His tone was soothing and his words seemed to make sense. The massage momentarily hypnotised her, and for a few seconds she lay with her eyes closed, letting his fingers work their magic. When the worst of the thumping in her head had passed she eased her eyelashes apart.
Nothing had changed. They were still trapped. A huge, rough wall of dirt sealed them from the outside and the dry smell of ancient earth, mixed with a sulphurous odour, hovered in the air.
A bone-chilling tremor wracked her body. Her insides knotted and her breath came in painful interrupted bursts. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them to her, the thought of the vast mountain of earth above dragging a sob from her constricted throat. ‘Are we going to die?’
‘No,’ he assured her. ‘No way. I promise.’
He spoke with authority, but her brain refused to accept his words at face value. The spectre of death—the thought of never seeing her baby again, of leaving Drew motherless—overwhelmed her and she couldn’t seem to drag any air into her lungs.
‘I—I—’ she somehow managed, fighting for breath. ‘I’m frightened.’
He bundled her up possessively. ‘You’re gonna be fine. I promise.’
She swivelled her face around. The fingers stroking her cheek and his calm smile of certainty heartened her, only slightly but enough to give her back a tiny portion of her lost courage.
Then her teeth began chattering uncontrollably. ‘I—I’m c—cold.’ Was she going into shock?
He tightened his hold, as if trying to absorb her tremors, or to imbue her with some of his own strength. ‘Here, put this around you.’
He let her go, dragged his t-shirt up over his head and wrapped it around her shoulders. His body warmth and comforting familiar scent lingered in the fabric.
‘Everything’s gonna be okay.’ He sounded so sure she could almost believe him. She would see her son again.
Lying in the pile of opal dirt, she clung to Jamie, listening to his whispered words of comfort and encouragement, his hands rubbing at her hunched shoulders. Gradually the shivers subsided and warmth began to creep back in. The rasp of his breath in her ear, keeping time with the rise and fall of his bare chest beneath her hands, was so calming she must have dozed off momentarily.
Next thing she knew, he was shaking her. ‘Gem?’ Fear quavered his voice. ‘You awake?’
She nodded drowsily.
‘Don’t do that. I thought you’d lost consciousness again,’ he said in a rush.
She’d never imagined Jamie fearful of anything, yet here he was, afraid for her. Tears pricked her eyes.
‘I d—didn’t m—mean to,’ she said brokenly.
‘Hey, it’s okay.’ He chucked her under the chin. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘I—I’m not crying. It—it’s all this damn dust.’
‘You’re arguing with me. I’ll take that as a sign of a return to normal.’
‘I’m not arguing.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘I’m not,’ she insisted.
He raised both hands and spread his fingers. ‘I rest my case.’
Despite everything a small sob of a laugh forced itself out. It turned into a cough so raw her eyes teared up. Jamie passed her the water bottle. She tried to pour some into her mouth with hands trembling so much she spilled more than she swallowed.
‘Here.’ He braced her fingers with one hand while she took a sip, his touch strong and reassuring.
She looked up into his face, noticing for the first time the blood oozing along his square-cut jaw. ‘You’re hurt.’
He smeared the drops away. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Let me have a look.’
At her insistence he obliged, perhaps understanding her need to do something physical, to not be so helpless. The shadow cast by the brim of his hard hat made seeing difficult. ‘You’ll have to take the hat off.’
She trained the headlamp onto his face. The blood emanated from the wound on his cheek, courtesy of last night’s brawl. She used his t-shirt to press against the cut and he winced.
‘That’ll teach you to pick fights,’ she said, talking to fill the eerie silence, trying to take back some small semblance of self-control. Breathe slow. Focus on what you’re doing.
‘Is that any way to treat the person who’s gonna get you out of here?’
She glanced uneasily at the wall of earth barring their only exit, inhaled the ever-increasing stuffiness of the air. ‘We are going to get out, aren’t we?’ A sense of foreboding continued to send shivers coursing through her.
‘Absolutely.’ He flashed her a wink.
Though there was nothing in his confident manner but the promise of safety, goose bumps shivered across her skin at the prospect of what awaited them if they didn’t. And if anything happened to her, the ramifications for Drew didn’t even bear thinking about.
‘I want to believe you but I can’t see how.’
His hand went to his heart. ‘Trust me, okay?’
Trust. That word again. Did she have it in her to put her trust in him?
She wanted to. Desperately. Wanted to believe he’d be true to his word and get them out, but the years her mind had spent tarnishing his white-knight image had left her with little faith. ‘What can you possibly do?’
‘Dig,’ he said, standing.
Her whole body ached but she needed to be doing something to take her mind off the terror of their situation. Driven by a mixture of fear and adrenalin, she began struggling to her feet. The movement shot a burning hurt through her forehead that set red and black spots pulsating before her eyes.
‘Let’s do it,’ she said through a pain-filled haze.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Helping you.’ Her brain was fixed on one overriding thought: escape from the ominous weight of earth looming above them. With two of them digging they’d be free that much quicker.
