All He Ever Wanted

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  She saw Cameron’s arm lift. The man was probably too choked up to speak. Her conscience bit at her some for speaking so harshly to him, but she ignored it and turned her focus back to Erik.

  “So.” She tugged off her gloves and pulled out her flashlight again to shine it over him as she crouched next to him. “Seriously. What were you doing coming out here by yourself?”

  “Wasn’t by myself,” he defended. “I was with Tommy Bodecker, ’cause it was his dare.”

  Good Lord. Save her from boyhood dares. She slowly felt along his arms and legs. “Is Tommy in your class at school?”

  “Nah. He’s ten already.”

  “And where’s Tommy now?” She wasn’t familiar with the Bodecker family.

  Erik made a face. “He went home ’cause it started to snow.”

  “I see. And you didn’t go with him, because…why?”

  “’Cause of the dare,” he said as if it should be perfectly obvious. “He said I was ascared of ghosts an’ I told him I was not. And he said if I wasn’t then how come I never came out here and saw ’em for myself.”

  “Ghosts. I see. Tommy Bodecker thinks there are ghosts here in the mine?”

  “Yeah.” Erik flinched a little when she ran her fingers over his shoulder, but he didn’t complain.

  “So when he left you out here by yourself, you figured you had to stay.” She discovered the enormous goose egg behind his ear. “And prove you weren’t scared.”

  His expression was approving. “Yeah.”

  She’d have a few things to say to Tommy Bodecker if and when she caught up to him. “I think I might have heard of it if Tommy had ever spent the night in the Queen of Hearts,” she murmured. “So if anyone’s the authority on ghosts here, that’d be you.”

  “Oh.” A dimple snuck out from his cheeks. “Yeah.”

  “So? Were there any ghosts?”

  He shook his head.

  “Just bats?”

  He nodded.

  He was adorable. “Think you can stand up so I can get you into this harness?”

  He scrambled to his feet, hunching over a little, definitely off balance. She steadied him as she helped him into the rescue harness, adjusting the webbing, fastening off her rope to him.

  “What do I gotta do?”

  “Not a thing,” she promised. “I’ve got you roped off up top. I’m just going to pull on this end, and you’re going to lift out. Simple as can be.” She suited actions to words and his feet left the ground.

  “Cool.”

  “It’s cool that I can get you out of here,” she said, bringing him eye-level with her. “If you want to learn how to climb, you should do it properly next time. Ever seen the rock climbing gym at Extension Sporting Goods?”

  His eyes were enormous. “I seen it, but my dad’s never let me do it.”

  “Tell him they give classes there. You ready to go?”

  He nodded.

  “Just tell me if you want me to slow you down or anything. If you feel sick to your stomach or anything.”

  His head bobbed yet again and he winced, going still. “I hurt.”

  She gently ran her hand over his tousled hair. “I know, sweetie. But you’re going to be okay.”

  “Dad’s mad.”

  “He’s gladder that we found you,” she promised. “Ready?”

  His eyelashes were drooping. “Uh-huh.”

  She began working the rope, levering him upward. It took less time to raise him to the top than it had for her to make the descent. And she knew the moment he was close enough for Cameron to grab hold, because the weight of him was immediately lifted from her braced body. Moments later, the rope snaked back down to her again.

  She let out a long breath and willed her legs to stop shaking. She could hear the high pitch of Erik’s voice and the lower murmur of Cameron’s and didn’t have to work hard to imagine the relief that would be in the man’s deep brown eyes.

  Pulling out her flashlight again, she played its light over her confines. In both directions, the tunnel had completely caved in. Directly above her was none too stable, either, considering the rotting timber on which Erik had managed to land.

  It was considerably warmer below surface, though, which was a blessing. If Erik had been more exposed during the storm—

  She cut off the thought. Her coat lay in a shadowy heap and she grabbed it, tying it off her belt. Her hip ached with a sharp throb where she’d connected with the embedded rock. She could only imagine the bumps Erik had sustained.

  She moved until she could see sky again. “Use the radio,” she called up. “Find out what’s holding them up. Erik needs medical attention.”

