At least now Fiona knew why he couldn’t love. Why he was only fling material, while Dylan was the real deal.
“How about you, Fi? What’s your story?”
“Not much worth talking about. Some long-term relationships that didn’t pan out. In my early days, a few field flings that ended up hurting more than they should have.”
She was holding something back. “That’s all?” he pressed.
“For now, yes. But . . . let’s just say my no-flings code came about for good reason.”
He chuckled. “Is it a code or guideline?”
“You won’t trap me with your Pirates of the Caribbean logic.”
He took another drink of whiskey, then passed the bottle to her. “To having a code,” he said. “Mine is flings only; yours is flings never.”
She took a drink. “To codes that prevent us from being rash.”
“Those might be the wisest words of all time.”
“I think you’re getting drunk.”
“Punch-drunk, maybe, because a few sips of booze don’t usually affect me.”
“’Kay. Punch-drunk, then. Either way, it’s time to put the whiskey away and crawl into the sleeping bag.”
He took her advice and closed the cap on the whiskey bottle, setting it aside. Booze was too risky, given how he was feeling tonight. One sleeping bag meant another night of holding her tight. He ached for it, to hold her and to be held, but it also terrified him. What if, in the morning, he couldn’t let her go?
He stood as much as possible, thanks to the low ceiling, and walked hunched over to the alcove that served as their latrine. He made a silent apology to Dylan and Mount Katin as he urinated on the stone floor.
When done, instead of returning straight to the pallet he’d share with Fiona again, he circled the chamber, shining his light on the walls, looking for telltale streaks of silver that indicated this was part of the meteorite debris field. The walls had a sheen here—more rhyolite with a glass crust, and he wondered how thin the ceiling was, if it was anything like the broken upper chamber floor.
Midway up one wall, he spotted a dark crevice and moved closer to examine it. He shone his light in . . . and felt a tiny flicker of hope. The crevice was deep, but it looked like the wall itself was thin. Only two or three inches thick.
Three inches of rock, but still, rock that could be broken.
He crossed to the collapsed tunnel and grabbed the biggest cobble he could carry and wield.
“What are you doing?” Fiona asked.
“Just checking something.” He didn’t want to get her hopes up. That would be cruel.
He returned to the crack in the wall and tried to figure out the best way to leverage the cobble. It was hard to throw hunched over as he was. But he’d been a baseball player once upon a time, and he had a good arm. The rock easily weighed ten times that of a baseball and was the size and shape of a pineapple.
Thank goodness he’d tossed a lot of footballs to his wide receiver brother. This would be a football toss, not a baseball pitch.
He stepped back far enough that if it failed, the rock wouldn’t ricochet back on him, but not so far back that there wouldn’t be enough force when it hit the wall. He dropped to his knees and took a deep breath, then brought his arm forward, releasing the heavy stone at the right moment, even giving it a bit of a spiral twist.
The rock smashed dead center into the crack in the wall and broke through, revealing a tunnel just wide enough to crawl through.
They agreed to sleep for several hours before attempting to crawl through the tunnel Dean had found. Or created through sheer will. Fiona was ready to believe the guy was magical.
They were both too exhausted to attempt anything strenuous, and the tunnel could pinch out after ten feet. It would be best to keep hope alive for one night, as they slept and rejuvenated. Fiona brushed her teeth using only a sip of water, then crawled into the sleeping bag. A few minutes later, Dean crawled in beside her smelling fresh and minty-breathed as well.
At least they had toothpaste. The rest of her was rank. But he was too, so it didn’t exactly matter.
She rolled over to face him after he’d settled in. It was different, being chest to chest with him, but she wanted the intimacy of the position, to hold him. In the last hour and a half, they’d discovered that Dylan was most likely dead, and Dean had potentially found them an escape route.
It was a low and high beyond imagining.
She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close as she tucked her head against his firm chest in the pitch-blackness of the cave. The extreme dark was less disconcerting when her body was pressed to his.
His arms encompassed her, holding her snug to his chest, as if he needed this moment as much as she did. Possibly more.
His fingers slipped into her hair, cradling the back of her head, holding her to his heart. She could hear the firm beat beneath her ear. Right now, they were both alive thanks to him. And they had hope, also thanks to him.
His body trembled against her, and he took a gasping breath, and she knew he was crying. There was nothing she could say to ease his pain. Nothing she could do except hold him and cry with him in the dark cavern, deep in the belly of a volcano named “heart” by the people whose lives it had shaped and even destroyed.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Dean woke with the dawn. At least, he assumed it was dawn outside. Inside Mount Katin, it was nothing but deep, endless darkness, but his wristwatch indicated it was morning.
Fiona slept in his arms, her body wrapped with his. They’d fallen asleep facing each other, and the tight fit of the sleeping bag didn’t allow for much shifting of positions. They were both exhausted enough to have slept wrapped together in a way that would have been uncomfortable in another time and place.
She felt so damn good in his arms. Like she was meant to be there, and not just temporarily.
