Out of the Depths

CHAPTER NINE

SMALL CAVERNS. LARGE CAVERNS. Caverns of every size and shape. The lower level of the cave was as intricate as the one above. It was risky to go farther without something to point the way back, and Chance’s pockets were empty.

He did an about-face and retraced his steps, following the coins he’d placed as markers but not picking them up. They would stay as indicators of the area he’d already explored. In a little while, he’d come back and go deeper, but right now he needed to get back to Kyndal. Even more, he wanted to get back to Kyndal.

Like a lab rat sniffing for cheese in a maze, he swept the ground with the light, watching for the glint of metal. Shiny pennies had never been so valuable.

The trail ended, and he squeezed through the narrow opening into the large cavern where they had landed.

The flashlight beam found where the packs had been, but they were gone…along with Kyndal.

Had someone come? His heart beat furiously as he scanned the jagged hole above his head. He held his breath, listening for sounds from above—sounds of rescue. It was crazy. He hadn’t been gone long. Surely he would have heard shouts.

His heartbeat surged into a panicked rhythm. Where was she? “Kyndal!” he shouted.

“I’m over here.”

He moved toward the sound, straining to see past the confines of the narrow light.

He found her, yards away from where he’d left her, leaning against a boulder, taking shots of…a wall?

“Spiders.” She kept her voice low as if she were afraid of giving her location away to the enemy and pointed. “There.”

Chance peered in the direction she indicated, swirling the light around the base of the wall until it fell on a place where the texture seemed to change, even from a distance. The reason for the difference caused his throat to constrict.

The wall was no longer an inanimate object. It had come to life, covered by a multitude of white, scurrying bodies.

Chance stepped back enough to have a head start should they decide to give up their exploration of their home for the promise of fresh meat. He slid the light up the wall and drew a sharp breath. The limestone edifice was a solid mass of intricate webbing, teeming with shimmering, eight-legged bodies.

For reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, the one wall seemed to be the habitat of choice. None of the other areas had any sign of spiders or webs. A water source perhaps? Deep within the rock? The idea made his throat go dry. He and Kyndal would have to be careful with their water. Doing battle with this number of enemies would be an exercise in futility.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she whispered.

“Ghastly. Creepy. Hideous.” He shuddered. “Only a tree hugger could see beauty.”

“Only someone with his head up his ass couldn’t.” She continued taking her shots.

“And yet I still manage to keep my nose clean.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She leaned against the boulder and turned toward him.

“I searched you on Google you last night—interesting article, by the way. All about a scandalous end to your beloved website.”

“I haven’t read it so I’ll take your word. Oh, wait…I probably shouldn’t make that mistake again.” She snatched up her bag and stuffed the camera back into its chamber, keeping the flash out.

“I never lied to you, Kyndal.” The tops of his ears started to burn.

“Obviously, saying you’ll never leave means something different in Brennan-speak.”

“Damn it, Kyndal. You haven’t been entirely truthful, either.” He caught her arm as she pushed past him, but she jerked it out of his grip and hobbled toward the far end of the cavern, which they hadn’t explored yet.

He moved faster, checking the area for additional spider colonies or any other movement. “Why didn’t you tell me you were out of work?”

When Kyndal plopped down against the wall, her face contorted in pain. “Why should I? I’m not out of work. I’m just out of the kind of work that supplies luxuries—you know, the stuff you’ve had all your life.”

The gloves came off at that remark. “The people who lost their jobs because of your damn website needed to eat, too—or didn’t that occur to you? Maybe you’re just reaping what you sowed.”

“If that’s true, your storehouse would be full of bullshit.”

They glared at each other for a long, angry moment, the past hanging between them like a piñata waiting to be broken.

Chance drew a long breath, his own words eating at him as much as her retort. “I’m sorry. I really don’t think you deserve what’s happened. But bad choices follow us—”

She held up her hand to stop him. “I’ll live with my choices and you live with yours.” She waved at the openings. “Now go find us a way out of here. There has to be one.”

Light played off the wall he had yet to explore. Three openings offered hope of a way out—or at least a smaller cavern where they might be warmer.

“Someplace free of spiders,” he grumbled. “They won’t listen to reason, either.”

* * *

KYNDAL LET OUT HER BREATH as Chance disappeared into the wall.

What was it about that man that made her lose control and go off the deep end? One part of her wanted to get as far away from him as possible while another part relished the feel of him against her.

Talk about bad choices. Coming to this cave with him was one of the worst she’d ever made—and not just because of the accident.

Maybe the bump on her head had given her a concussion that had scrambled her thoughts. Or maybe, she’d never gotten over Chance Brennan in the first place. Whatever the reason, she had to get her emotions under control and keep steering the conversations toward the present and not the past.

The teenagers probably wouldn’t be partying until dark—around six o’clock. Her last glimpse at Chance’s watch was maybe half an hour ago. About one-thirty then. So how to keep the conversation light for another four hours? Games? Chance had always been pretty competitive. I Spy was out. Twenty Questions? Too risky, as was Truth or Dare. Rock, Paper, Scissors had possibilities, but her skin crawled at the thought of four hours of it.

