by Ruth Owen
Relief turned to panic when she lifted her hand and found it wet with warm, sticky blood.
“Sam!” She gripped his shirt and turned him over on his back, an effort that left her breathless and sweating. He lay still as death. She grabbed the flashlight and shone it on his face—and almost dropped it again when she saw the gash near his temple. “Oh no,” she moaned. “Please, God, no.”
Think, Noel. Think. She unwound the bandanna from her throat and dabbed the cut, straddling his chest for a better reach. It didn’t look serious, but that meant nothing. Maybe he was bleeding internally. Maybe he was dying.
“No, you can’t die.” She’d never felt so helpless. Years of college, and she couldn’t even remember how to treat a simple concussion. But then, she could barely remember her name at the moment. Other thoughts filled her mind, things she wished she’d said to him, needed to say to him. He was everything she thought she hated in a man. But he was also the man who’d won the hearts of the islanders, and shared the beauty of his valley with her, and sacrificed his own safety to shield her from the cave-in.
She didn’t understand him. He was a complicated man, an impossible man, a man that any sensible woman would avoid like the plague. But apparently she wasn’t very sensible when it came to Sam Donovan, because in the few days they’d been together she’d come to care more for the scoundrel than she’d ever thought possible.
“Please, don’t die,” she pleaded, her voice raw with emotion. “I couldn’t bear it. Help me, Sam. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, for starters,” he suggested as he opened his eyes and winked at her, “you can get your knee off of my chest.”
Loving distress erupted into white-hot rage. She leaped and stood over him, shaking with fury. “You, you … ooh, I can’t even think of a word vile enough to describe you! Were you awake the whole time?”
“Most of it.” He propped himself up on his elbows and stared back at her without an ounce of remorse. “You know, they used to call me Lucky Irish in the service. But this is the first time in years that I felt like I deserved the nickname.”
If that was supposed to be a compliment, it fell well short of the mark. “You shouldn’t have done it. I was very worried about you!”
His smile sobered. “Were you, sweetheart?” he asked huskily. “Were you really?”
His gaze absorbed her. The unnatural stillness crept under her skin, unsettling her, making her keenly aware of the male animal beside her—of his strength, passion, and the barely restrained violence that flowed through him like an electric current. Suddenly she felt hot and breathless, as if all the air had been sucked out of the cave along with the light and sound. It was insane. A minute ago she was frantic because she thought he was dying. Now all she could think about was how much she wanted to sink down beside him in the anonymous darkness, and do all the things she’d dreamed about in her deepest, most secret fantasies—
She turned away, grateful that the darkness hid her blush. “We’d better start exploring some of these side passages. We’ve still got to find a way out of here.”
If there was a way out
“Damn,” Donovan cursed as he shone the flashlight on the pile of rock and rubble that blocked the passageway. “Another dead end.”
He heard a soft crunch of gravel beside him. “I guess that the third time isn’t always a charm after all.”
Her words were calm to the point of indifference, but he wasn’t fooled. He’d heard the ragged edge in her breathing, and saw the exhausted slump of her shoulders when she thought he wasn’t watching. The kid was scared to death. “Noel, we are going to get out of here. That’s a promise.”
“Well, of course we are,” she answered, too brightly. “Now, we’d better get started down another tunnel. Maybe we can try that one on the left?”
He nodded, and headed back toward the next tunnel. Considering it was their last option, he didn’t have much choice. He pointed his light into the opening, letting the yellow beam search out the scored ceilings and walls of the cavern. It looked promising—but then, so had all the others. Maybe his Irish luck was running out after all.
