Surrender: A Bitter Creek Novel

by Joan Johnston

  Aiden leaned over the enormous trunk and peered into the wafer-thin opening.

  “What do you see?”

  “Nothing.” He leaned his mouth closer and yelled, “Hello! Anybody in there?”

  “Do you really think they’re in there?” Leah said, trying to look in, but seeing the same “nothing” as Aiden. “Why aren’t they answering?”

  “Maybe they can’t.”

  Taylor and Brian had been missing for eight days. They would die without water in three. Leah curled her hands into fists. They’re not dead. Please don’t be dead.

  Aiden surveyed the clearing. “There’s plenty of room here for a helicopter.” He took out his satellite phone and ordered up a chain saw and more searchers, giving their coordinates.

  “I don’t understand why they’re not saying anything,” Leah said, pacing back and forth in front of the log.

  “Maybe they were badly burned by the fire. Or maybe the smoke got them.”

  “Don’t say things like that.”

  “I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Leah. They’ve been missing a long time, especially if they’ve been stuck in that cave without water. I want you to prepare yourself—”

  She put her hands to her ears. “Stop it! Just stop it! Don’t say things like that.”

  She fought the comfort of his arms when he wrapped them around her. But his hold was inexorable, and a moment later she was sobbing against his chest, all the fear she’d been holding inside suddenly released in a torrent of tears. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle the agonized sounds, but the tears continued streaming from her eyes.

  “Don’t, Leah. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  She choked back the next sob that threatened and took the handkerchief Aiden offered. His hands fell away as she stepped back to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. It took her a few moments to compose herself, and she was grateful he didn’t offer platitudes. At last she said, “I can’t believe they escaped the fire and ended up dying in some cave.”

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” he said. “Maybe they got out before the tree came down.”

  She didn’t ask the obvious questions. Why is Brian’s radio out here? Why didn’t he take the supplies from the cargo box with him into the cave? Instead she said, “I think my father’s given up.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Mine, too. Angus thinks we missed finding the bodies at the site where the plane went down.”

  “Finding Brian’s equipment here proves they left the plane before it crashed. That chipped log suggests they found safety in this cave.”

  “Which might have become their tomb,” Aiden added under his breath.

  Leah couldn’t contradict him. They’d both done more shouting into the mouth of the cave while waiting for the helicopter to arrive with reinforcements, to no avail.

  “Leah…”

  Leah had heard her name spoken more than once over the many days they’d spent searching together. She knew Aiden wanted to talk about their marriage. Or rather, the fiasco their marriage had become. She wasn’t ready to do that. She hadn’t made up her mind yet whether she wanted to stay in or get out, and she didn’t want to be talked into some sort of reconciliation with clever words.

  So far, she’d been able to keep Aiden from speaking merely by meeting his gaze with flattened lips and a narrow-eyed glance. This time, she saw a firming of his jaw and a lifting of his chin that suggested a warning glare wasn’t going to do the job.

  “I deserve a chance to explain myself,” he said. “You owe me that.”

  She turned her back on him and walked away, desperate to put some space between them, even though there was nowhere she could really go to escape in this desolate landscape.

  “Turn around, Leah,” he said in a harsh voice. “Listen to me.”

  She whirled and stood with her arms crossed. “Nothing you say will ever make a difference.”

  “Then you might as well let me speak.”

  “Fine. Go ahead. Make your excuses.”

  She should have known he would close the distance between them, that he would end up right in front of her, close enough to touch. She wanted to lower her gaze and avoid looking at him. She wanted to take a step back, so she wouldn’t feel the anger coming off of him in waves. She did neither.

  “It’s true I made a bet with Brian.”

  She felt her throat clog at his admission and her eyes burn with threatened tears. She would not cry. She’d already done too much of that. She lowered her gaze so he wouldn’t see the tears that welled up despite her efforts to blink them back.

  “I never thought…I didn’t realize…” He made a disgusted sound. “Aw, hell, baby, I—”

  Her head came up, along with a surge of anger that made her face flush with heat. “Don’t you dare call me baby,” she snarled. “I let you use a word like that to me because I was willing to be coddled—like a child—by a man I thought loved me. I’m a grown, thinking, rational human being, not a baby. So don’t diminish me by calling me one.”

  She’d never in her life, before she’d dated Aiden, allowed herself to be pampered and called silly love names. It had felt too dangerous. If you were a baby, you were necessarily helpless. That was fine if the person calling you that was big and strong and you trusted him to protect you against any and all threats.

  After discovering Aiden’s deceit, his willing manipulation of her to win a bet with his brother, she felt stupid for believing one of “those awful Flynn boys” could fall in love with her. Aiden had said and done what was necessary to get her to fall in love with him. And she’d been so desperate for love that she’d willingly surrendered in his embrace.

  Well, not again. Never again. No matter what he said.

  “Well?” she said sarcastically. “What’s your excuse for lying to me, Aiden? For allowing me to marry you under false pretenses? That’s what I’ll never understand. How could you allow a bet with your brother to go so far? I thought you loved me. I thought you cared about me. To find out—” Her throat was so thick and painful with emotion she couldn’t speak.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” she croaked. “Oh, God. You’re sorry?” An apology meant it was all true. An apology meant he’d never loved her. An apology was the worst thing he could offer her.

