He set aside the tree limb he'd been digging with and went to the bag of water Lainie held for him.
As soon as Lachlan picked up the bag of water, Lainie grabbed the limb and started digging. By the time he turned around, Lainie was knee deep in mud and wreckage.
"Stop that, lass!" Lachlan called out. "'Tis too dangerous for ye. The whole side of the mountain is set to come down at the first excuse."
Lainie's only answer was, "It will come down on you sitting there, just as easily on me. I'll do this until you get some rest. Besides, there seems to be a bigger hole opening up."
Lachlan slammed his fist against the trunk of a tree, which was still standing and swore viciously.
Despite his anger, he didn't take the limb from her and drag Lainie out of the way. If there was a hole, she was Slade's best chance of survival. She was the only one tiny enough to get through to pull him out.
And if Slade was dead, Lainie could find out that too, before anyone got killed trying to dig out a man who was no longer alive.
Lainie crawled and clawed her way through the rubble, lured by the promise of possibilities--life for Slade. She pushed and shoved, wriggling through the tightest spots and pushing away the oozing mud. She found an air pocket then she saw Slade.
Mud covered him from booted toes to neck. The trunk of the tree had stopped sliding on its downward descent because of the large boulder. And as she had guessed, the tree had not hit him. He lay in a natural air pocket created just for him. He was not suffocating beneath layers of mud.
Lainie didn't know she was crying Slade's name until the broken echoes came back at her. Slipping and sliding, she crawled toward Slade through the seeping mud, which even now tried to refill the holes they had dug.
"Lainie!" Lachlan called out. "Are you all right? I can pull you out, lass.”
"I found Slade!" Lainie yelled back.
"Is he alive?"
Lainie reached out to Slade, but her hand was shaking so badly, she couldn't tell if there was a pulse in his neck. Then she saw blood welling slowly from a cut on his forehead. She looked skyward and saw only thick tree limbs and mud, but she prayed.
Coming out of a daze, Lainie slowly became aware of Lachlan shouting her name.
"He's alive!" she cried out, tears of relief and joy welling deep inside. "He's breathing, and he doesn't seem to be hurt too badly. But he's unconscious."
"Sweet, Jesu, get out of there and let me in. I’ll make a space big enough for me--for the both of us if I have to," Lachlan told her.
An instant later, more mud oozed through the small opening. Slade groaned and moved his head.
"Slow down!" Lainie yelled. "Lachlan, be careful! Every time you move mud pours through the empty spaces down here."
"All right, but how are you going to get him out?" he asked. "You're going to need me."
"I don't know. Hand me one of the smaller limbs, maybe I can move enough mud that we can pull him free. He's covered up to his chest."
Lachlan swore.
Lainie started at his shoulders pushing mud away, trying to keep more of the same from taking it place. She pushed and shoved and finally Slade was free to his waist.
Suddenly the ground shook and light filtered into the tiny cramped space. The rumbling of the earth had dislodged more of the mud and brush.
"Can you see better?" he asked.
"Aye, 'tis a blessing what a little brightness can do for one's soul."
"How bad is he?"
"I can't tell. He's breathing, buried to his waist. I got some of the mud pushed away."
"Can ye pull him free?" Lachlan asked urgently.
"There's no room at his head. I've got to find a way to free him. You could go outside and see if you can move the tree."
"Be quick about it. This mountain is damned unstable and it's started raining again. I've already tried moving the tree."
She worked frantically, pushing mud until Slade was free to his upper thighs.
"Lainie? Lachlan called.
"I've almost got him uncovered."
"Want me to come inside there and help?" Lachlan's pushed his head through the opening. As it was, she didn't think he could wiggle his big body into this tiny hole.
Even as Lachlan spoke and tried to make the hole bigger, more mud came rushing down on Slade.
"Stop moving!" Lainie said frantically.
"I'm frozen to the spot, holding my breath. Another slide took away more of the trail above."
The thunder of mud and rocks slipping down the ravine penetrated the air. The mountainside vibrated with energy.
"Get out, Lainie. Save yourself!" Lachlan yelled. The earth roared.
As though in a dream, Lainie watched the back wall of mud shimmer and shake as it slowly began to shift and change. Without warning, fresh air poured into the tiny space.
Wild energy rushed through her in a torrent. Lainie didn't stop to think. She reacted. She hooked her hands beneath Slade's arms and pulled with every bit of strength and determination she possessed, dragging him toward the unexpected opening. Where Slade had just been the other side collapsed into a heap.
Mud oozed and piled up at Slade's boots, sucking him in the opposite direction Lainie was trying to move him. Desperately, Lainie kept backing up, dragging him with her until she stumbled and fell. She struggled to stay on her feet, but the wet earth slid beneath her. The very thing that had let her drag Slade to a safer spot kept her from moving him any further. While she pulled and tugged, her feet slipped out from under her.