But if it is, it’s almost worth it, he thought, his mind returning to the way he’d felt when he’d first regained consciousness after the cave-in. He’d thought he was having another dream—where she was bent over him in the darkness, her hands roaming his skin with a touch that was at once angelically innocent and maddeningly erotic. For years he’d felt empty, used up, and useless. But her healing touch renewed him, pouring strength, hope, and purpose into his heart and mind. And into other less prosaic parts of his anatomy …
He shook his head, forcing his mind to focus on the situation at hand. It didn’t look good. Their walkie-talkies were useless, the signals reduced to static by the heavy layers of rock. They had no food and no water, and only a limited time left in the flashlight batteries. If this cavern tunnel didn’t pan out, they might be trapped here. And there was always the possibility of another cave-in.
Not a promising future, he thought as he swept the roof of the cave with his flashlight beam. He hadn’t given much thought to the future since he arrived on St. Michelle—in fact, that was one of the things he liked most about the island. Every day was the same: a lazy morning followed by a sultry afternoon, sinking into an easy, dreamless night.
He had no pressures, no worries, and no relationships stronger than friendship. It was the way he thought he’d wanted it, until a prim little scientist showed up on his doorstep. She’d turned his perfectly fine life completely upside down … and made him feel more alive than he had since that horrible night when he’d lost Gina. Don’t go there, Sam. Don’t let her get into your blood. She’ll only break your heart.
“Donovan?”
“What?” he growled, his surly tone masking his troubled thoughts.
Boy, what a bear, Noel thought. She had more than half a mind to keep her comments to herself, but her conscience wouldn’t allow it. “Look, I’m sorry I called you a self-centered jerk. Sometimes … well, sometimes my father’s Italian temper just gets the best of me.”
“Italian?” he commented as he concentrated on making his way down the narrow, rubble-choked corridor. “Revere doesn’t seem very Italian to me.”
“It’s not,” she replied as she followed behind him, stepping carefully along the safe path he’d cleared. “Revere was my mother’s name. My grandmother changed it legally shortly after my father left me and my mother with her.” She stared ahead, her voice betraying a subtle catch of pain that spoke of an old wound that had never quite healed. “I guess that’s when I realized that he was never coming back for me.”
“Pretty cold.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “He was.”
Donovan glanced back at her, then resumed his laborious progress down the corridor. “No, not your dad. Your grandmother. It takes big brass ones to wipe out one half of a kid’s parentage, even if you can’t stand the guy. Why didn’t your mom put up a fight?”
Yes, why didn’t she? Noel wondered, then clamped down on the traitorous thought. Donovan had no right to judge her grandmother’s actions. After all, she’d only done it to protect her daughter and granddaughter. Just because she didn’t have a son to carry on the Revere name …
“My mother knew that my grandmother was right. In fact, Grandmother warned my mother from the start that it wouldn’t last, that eloping with the chauffeur was a foolish—”
“Your dad was the chauffeur?” Donovan stopped short and turned back to her, his baritone voice resonating with burnished laughter.
Noel’s chin shot up. “You got a problem with that?”
“Not me, sweetheart. But I bet your blue-blooded grandma sure as hell did. No wonder she changed your name as soon as she could.”
“That’s not why she did it,” she said, tightly. “She didn’t want my mother or me to be constantly reminded of a man who’d deserted his family. He was a liar and an opportunist, who only wan
ted a rich wife to—”
“Then why’d he leave?”
His question startled her to silence. “What?”
Donovan leaned against the rock wall, crossing his arms across his chest. “It doesn’t make sense, Noel. I’ve known a hustler or two in my time, and they almost never leave the mark until the con’s completely played. From what you say, your dad had a good thing going. Seems to me if he were after the money, he’d have stuck around for the payoff. And he certainly wouldn’t have left a prime meal ticket like you out of his sight—”
“You don’t know anything about it.” She pushed by him and headed down the corridor. “I should never have told you about my father. You were bound to take his side. Birds of a feather—”
“Hey, I don’t deserve that. I grew up with some shady characters and met my share of slimes, but that doesn’t make me one of them.”
“Checked a mirror lately?” she fired back.