  “I—”

  “No! Don’t say another word. I can’t bear to hear how sorry you are. It’s too late. The time for explanations would have been before you made me your wife.” No excuse for his betrayal was good enough to deserve her forgiveness now.

  Leah believed she’d silenced him. She should have known better. A moment later he gripped her arms and pulled her close enough that she could feel his hot breath on her cheeks.

  “I let it go so far because I fell in love with you. I let it go so far because I couldn’t imagine my life without you. I let it go so far because I feared exactly what’s happening now. I knew if you ever found out, you’d never forgive me, or believe me when I told you the truth.”

  He hesitated, then admitted, “I never intended to fall in love with you.”

  She winced and bit back a moan.

  He shook her and said, “Look at me, damn it!”

  When she did, his eyes were filled with anger…and hopelessness.

  “Don’t you get it?” he raged. “I didn’t want to love you. I never intended to love you, but I do. More than I ever imagined it possible to love anyone.”

  Leah believed he hadn’t wanted to fall in love with her. She was finding it impossible to believe that he had. “How did this miraculous change in your feelings occur? When exactly? Why exactly?”

  He seemed lost for words. She believed it was because he’d never actually fallen in love with her.

  He yanked off his ball cap, shoved a hand through his hair, then pulled the hat back do
wn low. “How the hell do I know when I started loving you? That first kiss? That awful wedding night, when you consoled me because the sex was so bad? Somewhere in between? The point is I love you, Leah. I didn’t tell you about the bet, because I could see no good reason for forfeiting a lifetime of happiness over some ridiculous wager I’d made with my brother, which you had no way of ever discovering. I would have told you someday.”

  She snorted.

  “But not before we’d been married so long, and you were so sure of my love, that it wouldn’t matter.”

  He followed that proclamation with a searing kiss that curled her toes up in her boots. He might have kept on kissing her, except the helicopter appeared overhead, and a passionate kiss between Grayhawk and Flynn would have been difficult to explain. Instead, he let go of her and turned to wave a hand at the copter pilot and gesture toward a landing area he’d cleared while they’d been waiting.

  Leah was left breathless. And speechless. She hadn’t accepted Aiden’s apology, but where excuses were concerned, he’d come up with a doozy.

  I love you. More than I ever thought it possible to love anyone. A man didn’t make a statement like that unless he meant it. Leah thought back to moments in their relationship when Aiden had started to speak and then stopped himself. Had those aborted efforts been attempts to tell her the truth? Had he really been so afraid that she wouldn’t give him a chance to explain?

  She heaved a sigh. He’d been right. That was exactly what she’d done. Refused to listen. Refused to hear the “truth.” Even now, she was afraid to believe him. What if he was lying through his teeth?

  Although, what would be the point of that? Why try so hard to make amends, if he didn’t want to stay married? If he’d really been a scoundrel, why not simply let her get the annulment she’d been planning as soon as there was time?

  That was another thing. She’d had plenty of time to end their marriage, if that was what she’d wanted. What had she been waiting for? Was it possible she didn’t want an annulment? That she’d been waiting for an explanation from Aiden that wouldn’t make her feel like the biggest fool alive for falling in love with him?

  Did she still love him? More to the point, could she ever truly trust him again? Could she ever make herself vulnerable enough to be the one who was “cared for” in the relationship?

  Leah had spent her whole life caring for others, which was why it had been such a novelty to be called “baby” and to willingly let Aiden “take care” of her. She’d done her best to reciprocate, cosseting Aiden in a way she’d never imagined a man might enjoy. She’d discovered that allowing someone else to see your faults and foibles could happen only when a person trusted the other enough to be vulnerable in his or her presence.

  She’d revealed far more to Aiden of her insecurities than she’d ever told another living soul. Which was why his betrayal hurt so much.

  What if he’d been telling the truth just now? What if he really did love her? Where did they go from here?

  Nowhere until Brian and Taylor are found.

  The sudden silence of the buzzing chain saw brought her back to the present. Leah realized that while she’d been caught up in her thoughts, Aiden had removed enough of the tree trunk to free the passage into the cave. The opening was surprisingly small. She could imagine Taylor making her way inside, but it didn’t look large enough for Brian’s broad shoulders.

  A moment later, Aiden proved her wrong by donning a headlamp and wriggling into the hole himself. She stood there only a moment, before she threw herself down and crawled in after him.

  She was grateful Aiden was there to catch her as she tumbled the last several feet headfirst into the cave. She pulled a flashlight from the pocket of a vest she wore and sprayed the light around the cave. Empty bean cans, aluminum foil, Kleenex, and other detritus littered the cave floor.

  Leah picked up the empty tube of antibiotic ointment, and numerous bloody pieces of gauze. “One of them is injured.”

  She saw the furrows on Aiden’s brow and knew he was wondering along with her which one was hurt, and how badly he or she was wounded.