Man, a beer would taste so good right now.

A song popped in her head. She hummed a few bars, and then started to sing softly. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottle of beer. Take one down and pass it around…” She made it down to seventy-one before she heard shuffling noises to her left. With any luck, it would be Chance and not a backup horde of spider recruits coming her way.

But luck hadn’t exactly fared well for her lately.

The pinpoint of light expanded as Chance scrambled through the far opening, and her heart pounded with relief at the sight of him. But only because he might’ve found a way out.

He motioned with the light toward the gap he’d come through and started gathering their packs. “There’s a small cavity not too far away that I think will be warmer. Let’s move in there.”

She trembled at the thought of moving farther into the depths, away from the crystal opening with its connection to the upper level. “But if somebody comes, will we hear them that far away?”

“I’ll come out every half hour or so. I’d feel safer if we were farther from the spiders.” He held his hand out.

She took it and immediately regretted the action. His thumb brushed lightly across her knuckles as his gaze found hers. Thoughts of touching him had her primed, so the actual occurrence ran a surge through her. She felt her breath catch in her throat. The electric current followed his hand to her hip where he held her while she balanced shakily on her good foot.

She gave a nervous laugh, much too aware of him. In the stillness, she heard him swallow.

The slight tug pulled her off balance, and she came up hard against him. His free hand caught her around the waist, holding her close, his eyes searching hers, trying to see beyond the shadows. “I can’t deny you still have an effect on me, Kyn. Even after all this time.”

“I know. I feel it, too.”

“Is it wrong? Wrong for me to want you?”

She heard the backpacks and flashlight fall from his grip an instant before his fingers traced a path from her chin to her cheek and into her hair. The light faded away as she closed her eyes. Wanting wasn’t wrong. Wanting was a feeling, and feelings couldn’t be right or wrong.

She shook her head in response to his question, melting into the familiarity of his embrace. His breath hovered just above her mouth, and she rose on tiptoe to capture it, not caring how many others there had been because at that moment, there were only the two of them.

She slid one arm around his waist, the other across his shoulder. Her fingertips played across the back of his neck before gliding into the damp fringe just above it. His back muscles shuddered then relaxed under her palm as she pressed her mouth more firmly against his and parted her lips in invitation.

The darkness wrapped around them, pushing them closer.

The kiss outlasted the first few moments of fevered intensity and settled into a rhythm of languorous sensuality.

It ended as softly as it began.

Their clutch loosened, and Kyndal lowered her weight back onto her good foot, still supported by Chance’s arms.

She could feel his eyes on her even in the dark, knew instinctively he was about to kiss her again. If she didn’t stop it she’d be laying herself wide-open. And, despite what she’d thought a moment ago, that would be wrong. “I can’t…” Trust you with my heart again. You left me, she wanted to say, but this wasn’t the time for an argument. “I can’t do this.” She pushed at his chest, heard his sigh as his hands dropped from her. A searing pain shot through her foot as she placed her toe down to balance.

“You and this guy…” The huskiness in his voice was magnified in the surrounding blackness. “What’s his name?”

“Rick Warren.”

“You and Rick Warren have a good thing going and you don’t want to screw it up. I understand.”

“No, you don’t.” She didn’t want to pick a fight, but she wouldn’t let him believe a lie. In the dark, it was easier to say things the light might not allow. “It has nothing to do with Rick. We haven’t even been on a date yet. He just asked me out yesterday.”

“But Jaci…”

“Was just being Jaci.”

His fingers touched her arm again, worked their way down to grasp her hand as he stepped against her. “So what’s stopping you? Why can’t you do this?”

She shook her hand loose. “We’ve moved on. No use going back.”

There was a long pause and then his voice cut through the darkness. “Enough said.”

The finality in his words lingered, holding her motionless, and she sensed a sudden loss, as if he had vanished from her life again. When she heard the pump of the flashlight, she realized he had only bent down to retrieve their bags.

They avoided eye contact as he took her arm and helped her to the opening.

“It’s sort of a tight squeeze, but it’s not far. We’ll have to crawl.” He shone the light into the tunnel, angling it toward what looked like an indentation in the right-hand side. “That’s where we’re going. Think you’re up to it?”

Kyndal nodded and dropped to all fours. Her knees were already tender, but crawling was a lot easier than hobbling, and she needed some distance from him, even for only a couple of minutes.

She moved slowly, lifting her knees clear of the ground rather than scraping them on the stone beneath. Chance stayed well behind, keeping her path illuminated.

The tunnel continued to a point where it faded into nothingness. Another larger cavern? Did this cave never end?

She followed the angle of the light to the indentation, a quasi-rectangular hole that required her to turn on her side to scoot through. Inside, the small niche appeared to have been formed by a giant ice cream scoop.

Chance followed her in, filling up a large part of the small space while the fresh memory of the kiss they shared lingered in the air, taking up the rest.

Kyndal gave a mental groan at the forced intimacy and sent up a prayer that someone would find them soon.