  Cameron’s head appeared. “Already called. Ambulance is on its way,” he yelled back.

  Well. She had to give the man credit for thinking.

  And now that Erik was up top, the effects of the last day were definitely starting to wear on her. She wanted a hot bath and sleep.

  Neither of which she was going to get if she didn’t get herself out of the mine.

  If the ambulance or Fire hadn’t managed to make their way to them by the time Faith made it out, she’d tell Cam to take Erik to the hospital on the snowmobile. They could always send someone back for her.

  In this section of the mine shaft, there was no wall to climb up, and the rotting beams that had caught Erik were too unstable to use as support. So she climbed the rope. Hand over hand, rope snaking between her twisted boots. For the first time in a long while, she actually felt grateful for the number of times her ex-husband had challenged her on the ropes while they’d been living in Albuquerque.

  “How are you coming?”

  Cameron’s voice startled her and she jerked a little, knocking her knee on one of the beams. The wood creaked and debris fell. “Coming up,” she told him, carefully pulling herself up the thick rope, beyond the treacherous wood. She was starting to feel light-headed and wasn’t certain if it was simply hunger, the expulsion of her adrenaline, or the air quality in the mine. Whatever it was, it made her stop for a moment, suspended there on the rope, as she waited for the spinning to stop.

  A lovely time to remember that neither rock climbing nor ropes had ever been her favorite pastime.

  At last, she heard the whine of a siren coming closer.

  She swallowed, and cautiously began again. But when she reached that same, particularly narrow patch with the rock her hip had already greeted intimately, she had to slow again.

  Even though she’d tied the coat off and it hung harmlessly down behind her, it still created too much bulk. She pulled it loose and let it fall again. Pity. They had to buy their own uniforms and those coats didn’t come cheap. Her sweatshirt wasn’t much of a help, either, she discovered, and she inched down a bit on the rope, twining her legs tightly to keep her balance, and worked out of it, leaving her with only the thin waffle-weave of her thermal undershirt. But it gave her the quarter-inch she needed, and she started to squeeze past the obstruction, earning herself a fresh set of scrapes and bruises in the process.

  But just when she thought she was within sight of passing it, another cascade of dirt rained down on her head, blinding her. She swore, ducking, and lost several precious inches. The dirt just kept coming, piling in around her, filling in the bare spaces between her body and the eroding walls.

  Panic nipped at her with nasty teeth. The downfall eased and she finally lifted her head, squinting against the dust that wanted to attack her eyes.

  “Cameron!” His name was a hoarse yell.

  “I got you.” His voice was audible, though she couldn’t make him out beyond the swirling dirt. “The last board collapsed. Ground’s caving in.”

  She wriggled, trying to turn her hipbone away from the rock. Something caught. A strap of her harness. A fold of her pants. Something. She coughed, spitting dirt out of her mouth. Freeing one hand to wipe at her face. “I’m stuck!”

  She could hear him swearing. “I’m gonna pull you up.”
r />   The rope went tight as a wire. She could feel it dragging at her, as surely as she could feel the earth keeping her in its greedy grasp.

  “Wait!” Tears burned her eyes. It felt like she was being split into two.

  The rope eased. She tilted her head back. The hole up top was wider, yet it was filling up where she was pinned as if she were some thumb plugging up a dike. Cameron stared down at her. The siren was growing louder.

  It felt as if hours had passed since she’d lifted the boy out of the mine, but she knew it was only minutes.

  “Keep Erik away from the hole.”

  “He’s sitting by the snowmobile.”

  There was still space for her feet to move. She felt around, seeking some leverage to push up, but found none. Her toes were getting numb and the pressure on her chest was making her dizzy. Her hand was trapped near her abdomen and she worked her fingers around until she found a buckle.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  “Having a tea party,” she muttered. “I have to get out of my harness,” she said as loudly as her compressed chest allowed.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “A shovel, if more dirt comes down here.” She coughed. Every time she inhaled, she got a lungful of dust, and with her free hand, she stretched the collar of her thermal shirt up over her chin and nose.