  Then she saw the shine on the cave wall. “They had water!”

  “So they didn’t die of thirst.”

  “Where are they now? They couldn’t have gotten out the way we came in.”

  “Wait here while I check—”

  Leah realized Aiden expected to find Taylor and Brian’s bodies somewhere in the cave, perhaps dying of whatever injury had necessitated medical care—or already dead.

  But there was no smell of decaying flesh.

  “I’m going with you.” She was glad he didn’t argue. She followed him to the back of the cave, which their siblings had been using as a latrine, but there were no bodies, alive or dead. “Where are they?” she asked plaintively.

  The use of the latrine proved they’d been in the cave for a week, at least. But there was no sign of what had happened to them. They’d simply disappeared into thin air.

  “Look!” Aiden’s headlamp shone on an opening high in the cave wall. “They must have gone out that way.” He shot a grin at her and said, “Shall we?”

  Leah realized that once Brian and Taylor were out of the cave, their chances of survival were greater. All she and Aiden would have to do was follow their tracks in the soft ashes and they’d surely find them.

  Since the exit was so high, Aiden hefted her into it first. She held her flashlight out in front of her as she crawled, making first one sharp turn and then another, before coming out on the opposite side of an immense boulder that faced the meadow where the helicopter had landed.

  Aiden appeared a moment later, shoving his way out into the sunshine. “I can’t believe they found that exit. It looks like they had to do a lot of chopping to get rid of the roots around the opening. That suggests to me that at least one of them is able-bodied.”

  “And at least one of them is injured.”

  Aiden spoke to the helicopter on a walkie-talkie and arranged for them to do a survey from the air. He sent searchers out in several directions on foot, then turned to Leah and said, “Let’s go.”

  It didn’t take long, studying the tracks Taylor and Brian had left in the powdery soot, to figure out Brian was limping.

  “At least he can walk,” Aiden said. “They’ve got water, but they must be half starved. The sooner we find them, the better.”

  “Aiden, I…” Her heart was caught in her throat, keeping her from speaking. Which was a good thing, because she had no idea what she wanted to say.

  As he frequently had in their brief relationship, Aiden came to the rescue. “Our problems can wait, Leah. Right now we need to focus on finding Taylor and Brian.”

  THE RAINWATER DRIPPING onto his neck through the parachute overhead felt wonderful to Brian. He was tempted to stand up and let the rain pour over him to cool his fevered flesh. But a clap of thunder, and the smell of ozone as another bolt of lightning zinged through the air, reminded him how risky that would be. The storm was moving off, but he had no desire to abandon his position, wedged comfortably against a tree trunk.

  Taylor had fallen asleep in his embrace. One of his arms had fallen asleep as well, but he didn’t want to move, for fear of waking her. For the first time, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. He wondered how little she’d slept when they were in the cave, and how little she was sleeping out here in the open, while his illness savaged him during the night.

  He could feel the fever taking hold again. In a few minutes he’d need to wake her up and get moving. Every step counted, now that his strength was fading.

  He was a man who’d always been very much in control of his life. As little as a year ago, he’d felt smug and cocksure, knowing he had the world by the tail, with both work and a woman he loved. That complacency had ended with his divorce. After that swift kick in the nuts, he
’d concentrated on being a good firefighter and smoke jumper.

  He’d never imagined Tag would come back into his life, that he might have another chance with her. But if they survived…

  There was the rub. Things weren’t looking too good for him, which was why he hadn’t said anything to her about the future. Tag was in good shape, and she was smart. With a little luck, she might make it. Better not to say anything that would have her grieving once he was gone. She needed to concentrate on staying alive.

  If she cares about you, and it seems she does, won’t she grieve whether you speak or not? Tell her how you feel, Brian. While you still have time.

  He heard Tag snuffle and felt her stretching in his arms. “Hey, sleepyhead. How do you feel?”

  “Hmmph,” she said.

  He watched her open her eyes and saw in their troubled blue depths the sudden realization of where she was.

  She sat up straight and looked around. “The storm’s gone.”

  “It passed off a half hour ago.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  She started to rise, but he tightened his grip on her waist. “I’m not ready to go yet.”

  She pushed against his shoulders. “Half the day is gone, Brian. We need to get moving and find a source of water.”

  “We have plenty of water.”

  “I want enough water to sponge you off and keep your fever down overnight.”

  That was plain speaking. There was no use arguing that he wasn’t as sick as she believed he was.

  “Come on, Brian. Let me up.”

  Reluctantly, he released her. She shoved her way onto her feet, then turned and gripped his hands to pull him upright.

  It frightened him to realize he needed her help. Before he could reach for the parachute, she’d already pulled it off the branches where it had been hanging, shaken it to get rid of as much water as she could, and begun folding it up. Instead of handing it to him, she draped it over her own shoulder, along with the sleeping bag.

  Brian had realized something else while he’d been watching Tag sleep. Their trail, which would have been simple to follow in the soft soot left by the fire, had likely been washed out by the heavy rain. Of course, none of that mattered unless someone had located the cave where they’d been hiding and started tracking them before the rain began.