But he couldn’t do more than temporary. He didn’t know how anymore, even if he wanted to. And Dylan . . . It would just feel wrong to fool around with the woman Dylan had wanted for himself. Especially because for Dean, it couldn’t be more than a fling.
Thankfully he’d survived the night without getting a proximity-induced erection. But then, his mind wasn’t exactly on sex or attraction. Grief was front and foremost, followed by guilt, because wasn’t it too soon to grieve? Wasn’t it wrong to give up hope?
Had Dylan been dead this whole time?
He didn’t want to believe it. Wasn’t sure if he did, really. But at the same time, he knew he needed to brace himself for that eventuality.
Life without his parents. Life without Violet. He’d learned to live with those losses. But Dylan? How could he live with that on top of everything else?
Fiona stirred in his arms, and he figured he knew the moment she realized their entangled position, because her relaxed body went stiff. Instead of releasing her, he pulled her tight and kissed her forehead. “Good morning, sunshine.”
She let out a soft chuckle. “I’d give anything to see sunshine today.”
“Be careful what you promise, because I’m determined to make that particular wish come true.” He pressed his face into her neck, enjoying the intimacy of the moment. What would it be like to wake up with her for real after a night of lovemaking?
He’d woken up with a woman in his bed many times in the last ten years, but this, with Fiona pressed against him, was the first time in so very long that he hadn’t felt a disconcerting loneliness at the same time.
He forced that thought away and released her, but given the tight bag, letting her go didn’t change much. “I’ll start water boiling for coffee.”
“You think that’s a good idea? I mean, it’s a diuretic, and we don’t have much water left.”
“We’ll each get only a half a cup, then. But if I have to, I’ll hike all the way back to that stream we found yesterday and get you more water. Without a pack, I should be able to go there and back in only a few hours.”
&
nbsp; “If it wasn’t cut off by the explosion.”
She couldn’t see his face in the pitch-black room, but he smiled at her anyway. “Don’t you go getting pessimistic on me now.”
“Isn’t it called realistic?”
“I don’t need realistic either. Today, we need pure, unadulterated hope. Can you give that to me?”
“I’ll try. But I don’t know if that’s really my strong suit.”
“I have faith in you.”
Her fingers stroked his beard. He liked the way she did that. Like she wanted to grab the whiskers and pull his face close for a deep kiss. Yeah. He liked that a lot.
“I have faith in you too.”
“Good.” He brushed his lips over hers, then wiggled out of the bag and her arms. It was cold without being trapped next to her body heat, and he wasted no time pulling on all his various layers before setting a tiny amount of water to boil over the can of Sterno. They didn’t have cones and filters, just instant coffee flakes he’d learned to appreciate in times like these when being a coffee snob was counterproductive.
The water boiled, and he dissolved the coffee concentrate in it, then poured them each half a mug. They sat in the quiet cave, lit with a flashlight that doubled as a lantern, with the LED lights set to a soft yellow-orange that mimicked firelight.
She held up her mug. “Never have I ever slept inside a volcano before,” she declared, then took a sip of her coffee.
He laughed and, following the rules of the game, took his own sip, then said, “Me either. I’d venture that’s new for most people.”
“I’ve also never slept in a cave before.” She took another sip.
He held up his mug and drank. “That I’ve done. But it was wide open on one side, not fully enclosed.”
“I could see doing that. But I don’t think I’m up for deep-cave camping ever again. It’s a little too . . . unsettling.”
“I’d say that might have more to do with our situation, but I know what you mean. It’s an intense lack of light and hard for the brain to accept.”
“Every time our lights are out, I wonder if my eyes are open or not. At first it even triggered a panicky feeling when my eyes didn’t adjust and begin to see. Like I’d lost my eyesight.”
“But that doesn’t happen now?”
She shook her head as she cradled her mug. “Not really. My brain has learned to stop waiting for my eyes to adjust, I guess.”
They finished their coffee, then packed up their supplies, stuffing the sleeping bag in the compression sack and cinching it as small as possible. Once they were packed, Dean returned to the hole in the wall he’d created the night before.
The pineapple cobble had rolled several feet after it landed inside the opening, so he returned to the collapsed tunnel and grabbed three more good-size cobbles. His first toss hit the lip and ricocheted back without opening a wider gap. Either he needed to throw harder or the rock was too thick there.
After several more throws, he’d managed to create a two-foot-wide opening in the face. He grabbed one of their sticks of firewood from the Japanese ammo box and bashed at the jagged edges of the hole until it was wide enough to squeeze through and pull the pack. Unfortunately, the length of the tunnel he could see didn’t appear to get any wider, and it disappeared into darkness the beam couldn’t reach.
“Should I go ahead and scout with paracord tied to me, like we did yesterday?”
Fiona bit her lip, hiding the freckle that had so fascinated him that first day. He wanted to pull that plump bottom lip between his teeth and gently nibble, then dip his tongue inside her wet mouth and explore.
Damn. He wanted this woman, and it was strange how sharply that realization was hitting him now. He’d been sexually attracted to her from the start, but that had been simple physical attraction to a beautiful woman. Now he knew her.