She continued on, but her frenzied burst of energy was spent, leaving her unable to move him. Still she kept tugging and tugging, crying and calling brokenly to Slade.
"It's all right, Lainie. You can stop. You pulled him far enough," Lachlan said resting a hand on her shoulder. "He's safe now."
For a crazy moment, she thought Slade was talking to her. Then she realized that Lachlan had come around to the other side of the slide and was kneeling next to her reassuring her.
"Lachlan…" Lainie ended with a strangled sob.
"When the third slide thundered down the mountain, it jarred all the debris covering Slade loose. It isn't safe here. We've got to get Slade up the mountain and away from here. Can you walk, lass?"
Shakily Lainie got to her feet and nodded. "Yes," she said, determined she would not add to Lachlan's burden.
"You go on ahead. I'll be right behind you," Lachlan said. "Your brothers are waiting at the top. They went to get rope and make something to carry him on. But if the mountain doesn't stop rumbling, I'm going to have to carry him to the top."
Lachlan looked upward and cupping his hands yelled. "Send it down."
Hawke looked over the ledge. "Don't wait for us. If you can carry him, bring him up now."
"'Tis done," Lachlan called out.
He bent, levered Slade into place across his broad shoulders, and followed Lainie. Soon they met Hawke and Ian, who were waiting at the top.
Slade regained consciousness in a haze of pain and dizziness just as he was pulled to the top of the trail. The ever-persistent rain washed most of the mud from his face. Groaning, he closed his eyes and wondered why the world hammered in his head. Sweet Jesu, but if this was the way he was going to feel, he didn’t want to wake up.
"Don't move," said Lachlan. "You've been hurt."
He didn't plan on moving. Other voices came to Slade, men's voices, ones he didn't recognize as they helped him to a shelter.
Nowhere did Slade hear Lainie's voice, her touch, her scent. When he opened his eyes, darkness had settled all around him. Still, Lainie was not beside him. Well, he thought sardonically, what did he expect? At the first chance, she'd fled.
"Lainie?" he asked hoarsely, unwilling to give up on her so soon, praying there was a good explanation.
"Other than being crazy enough to approach Jericho and his gang of mercenaries, Englishman, she's fine. She was going to barter with him."
"Who are you?" Slade mumbled,
staring into eyes that were as cold as steel yet there was something about the big man that seemed familiar.
"Hawke."
Slade groaned in the back of his throat. Her brother and he wondered if the other one was here too.
"That's what I was afraid of? That groan answered one of my questions." Hawke said dryly, his lips set in a grim line. "You'll have answers for us, later when you're feeling better."
"Let's put him over here." The other voice, Slade assumed was Ian's said. "Go easy on him big brother, at least until he has the strength to fight back. By my reckoning, he's got a lot to account for."
Hawke's words came back to haunt him, pounding home the truth he'd always believed about men, women, and betrayal. He didn't care about accounting to her brothers. She'd been willing.
Approach Jericho and his mercenaries. Barter with him. Approach Jericho and his mercenaries. Barter…
The words echoed horribly in Slade's head, bringing a pain that was unlike anything he had every known. When he had felt the slide take his feet away from him, his last thought was that at least Lainie was safe.
Her first thought had been to sell her favors to Jericho and his men for her freedom, leaving Slade to die in the mud. Even the passion had not been enough to buy her loyalty.
"I was a fool, still am a fool…Lady Anna," he said bitterly. All women are cut from the same cloth," he mumbled. A woman would sell her soul to the highest bidder.
"What?" Hawke asked.
"Did that thieving, treasonous whore…sell out to Jericho? What did she get in return? Most likely a stay in Bertram's bed."
Before Hawke could give Slade an answer, he passed out again, blackness swirling within his mind as if he'd fallen into a vortex.
After she'd heard Slade's words, Lainie wished she could have done the same. She stumbled as though the ground had been taken away from beneath her feet, just as the slide had taken the ground away from Slade's feet.
Lachlan caught her as she started to fall.
"Easy, lass," he said kindly. "You've been through more than anyone should have to go through. And I’ll have his head on a pole for those words."
She shook her head and said nothing, as tears formed behind her eyes. Tears she didn't want to cry but knew she would.
"Who's this Anna, lass?" Hawke asked Lainie.
"Someone he knew a long time ago. Someone who hurt him so badly, he's never forgiven her," Lainie said as Lachlan set her on her feet.
"Who is the thieving treasonous whore?"
"I am," Lainie said tonelessly.
Abruptly, Hawke realized his words about Lainie going to Jericho had been misunderstood by Slade. And he realized this misunderstanding might be for the best. He didn't want to hurt Slade, but if Slade had caused Lainie any pain, he would have to kill him.
