Quake

by Tracey Alvarez

  Daniel called down instructions on removing the rope harness. Following them, Ana struggled out of it.

  “All right,” she called as Daniel pulled up the rope. “Show us how it’s done.”

  Her legs shook from a combination of strain and adrenaline, and shook even more as Daniel climbed onto the ledge a long, long way up. She still couldn’t quite believe she’d made it down in one piece.

  The rope twisted under Daniel’s thigh, across his torso, and over his shoulder, using the friction of his weight as a brake. He mentioned using a Dülfersitz rappel to get down, since it was impossible for Maggie to belay his weight at the other end of the rope. Whoever this Dülfersitz was, Ana hoped he knew his stuff. It looked pretty damn dangerous to rappel down when the rope wasn’t even attached to his body.

  Daniel flicked a quick thumbs-up signal to her and stepped off the ledge. Boots scuffing the rough brick, he crept backward, angling his body out from the wall as he fed the rope gradually through his fists.

  Chunks of brick and concrete beside her began to vibrate and tumble along the ground. Needle-sharp dread dug into the base of her spine. Oh shit, not now, she thought, a second before the earth heaved and shimmied. She screamed Daniel’s name, trying to find that elusive center of gravity to stay upright.

  Chapter 11

  Saturday, July 24. 8:07 a.m. Lower Hutt, greater Wellington area, New Zealand.

  * * *

  The rope, once protected by the couch cushions, slipped off and shifted across to the next window ledge, snagging against a lethal-looking shard of glass. Daniel clung with one hand to the rope, the other wedged into a zigzagging crack between bricks. The toes of his boots were jammed into other cracks, and his upper body flexed and swayed as he fought the aftershock, trying to keep his body pressed flat into the wall.

  The quake ended as suddenly as it started. Ana clamped her hands over her mouth, stifling a sob. God, if she distracted him—she could see it took all his attention to hold on. Daniel could fall—could die—right in front of her and she couldn’t let that happen. Looking around, frantic for something, anything to help him, she didn’t hear him call her name at first.

  “Ana? Hey, Ana?”

  She scrambled over broken bricks and odd pieces of debris swept into the parking lot by the tsunami. The sound of her name eventually pierced the black bubble of panic surrounding her.

  “What can I do?” she yelled.

  Ana hated to be a hysterical female, one who would flap her hands and wait for a big, strong man to fix everything. But who was she kidding? She felt hysterical. Give her a mind-numbing stack of paperwork or an irate client and her composure remained unruffled. But a life and death situation that involved physical peril? Someone else volunteer for the job, thanks.

  “Don’t panic,” Daniel said. “I’m okay, but I can’t look straight down. You need to be my eyes and tell me where I can put my hands and feet.”

  Ana retied the flyaway strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail and focused on taking three calming breaths.

  “Soon would be good,” he added, deadpan.

  “Yeah. Right. Sorry.” She studied the random cracks and lumps of the bricks, trying to formulate a way for Daniel to descend. She had no clue how to instruct him and swallowed thickly before speaking. “About a metre below you is a narrow ledge.”

  “How narrow?”

  “About the width of your foot.”

  “Any cracks or bricks sticking out between the ledge and my feet? I can see where to put my hands, but not my feet.”

  “There’s a wide crack just below your left foot, and another directly below the center of your body.”

  “Thanks.” Daniel tilted his head up. “Maggie, can you hear me? I’m going to let go of the rope. Pull it back and keep it out of my way. Ready?”

  Maggie, ever efficient, pulled the rope out of the way mere seconds after Daniel released it. Daniel didn’t try to catch it again.

  “What are you doing? Grab the rope.” Ana’s heart jolted into an erratic stutter.

  What she knew of rock climbing, or climbing of any sort, wouldn’t fill a Post-it note. What she did know from observing other climbers at Theo’s birthday party was this: people climbed up a wall but they used a rope to come down.

  “I can’t rely on the rope, it could be compromised.” Daniel found a handhold above his hips with his right hand and lowered his left foot into the gap Ana described. “I’ll be fine.”