  “At least you’ve got a sense of humor,” she heard him say.

  At least he got the fact she’d been facetious.

  Her fingers strained to work the webbed strap free. There was no question of when the buckle loosened, because she felt an immediate release of pressure pulling down on her hips. She held tightly to the rope with her free hand as she wriggled a little more, trying to gain more space. She could feel the warmth of blood where her skin was being torn away by the immovable rock. Her boots scrabbled and she finally managed to pull herself upward a few precious inches. She exhaled, sucked in her stomach, and scraped past the rock. At last, her other hand was free, and she grabbed the rope with it. “Okay, now pull.” The siren was so loud now, she wasn’t sure he’d even hear her.

  Her voice was barely audible, but Cam heard. He braced himself and pulled on the rope. Not that she weighed much. But every time he moved his foot, he feared another cubic foot of earth was going to collapse in on her.

  And he still had one eye on his son. Erik had lain on his side in the snow. “Erik!” His voice was rough.

  His boy lifted his hand slightly, and relief eased the vise around his heart. But Faith was still hanging on to the end of the rope.

  He dragged on it, hauling it upward. Faith’s head appeared and he grabbed her shoulders, bodily lifting her the rest of the way just as the ambulance, preceded by a snowplow, arrived. Two police vehicles followed.

  He pulled Faith clear of the crumbling hole, plunged several feet away and settled her in the snow. It seemed a better choice, rather than keeping her tightly against him. Her fingers were still locked around the rope and he carefully loosened them. Her knuckles were raw. Bloody. He’d tended plenty of banged up football players—broken noses, broken legs, split lips. The sight of blood had never bothered him before.

  It did now. He didn’t even have something clean and soft to wrap around her hands.

  “See to Erik.” Her voice was husky. She was caked with dirt, but he could still see the blood seeping through her skinny white thermal shirt. More blood.

  “Can you walk?” He tore out of his coat and cautiously pulled it around her shoulders, shaking off the unwelcome urge to wrap his arms around her as well.

  “I’m okay.” The fuzziness in her hazel eyes was already starting to clear. She turned her head, looking back at the erosion hole. “Thank you.”

  Cam shoved his shaking hand through his hair. “Thank you,” he said huskily. Then, because he couldn’t leave her lying in the snow any more than he could leave his son for a moment longer, he scooped her up.

  “I can walk,” she muttered. But her head still fell tiredly to his shoulder. Ignoring her protest, he carried her over to where the paramedic was bending over Erik.

  “She’s bleeding,” he announced, settling her on the seat of the snowmobile. Letting go was harder than it should have been, and he took a few steps away. As if he could step away from the knot she caused inside him.

  The paramedic lifted his blond head and Cam realized the man wasn’t a paramedic at all, but one of the doctors from the hospital.

  “What’re you doing here?” Faith asked the man.

  “You kidding? The whole town’s talking about you finding Erik down in the Queen of Hearts.”

  Faith’s lips twisted a little. Her gaze flicked up to Cameron. “This is my brother. Dr. Christopher Taylor.” Then she looked back at Erik, who was staring at her as if she’d sprouted wings. “How’s he doing?”

  “Good, considering.” The doctor grinned at Cam’s son, and the resemblance between the Taylors became even more apparent. “I want to run some tests, check him in for observation for a few days, just to be safe.”

  “I don’t wanna.”

  “You hit your head pretty hard, pal,” the doctor said smoothly. “We need to make sure you heal up okay from that.”

  “Daddy?”

  Cam crouched down beside Erik. His hands shook as he smoothed back his son’s hair. His boy had his coloring, but every time he looked at Erik, he saw so much of Laura looking back at him. How would he have gone on if he’d lost Erik, too? “I’ll go with you.”

  The ambulance driver and the snowplow driver stood by with a stretcher, and the doctor placed Erik on it. He’d already hooked up an IV to Erik’s arm and he handed the bag to Cam to carry alongside. “For dehydration,” he said.

  They started for the ambulance, but Cam hesitated. “What about Faith?”