"Slade's been through a tough time. When he wakes up, I'll tell him the truth. If you want me to," he said.
"It doesn't matter what you tell him. He will always believe what he wants to about me. He cannot see beyond the pain the Lady Anna caused him." Lainie said turning away. "He doesn’t believe in love or that a woman can be loyal to anything or anyone save herself."
"Lainie," Hawke said softly. "Wait."
She shook her head and kept walking.
Everything that mattered to Lainie had already been said. Slade might have enjoyed her company, might have been gentle with her, might have shared the most intense kind of passion with her, but he didn't love her. She wasn't going to stay and hear his thoughts about her. She'd thought she'd convinced him that she was different from other women.
She hadn't.
He never would change his mind about her. Love required trust, and Slade would never forget that Lainie had stolen from him, and had lied about who and what she was.
What mattered now was despite everything that had happened between them, he had managed to erase the feel of Bertram's hands on her. For that one thing, she would be forever grateful to Slade, and perhaps she could get on with the rest of her life.
While the others hovered around Slade, Lainie found a safe way down to the stream and washed the mud from every bit of her, and while she did, she wished she could wash away the memories of Slade and the passion he made her feel when he made love to her.
But she couldn't. This short time with Aaron Slade would stay with her forever. It would haunt her nights as well as her days.
Aaron Slade had changed her life irrevocably.
With a calm that came from a loss so deep it numbed her ability to feel pain, Lainie pulled on her only remaining clothing. The dress she’d worn in the tavern the night she'd met Slade. She held it up to the light. An old day dress had seen better times. But now that she was on MacPherson land, she would wear the dress and pretend for a while she was a lady born and not Slade's plaything.
Mechanically she went about her preparations to leave. At last she'd come to recognize the countryside. She knew the way home. She would leave her brothers and Lachlan to take care of Slade, and she would go home where she might find a small measure of peace--a peace she'd been searching for, for so long she wasn't sure she would ever find it. But she meant to try. She found her horse and mounted.
Hawke saw what she was doing. Lainie nodded to him and whispered she was going home then she gazed at Slade one last time, and wiped the last tear she meant to shed for any man from her eyes. Hawke nodded back as if he sensed her pain and the loss.
Abruptly Hawke stood up and went over to her.
"I could stop you," he said. "I'm not sure it is safe, lass, but you are on MacPherson land."
She nodded. "But you won't"
"I won't. Are you really going home?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Aye." She didn't want to tell him she'd needed to go some place where she would feel safe, and where she could hide from anyone who wanted to talk to her.
"You're not going without me," Hawke said.
"I don't need anyone," Lainie said bitterly. "I haven't needed anyone for a long time. And I don't want anyone. Hawke, all I want is to be left alone."
"Sweet Jesu, what has happened to you? Like it or not, I'm going with you. I wanted to get back to Callie as soon as possible. Ian and Lachlan can take care of Slade."
Hawke stalked off. His horse was still saddled. In one easy motion he was astride and riding toward Lainie.
Lainie didn't spend anytime waiting for him. She spun her horse toward MacPherson castle and rode north. Ian and Lachlan must have heard because they looked up just as she turned and took one last look at the Englishman who taught her about passion but not about love--a man who had given her so much joy but more pain than she thought she could bear.
Hawke caught up to her just before she rode from the trees and onto a meadow of emerald green grass that seemed to stretch on forever. He rode up beside her. "I think you've got some explaining to do."
Lainie tucked her lower lip behind her teeth and kept riding.
"Lainie MacPherson," Hawke said, still riding abreast of his sister.
"I'm not explaining myself to anyone, big brother," she said. "All I owe you is a thank you for rescuing Slade. You're going to have to live with that."
"Well, then I will apologize for what I told Slade."
"You don't need to apologize. Nothing happened between us that should concern you."
"Slade will be fine then he'll ride north. He'll want some answers, just as I do. Lainie, he won't let this rest."
Lainie's heart was the saddest it had ever been. Her laugh was brittle, hardened by knowledge she'd never wanted to learn.
"Aye, I'm sure he'll be fine. But he won't ride north and he thinks he has all the answers."
"Of course he will," Hawke said.
The compassion in Hawke's steel gray eyes made Lainie want to laugh and cry at the same time. She rode toward Slade, stopping for a moment. She pulled out the document she'd thought she'd kept hidden from Slade. She knew now that he most likely knew about it, had read it and chose not t
o let her know. She tossed the phony document at Slade. The white parchment landed on Slade's chest.
"You're still the best big brother any lass could ask for," Lainie said huskily. "And very wrong. Slade knew exactly what he was saying. He's said it often enough before."
Lainie looked back again, and then spurred her horse forward. It was the last time she would look at the Englishman.
Chapter Nineteen
Highland Song Page 32