  His movements were deliberate and strangely eloquent. She couldn’t drag her gaze away.

  When she hesitated, he called encouragement. “Come on, you’re my eyes.”

  Ana gulped past the lump embedded in her throat each time his foot slipped off a chunk of brick or his fingers scrabbled for purchase inside a crack.

  “I trust you, Ana. You can do this.”

  Once on the second floor ledge, Daniel followed her directions to descend another story, where he dropped the last six feet to land catlike on the ground. He brushed a smattering of dust from his shoulder and stalked toward her, a tawny panther of a man.

  It was a moment that slashed a line in the sand. On one side was Nadia’s brother and the perfect guy to have around in an emergency. On the other side of the line, the one she’d inadvertently stepped over, was simply Daniel. Ana could no longer deny her awareness of him, how he made her blood thrum and heat wash through her body.

  He stopped close enough that she could count each individual flake of brick that dotted his shirt. Heat blistered off him, carrying his unique scent and the raw sting of fresh male sweat. Her mouth went dry, as if the warmth of his body sucked out all the moisture.

  “Could’ve done it blindfolded, huh?” The tip of her tongue swept out to dampen lips that trembled under his fierce contemplation. “You might’ve been killed.”

  Daniel didn’t reply. Instead, he slid a hand along the curve of her jaw. She shivered as his long fingers cradled the back of her head and used them as gentle leverage to pull her off balance. Her hands splayed against his chest, her palms soaking up the heat released from taut muscle.

  “I didn’t need to see. I had you.”

  “Daniel, I don’t think we, I mean I—” Her voice contained a huskiness she didn’t recognize. It was like eavesdropping on a stranger. A stranger who wasted her breath by protesting the inevitable.

  He tugged her up on her toes and dipped his head, the only way to negate the height difference. “You lawyers never run out of arguments, do you?”

  His lips plunged down to bridge the distance. It was as if the touch of his warm mouth shot a stream of pure carbon dioxide through her veins. Her blood fizzed and bubbled. No arguments from her now; she couldn’t even assemble a coherent thought. The rasp of stubble scraped her upper lip and she instinctively opened her mouth wider, a soft moan in her throat as his tongue danced in delicate flirtation. Releasing a fistful of his shirt, her fingers slid upward to cling to his shoulders.

  His breath caught when she leaned into him, surrendered something of her will to meld her body to his hard contours. The feel of him lit a fuse that sparked and travelled south, a bright flare that threatened to combust into wildfire. It shocked her enough that it threw a bucket of cold reason into her brain.

  She dragged her mouth away, gasping his name. His eyes opened and locked with hers, the pupils wide and dark with need. No one had looked at her that way for a long, long time. No one had looked at her that way, period.

  Daniel brushed his thumb along her cheek and removed his other hand from her hip. Then he stepped back, his gaze still on her face.

  Ana tugged the baggy top self-consciously down her hips. A piercing wolf whistle split the air and she nearly leapt a foot off the ground. She and Daniel looked up at the same time. Both Joel and Maggie leaned out the window high above, gigantic grins plastered over their faces.

  A rush of blood exploded into her cheeks. She kinda wished another aftershock would open a chasm under her feet, dispersing her to
the center of the earth. Anything would be better than Joel’s merciless teasing from now until eternity.

  “Hey, Daniel—you finally figured out how to shut her up, eh? Impressive, my man. Don’t think I’ve ever seen Ana speechless, or at least, not kissed speechless.”

  A belly laugh rolled out of the man beside her. Before she could think of a scathing comeback, Joel disappeared. Humiliating though it was to confess, she hadn’t been kissed speechless before—a humiliation she didn’t intend to share with Daniel Calder. He wasn’t going to find out how much one kiss had affected her.

  “There goes my reputation.” Ana injected a small amount of drollness into her tone. With any luck, Daniel would think she was cavalier about the whole kissing thing. Kissing thing? What was she, an awkward teenager?

  “Perhaps.” Daniel brushed more grit from his shirt. “But that was a hell of a reward for making it out alive.”