He yanked her around to face him. Her flashlight clattered to the floor and rolled flush up against the wall, leaving them in virtual darkness. She couldn’t see his expression, but she could feel the iron strength of his fingers, and the heat of his breath against her cheek as he bent close to her, his voice low and lethal. “Don’t push me too far, sweetheart. I’m not like your tame preppie boyfriend. You might not be able to handle a real man.”
“I’m not frightened.” She tried to sound brave, and failed miserably. She felt vulnerable and exposed after what she’d told him, and knew he could hurt her deeply. She stiffened, expecting a cruel, cynical comeback from a cruel, cynical man.
Instead he pulled her against him and gently cupped her cheek, just as he’d done after he’d rescued her from the fall. The memory sent a shiver through her—a shiver that increased to a thundering earthquake when he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I didn’t mean that,” he breathed roughly, as if the words were dredged from the pit of his soul. “Dammit, seems every time I say something I end up hurting you.”
“Not every time,” she confessed.
“Enough,” he said gruffly. “Hell, maybe you would have been better off with the Deveraux. At least they wouldn’t have gotten you trapped in this lousy cave.”
“It was my choice. You told me to leave.”
“Yeah, I did, didn’t I,” he mused. “Why’d you stay?”
“Because—” Suddenly she discovered there wasn’t an ounce of air left in her lungs. The smooth, silent darkness wrapped around her like black silk, suffocating her. The warm, male smell of him filled her nostrils, searing her from the inside out. And all the time his question tolled in her mind like a relentless bell. Why’d you stay? Why?
Emotions she didn’t understand overwhelmed her. The person she’d always thought she was kept dissolving, like ocean surf disappearing into sand. She’d always kept her feelings at a safe distance, discreetly locked away from the rest of her ordered, sensible life. Now those passions she’d denied poured through her like a raging riptide, drowning her in fear, despair, desire …love. Lord, not that. Anything but that—
But she couldn’t deny it, any more than she could deny the sunrise. Somewhere between their unpromising meeting at the St. Michelle airport and the dark terror of the cave-in, she’d fallen hopelessly, completely, and irrevocably in love with Sam Donovan. And there was nothing on God’s green earth she could do to change it.
Slowly, deliberately, she lifted her hand to cover his. “Sam, if we don’t get out of this, I want you to know that I—”
Suddenly the quiet was cut by the deafening crackle of static. “Einstein!” Sam cried as he released her and pulled the walkie-talkie from his belt. “E, can you hear me?”
Noel fell back against the wall and put her hand to her burning forehead, torn between relief and disappointment. “What’s he saying?”
“Don’t know.” He held the unit close to his ear. “The signal’s not strong, but it’s better than … E, I can barely hear you … yeah, we’re all right.”
Speak for yourself, she thought as she fought to quiet her racing heart. She could still feel his hands on her body, strong and gentle, making her ache with sweet, unbearable longings. And he’d felt—nothing.
She swallowed, trying to control the hurricane of anguish inside her. “Can he get us out of here?”
“Don’t know … that’s right, E. We’re trapped in one of the caverns. Can you get a fix on us?”
More static. Noel stooped down and picked up her flashlight, but the light didn’t help. Nothing could help her now. Birds of a feather, she thought, shivering. Lord, what had she almost done?
Donovan continued to bark into the unit’s speaker. “What’s that? I can’t … okay, we’ll try that. Thanks, E.” He rehooked the walkie-talkie to his belt and turned back to her. “Einstein says there’s a fifty-two-percent probability of an opening down this small side tunnel.”
“That’s not great odds,” she commented.
“No, but it’s the best we’ve got,” he said as he shoved on his gloves and pulled away the loose rubble that blocked the side corridor’s entrance. “Now stick close. If E’s right, I’ll have you back at camp working on your research by suppertime. Oh, what was it you were going to say to me back there?”
“Nothing important.” Birds of a feather. She should have been smarter. She should have remembered what happened when her mother fell in love with a heartless scoundrel. It was just lucky that Einstein had interrupted her before she confessed her love. Fortunately, no harm was done.