He’d told her about Violet, and later, she’d held him as they both cried. He’d never been that vulnerable with a woman other than Violet before. He kind of hoped to never be so again. But if he had to go through it with someone, he was glad it was her and that she’d been right there with him, just as raw and vulnerable.
If he ever fell in love again, it would be with a woman like Fiona. She was nothing like Violet, and that was important to him. He never wanted to see traces of his dead wife in a lover. It would make him question everything about the attraction and any feelings he developed.
“Dean?” Fiona asked. “You okay?”
He realized she’d answered his question, but he’d been so focused on her lip and freckle and the wave of lust they triggered to pay attention to her answer.
He shook his head, even as he said, “I’m fine.”
Her smile was a knowing smirk with an added eye roll. “King of mixed messages.”
“But still king.”
“Well then, it’s time to get going, Your Highness.”
“So, uh, how did you want to do this? Am I scouting?”
She tilted back her head and laughed. “What was your brain doing while I was talking?”
Undressing you.
He cleared his throat. “You don’t want to know.”
“I think I do. But you get a pass this time.” She picked up the paracord and approached him. She reached behind his back and passed the line from hand to hand, encircling him, then tugged it forward so he was pressed against her chest as she met his gaze in the dim orangey-yellow light. She licked her lips, then bit that plump bottom one, her teeth touching the freckle that drove him wild.
She stepped back just far enough to tie a knot at his waist, just as he’d shown her yesterday. It was hot, the way she wielded the line. It made him think of bondage and other fun things. He wondered if bondage was her kink and if he’d ever get to find out.
He wanted to. So much.
“I said, Mr. Slater, that you should go in first but only as far as where the light doesn’t reach, and if the tunnel continues, we’ll tie on the packs and I’ll follow.”
She’d Mr. Slatered him, and damn, that was hot too.
He was going to have this woman. He needed to figure out how to square it with his conscience, given that Dylan had wanted her, but he would have her.
Did want her. Dylan wanted her.
Shit. He was mentally shifting verb tenses. His eyes burned.
And just like that, the sexy spell was broken. He took a deep breath and cupped her cheeks. She was an amazing woman, and he was grateful for both her strength and the distraction. If it weren’t for the need to get her out of here, he might have given up last night. “Okay. Let’s find a way out. Because dammit, I want a full cup of coffee this morning.”
He turned to the tunnel. The smallest one they’d yet faced.
She slapped him on the butt and said, “Go get ’em, tiger.”
“Aww. C’mon. I need a more original nickname than that.”
“Fine. Go get ’em, Hot Bird Man.”
He laughed. “That’s more like it.” He placed his hands on the shelf of the tunnel and boosted himself up, ducking his head inside. He pushed with his hands on the lip and propelled himself into the tunnel, snapping on the bright white light of his headlamp as soon as he was inside with a free hand to flip the switch.
The tunnel was long and narrow. It was going to be a squeeze. His shoulders scraped against the wall on either side. He could get stuck if it narrowed any more.
He closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. Right now, this was their only exit. If he wanted to see daylight again, he had to go forward.
He moved slowly, inching along in an army crawl, forearms doing the work. The tunnel sloped downward, unlike most of the tunnels they’d traversed yesterday. It was the downward slope that made the path difficult to see from above, but now that he was making progress, he could see an opening ahead.
Please, please, please be a chamber with a way out.
It had to be, because backing up while going uphill would be difficult as the slope increased fro
m an easy five degrees to a much steeper fifteen.
A sound carried up the tunnel, and he held his breath to listen. It wasn’t wind—that would be too good to be true—but it was rushing water. Whatever they found up ahead, it would include water.
He shouted the news to Fiona, who responded, “Should I follow?”
“Not yet. I’m almost to the next chamber. I’ll check it out and come back if it goes nowhere.”
At least he might be able to turn around if necessary. But the sound of water gave him renewed hope.
The tunnel widened a bit as the slope got steeper, until he was crawling face-first down what he figured was a sixty- to seventy-degree slope, his hands forced to act as brakes, but then it leveled out, and he found himself in a large, dome-like chamber.
In the center of the room were at least a dozen human skeletons, lined up in a row.
TWENTY-NINE
Fiona gave a final shove, and the bulky chain of backpacks that Dean had been reeling toward him reached the steepest angle of the slope and slid down with ease, clearing her view of the chamber ahead for the first time.
Dean grabbed the packs and shoved them aside as Fiona tried to stop herself from sliding down face-first in an undignified end to this stage of the journey. Dean was there to catch her, lifting her to her feet before she landed in a heap.
“Thank you,” she said, leaning against him.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and hugged her to his side. “My pleasure.” He nodded toward the center of the chamber. “Wanna see?”
She nodded, and they both turned, switching on their white lights as soon as they faced away from each other. They’d gotten so practiced at the move of switching from red to white so they didn’t blind each other, it had become second nature in the . . . how long had they been in the volcano? Twenty hours?
It felt like a lifetime, but it hadn’t even been a full day.
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