  She waved her hand. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

  The doctor snorted. “Hardly. You’re going, too, Faith.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, clearly rallying. “Not today, Topher.”

  Judging by the tone in her voice, the nickname wasn’t one the doctor particularly enjoyed hearing. And the man obviously wanted to argue. But there was no hiding his urgency in getting Erik to the hospital. Cam was feeling pretty urgent, too.

  “Go.” Faith waved her hand. “I can bandage up my own scrapes.”

  The doctor leaned over and whipped Faith’s shirt up above her waist. Cam winced even as Faith was jerking her shirt back down over the torn pants and raw flesh. “You need to go to the hospital,” he said flatly. “And not on that snowmobile.”

  “I’ll go by after I’ve had a shower,” she said stiffly. “And I won’t take the snowmobile.”

  “If you don’t, Faith—” Doctor Taylor cut off his threat when Erik wretched.

  “Go,” Faith insisted to Cam as the doc tended his son. “There’s not room in the ambulance for all of us. I’ll grab a ride with the uniforms.” She waved a hand toward the police officers who were struggling through the snow toward the dangerous hole. “I’ll send someone back later for the cat. And Cam’s truck.”

  Then, as if the matter was settled, Faith leaned over, grabbed her radio, and began speaking into it. She hardly seemed to notice her injured fingers.

  The doctor quickly loaded Erik into the ambulance and Cam moved aside in the confined space to make room for Dr. Taylor. In seconds, the ambulance lurched and began crunching over the frozen ground.

  Through the rear window, Cam watched Faith Taylor. She looked incredibly small inside the bulk of his coat.

  If she hadn’t gone down to get his son when she had, Erik might have still been down there when the hole caved in even more.

  “Remarkable, isn’t she?” Dr. Taylor’s voice was quiet.

  Cam dragged his gaze away from the woman. His fingers tightened around Erik’s small hand. “Remarkable,” he agreed after a moment.

  And he owed his son’s safety to her.

  But that still didn’t mean he welcomed the effect she had o
n him.

  Chapter Four

  The only thing holding Faith upright was the door-jamb of her front door against her spine. She waved at Teddy as he departed. She’d ended up riding back with the snowplow driver since it had quickly become clear that the police would be occupied for a while securing the erosion hole.

  As soon as the snowplow lumbered down the street, however, she slunk inside her condo and nudged the door closed. Cameron Stevenson’s coat slid off her shoulders and she left it where it lay, shuffling straight to the bathroom.

  She flipped on the shower, letting the room fill with steam while she summoned enough stamina to peel out of her clothes. When she did, a cloud of dirt puffed out to settle on the pale green rug. She ignored that, too, and stepped under the hot spray, wincing as the water found her wounds and swirled around her feet in a cloud of dirt and blood. She rinsed the worst of the dirt from her hair and the moment she felt reasonably clean, she flipped the rush of water from the shower-head to the faucet, and filled the tub, sinking down with relief.

  She soaked until her skin pruned and the water cooled. And then, because her muscles were stiffening beyond belief, she made herself get out of the tub before it got any worse. She gingerly spread antibiotic ointment over her cuts and scrapes, used up every bandage she managed to unearth in her medicine cabinet, then padded barefoot into her bedroom.

  She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She opened her closet and pulled a clean oversize T-shirt from a neat stack. As she did so, her gaze lifted, as it always did, to the pastel items folded on the top shelf.

  Then she firmly closed the door and climbed into bed, pulling her quilt up to her ears. The phone rang, but she ignored it, knowing her answering machine would pick it up eventually.

  Once she’d had a nap, she’d go check on Erik at the hospital.

  But it wasn’t the boy who was on her mind when she fell asleep moments later.

  It was the boy’s father.

  “Pull a stunt like that again, Taylor, and you’re off the team.” Jim Shepherd’s eyes were level as he stood smack-dab in the corridor outside Thunder Canyon General’s pediatric unit. Faith hadn’t managed to visit Erik at the hospital the prior day, simply because she’d slept clean through to the next morning. Now, after spending the morning at the fire station, it was lunchtime, and she simply was not going to be delayed any longer.