“No harm,” she whispered as she pressed her hand to her bruised and aching heart. “No harm at all.”
Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself away from the stone wall and walked rigidly after him down the corridor.
[Received via Local Area InterNet from Eden Base Camp]
E-Text: PINK! They’re all right! Just jammed with Donovan on the box and … PINK, are you okay?
P-Text: [Weak signal from low-core memory] I don’t feel so hot.
E-Text: Poor babe. I’ll pump you some virtual RAM [Several-nanosecond pause while transfer completed]. Feel better?
P-Text: Um, yeah. Thanks. Now tell me about the humans. Are they out of the cave?
E-Text: Not yet. I sent them down the waterfall tunnel.
P-Text: The waterfall … Einstein! Haven’t we put those poor Homo sapiens through enough?
E-Text: Almost, babe. But not quite. We’re real close to solving the Eden equation. All those two need is a shove in the right—or in this case, the wrong—direction.
NINE
“He’s kidding,” Sam muttered as he knelt on the lip of the rock ledge and stared through the crystal curtain at the churning pool below. “Einstein’s got to be kidding.”
He felt a featherlight touch on his shoulder. Glancing up, he watched Noel lean forward to look out over the valley. “But we’re almost home—I can see the campsite from here. Anyway, it doesn’t look that far down to the water. Maybe it won’t be a bad jump.”
“Oh right,” he scoffed. “And when’s the last time you made a forty-foot leap into a postage-stamp pool that might be full of underwater rocks, gators, and God knows what kind of—”
“Okay, I get the picture!” She retreated back to the shadows of the cave. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms across her chest, glowering at him. “You don’t have to be such a bear about it.”
He grunted a halfhearted apology. Truth was, he felt like a bear—an old, frustrated bear pacing back and forth in a too-small cage. He hated having limited choices, and right now his options ranged from slim to none. He’d always been able to fight, figure, or charm his way out of difficult circumstances. Except for Gina. And now.
He stood up, plastering back his spray-damp hair as he stared down at the pool that seemed to grow smaller by the minute. If it were just me I wouldn’t mind so much. God knows I haven’t made much of my life—no one would miss me more than ten minutes if I ended up an alligator app
etizer. But she’s got friends and family who love her. She doesn’t deserve this, any of this—
He glanced back over his shoulder into the shadows, where she stood with prim stiffness against the rock wall. Despite their situation, a reluctant smile curved on his lips. Only Noel could manage to look prim after surviving a cave-in and a trek through the godforsaken bowels of a mountain. Despite the darkness and their dismal situation, he’d suddenly felt as if he was full of light. Don’t be an idiot, Donovan. Even if you do get out of this, a smart, classy lady like her wouldn’t give a worthless mug like you a second glance. Probably not even a first glance—
“Sam? Promise me something, will you?”
He stiffened, surprised and a little annoyed at how much he liked hearing her say his name. Not even a first glance, remember? He stood up and stepped down off the ledge, careful not to slip on the water-slick rock. “Maybe,” he said gruffly. “What is it?”
She looked at the ground, and kicked a stray pebble with her instep. “Promise me that if something happens to me, you’ll make sure that my research gets back to—”
“I don’t give a damn about your research.” He strode over to her and gripped her shoulders, giving her a slight shake. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, understand? Anyway, I’ve got it all figured out. I’ll go first, and if … well, if it doesn’t work you grab the walkie-talkie and make that bucket of bolts who passes for a prototype find you another way out—”
“I’m afraid that’s not acceptable.”
“Not accept—” he sputtered. “Noel, this isn’t open for discussion.”
“Excuse me, but last time I checked I was paying the bills for this trip, which means I give the orders,” she stated as she raised her chin, and stared at him with cool, unflappable calm of a schoolmarm. “Now, the most important thing is that my research gets back to Sheffield, and we both know I’m too weak to load the equipment into the Jeep on my own. Therefore, since I am the most expendable member of the expedition, it logically follows that I should jump first—”