  With a quiet huff, she pivoted away from him and stomped over to untie the backpack that Maggie had lowered. Boots scraped behind her, and she turned. Daniel leaned against the wall with crossed ankles. A smile, suspicious enough to be labelled a smirk, spread over his face, and those irritatingly cute dimples winked.

  “What are you grinning about?” Ana untied the last knot and yanked the backpack on, firing a warning glare in his direction when it appeared he might step in to help.

  “Oh, I dunno.” Daniel rubbed his fingers across his lips with insolent slowness. “Just thinking a lot more guys would join parkour groups if they got kissed like that at the end of a run.”

  “You kissed me, Farm Boy.”

  He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. Dimples creased his cheeks deeper than before. “You kissed me back, Counselor.”

  Ana folded her arms and opened her mouth to object. She snapped it shut again at the questioning arch of his eyebrow.

  He had her there. Damned if she would admit it, though.

  She spun and stalked toward the parking lot entrance, ignoring the soft sounds of his laughter.

  Chapter 12

  Saturday, July 24. 8:19 a.m. Lower Hutt, greater Wellington area, New Zealand.

  * * *

  Ana’s shapely bottom twitched in tight, irritated jerks. Daniel watched her walk to her car, pushed against the far wall of the small parking lot by the floodwater. He touched a finger thoughtfully to his mouth, the taste of her still on his lips. Why the hell did he kiss her? Okay, part of that answer was simple—she was a beautiful, fascinating woman. When the opportunity presented in an adrenaline-shot haze, he hadn’t resisted the temptation to see if she tasted as good as she looked. And she had. Better, in fact.

  So the kiss and his reaction to it weren’t so easy to slot into a predetermined box, and it chafed. Ana was just another woman who needed saving, and he, the chump unable to resist trying to be her hero.

  Yeah, his heart had given a weird lurch and his stomach had felt as if a fist-sized rock had dropped into it when Ana, her eyes wide and panicked, had climbed over the windowsill above. Having worked with hundreds of soldiers over the years, he could always tell the ones who struggled with heights. Heights weren’t an issue for him; it was the falling that did his head in. Specifically, someone else falling. Someone under his supervision.

  He closed his eyes. A woman’s voice, high pitched and strained to breaking, floated up from the depths of memory. “I can’t move my legs! Why can’t I move them?”

  So what will it cost you, Calder, if you fail?

  He wouldn’t fail. He’d get Ana home safe to her kids without getting emotionally involved.

  Daniel pushed away from the wall and walked across the trash-strewn parking lot, then stubbed a rusted can with his toe and sent it rattling across the concrete. The truth was Ana was like the little red firecrackers he’d played with as a kid. They looked harmless because of their size, but hold them when they exploded and they’d blow the skin right off your fingers.

  By the time he reached the car, Ana had opened the door and stood glowering at the ignition, which clicked uselessly as she twisted the key. “Car’s dead. Not that we would’ve been able to drive the way the streets are anyway.”

  Ana dodged around him to open the passenger door. After dumping her gym gear out of another backpack, she swapped Irene’s sneakers for her own and pulled on a light windbreaker jacket. She gestured to his overnight bag. “Hope you brought another pair of jeans and a shirt. Yours are only good for rags now.”

  Daniel recognized evasion when he heard it because he’d used the technique himself when some well-meaning soul had tried to get him to open up on a topic he wasn’t prepared to discuss. So she didn’t want to talk about that kiss? He’d let it slide. For now.

  “Not bloody likely. They’re my best jeans. I’ll throw them in the wash—they’ll come up good as new.”

  A tentative smile flickered across her mouth.

  Mission accomplished.

  Daniel unzipped his bag and pulled out a clean shirt. He flicked open the buttons on his shirt, yanked it off, and attempted to keep his nose from wrinkling. Now that he’d put her at ease with a joke about his clothes, he was obligated to keep the damn things.

  He sensed her body stiffen and heard a quiet but distinctive inhale as he threw the ruined shirt onto the seat, leaving his upper body bare. For a wicked instant he was tempted to strip off the jeans as well, just to see how Ana would react.

