this time around, there was no doctor to perform a cesarean. She wanted to go back. Definitely, definitely, it was time to go back.
Jack’s fingers dug into her arm. “Push,” he gritted out.
“I can’t,” she whispered. Every instinct in her demanded that she retreat and end this horrible pressure against her chest. Fresh air. She desperately needed fresh air. And to stand, and to see sunlight and to twirl around in a circle with her arms flung out to simply feel the empty space around her.
She began to shift toward him. Jack tried to push her back with more urgency.
“I’m outta here!” she said louder. It cost her precious oxygen, but she didn’t care. Her mind was made up. She wanted the horrible cavern back.
“Go.” It took her a minute to make out the word. It sounded less like a command and more like a gurgle.
She shook her head, uncertain and suddenly terrified by his tone. His face was much too pale. By the thin light, she could see his Adam’s apple bobbing…gasping…
“Josie…can’t…breathe. Forward!”
She moved. Panic overloaded her system, not for herself but for him. She’d forgotten how much bigger he was than her. His ribs were being compressed, shoved into his lungs, rearranging his diaphragm and cutting off his circulation. For the first time, she realized the fingers gripping hers were dangerously cold, icy cold.
Her bloody hands pressed against small indents in earnest, and she slid herself backward like an eel wriggling through a light socket.
Move, move, move. Get him out of here!
Her hard hat pressed against the ceiling. She’d forgotten to take steady breaths, and dots appeared before her eyes. She was hyperventilating. She couldn’t breathe. She was trapped.
She was suffocating.
Move, move, move.
Her hand slid out, too slippery to grasp the rocks. She dug in her toes, pulling, pulling, pulling, flailing like a drowning fish.
Abruptly her feet burst free. She could taste air—cold, clean air. Wonderful air! She kicked her feet as if doing the doggy paddle and felt only vast, luxurious space. They had made it!
And then she realized for the first time that Jack’s hand was no longer moving. He didn’t rub her hand in reassurance. He didn’t urge her forward. His eyelids had collapsed. His body was going limp.
Panic burst. She searched vainly for a foothold, found a crevice, and dug her toes in.
“Come on, Jack!” she cried. “Come on, you have to help me here. We’re almost there, we’re almost there.”
But when she tried to wriggle out more, her handcuffed wrist brought her up short. Jack wasn’t moving. She was trapped with her hips and legs free, but her torso wedged into the tiny space.