  The idea lost some appeal once he thought it through. Given the way he responded to her nearness only a few minutes ago, standing in boxers would cause him more embarrassment than her. That he wanted her was painfully obvious. He tugged on the shirt then stuffed a woolen sweater and a handful of other clean clothes into the second backpack Ana had emptied.

  Between them, they searched her car for any other useful items, finding a map, first aid kit, flashlight, and a box of hard candy.

  The sidewalk resembled the aftermath of a war rather than a street only a few blocks from the business district of Lower Hutt city. He grimaced, imagining the carnage if her office was situated on Wellington’s Lambton Quay, an area famous for its skyscrapers and New Zealand’s government, housed in the iconic Beehive building.

  One lone bird chirruped above them, but nothing human moved on this small back street. Ana buried her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “I think we should head toward the city center first, and let the officials know about Joel and Maggie…and Irene.”

  He nodded, and carrying a backpack each, they set a brisk pace out of the parking lot.

  Many collapsed structures remained untouched tombs of wreckage. Shop fronts spilled a sea of broken glass over the sidewalk. Chunks of jagged wood, broken masonry, and mud-covered trash lay haphazardly from one side of the street to the other. Dirt and sand from tsunami waters coated everything with a gritty brown varnish.

  A few seconds later and they would have walked right past the young woman crouched by a pile of bricks and concrete, so engrossed in his own thoughts he hadn’t noticed her.

  The woman pointed a bloody finger at the rubble blocking the doorway of a partially caved-in two-story building.

  “Please,” she whimpered. “My baby. He’s in there somewhere.”

  * * *

  Streaks and tear-shaped droplets of blood splattered many of the masonry chunks near the woman’s feet. She appeared to be in her late teens, and heedless of the season she was wearing denim shorts and a tiny tank top. Bruises and grazes covered her bare legs and arms, and her fingertips were bloody.

  “How long have you been digging?” Daniel removed his backpack and reached for a solid chunk of concrete.

  For a moment, Ana hesitated. A selfish instinct rose within her like a dark cloud, intent on eradicating every trace of compassion. What about her kids? Was anyone helping them? A surreptitious glance at her watch showed time galloping on.

  “Since the water went away and through most of the night.” Fat tears rolled down the girl’s cheeks. She switched her
blotchy face toward Ana. “Please help me. It’s Cody’s first birthday on Monday. He’s only a baby. Please.”

  Ana looked around. Where was everyone else? The street was almost empty. On the opposite sidewalk a couple of men in business suits hurried past. She called out, but while one waved and shouted back an apology, the other tucked his head down turtle-like and scurried away faster. Would no one else stop to help this girl? Daniel continued to haul debris.

  Ana took hold of the girl’s raw and bloody hands. “What’s your name?”

  “Kyla. Kyla Jenkins.”

  Ana cast a sideways glance at the building where Kyla’s son was trapped. The bottom floor was a popular café, serving overpriced meals and designer coffees of every description. Ana had eaten there a few times, but it was usually packed with customers and hard to find a seat during the lunch rush.

  “Where was Cody when the quake hit?” she asked.

  “By our table.”

  “And where was your table?” Ana said gently. Nothing of the café interior remained visible from the street as it appeared the floor above had partially caved in. Things didn’t look good for little Cody.

  Kyla wrung her hands together. “On the raised platform section on the left side. Cody loves looking at the Mexican blankets on the wall and there was hardly anyone else inside, so we scored a table there.” She slanted a pleading glance at Daniel. “The platform’s about a foot higher than the rest of the floor so the water wouldn’t have reached him in his stroller.” Her brow crumpled. “It’s a new stroller, too—a sporty one that I can run with. It’s got a pretty sturdy frame.”

  “How did you make it out of the café?” Daniel asked.

  She sniffed, swiping her nose absently with the back of her hand. “I wasn’t inside when the quake hit. We’d just arrived when my boss rang. The music was so loud that I couldn’t hear, and a nice old lady at the table next to us said she’d keep an eye on Cody while I ducked outside.”