‘Sit down, Gem.’
‘I’m tougher than you think,’ she ground out through teeth clenched in pain.
He gave her a long-suffering look. ‘I already told you, I don’t want to argue with you.’
‘Then don’t. Are you going to help me or not?’
She found herself dragged up into his arms, head still swimming slightly but probably capable of self-support if she kept a hand pressed against the wall. Jamie continued to hold her until she stood steady then, little by little, let her go. But when she bent to retrieve the pick from beneath her feet, the fast movement was too much. A kaleidoscope of lights danced in her vision, setting her head spinning. Knees shaking uncontrollably, she plopped down on her backside.
‘Ow!’
He was beside her in an instant, one muscled arm around her shoulders easing her back against the support of the earth wall. Concerned blue eyes searched her face. She was so grateful for his strength that at that moment she could even have handled an ‘I told you so’ but, with his usual mind-reading act, he shook his head. ‘Not gonna say it.’
‘Yeah, right. Next thing you’ll be telling me chickens do have teeth.’
‘I’ve got the scars to prove it.’ He held out his work-roughened hands for her inspection. ‘Didn’t I tell you about the chicken farm I worked at once?’
She offered up a tight little smile. He returned one of his own and they both fell silent for a moment.
Then Jamie gently caressed her shoulder. ‘This isn’t getting us out of here.’ He stood to retrieve the pick from the floor then scrabbled over to examine the obstruction standing between them and freedom.
In the dim light provided by the beam of the hard hat she watched him run his hand over the fall then stand back. He raised his pick and started hacking. With each swing the hardened muscles of his naked shoulders and back rippled with the effort, power etched in every movement. Within minutes his torso, mottled with bruises from last night’s fight, glittered with perspiration. She studied the play of the torchlight on his sweat-sheened body and found herself wanting to reach
out and touch it, as much for reassurance that he really was there as for anything else.
Or so she told herself, her eyes closing to focus on the flickering patterns behind her eyelids. She must have dozed; the next thing she was aware of was Jamie panting with exertion.
‘We’ll be through any minute now.’ He paused to wipe away sweat with the back of a hand.
She roused herself enough to hand over the nearly empty water bottle then rubbed at the tension in her neck. The earlier sharp pain had been replaced by a dull, thudding ache behind her eyes. Laboured minutes had now stretched into an hour and the promised breakthrough obviously hadn’t eventuated.
Dislodged dust eddied in the trapped air of the confined passageway, and she was having more and more difficulty breathing. Perspiration flowed from what had to be every pore in her body; her t-shirt was plastered to her back and her hair lay hot and sticky on her neck. And worst of all, the strength of the torch beam was deteriorating. Rapidly.
‘Let’s swap to the lamp on my hat,’ she suggested.
He hesitated, grabbed his t-shirt to mop his sweat-and-dust-streaked face then nodded towards the hat held in her hands. ‘Don’t bother. That should last us till we get out of here.’
The hollowness in his voice sent a shiver coursing through her. Should last? For the first time he sounded less than sure.
Despite the ever-deepening dark shadowing his face, she recognised unmistakable strain: taut lines along his jaw, an aggressive thrust to his neck. Their eyes met and his slid away.
What was going on?
‘I’ll look for it, just in case.’
She began sweeping the light back and forth over the dirt floor. Jamie reached out and took the torch from her. ‘I said there’s no need.’ He placed it on the ground, aimed the beam once again at where he’d been digging and returned to work.
Why was there no need? Why didn’t he want her to look for it? Locating the other headlamp was a safety precaution. If they left the searching too late they’d be plunged into total darkness again. Terror gripped at the abrupt memory of the most traumatic experience of her childhood—trapped in a rusty old fridge in the backyard of a friend’s place while playing hide-and-seek. The horror of being imprisoned for an hour in the almost-airless void—the blackness so absolute she couldn’t see a thing, unable to hear anything but her own panicked breathing—still haunted her.
Heart pounding violently, she wiped sweaty palms on her shorts. The air itself seemed to be weighing her down, thick and constrictive as a horse-blanket. She watched Jamie’s increasingly herculean digging efforts with growing alarm. Why was he going at it as if their lives depended on it? He’d promised her they weren’t going to die down here. But then he’d promised her things in the past, things that had never eventuated.
She swallowed back the scream threatening to escape and, arms outstretched, reached for the wall of the tunnel, dots eddying in front of her eyes. Wasn’t dizziness one of the signs of oxygen deprivation? Maybe their lives did depend on how quickly he could get them out of here.
To be buried in this premature grave ...
No. She fought the thought down. No! She was not going to die; not going to leave her son to be raised by a man she had no respect for. A man who wasn’t even his real father. Jamie had promised he’d get her out and he would. He would. He wouldn’t let her down again. Wouldn’t dare. She’d never let him hear the end of it.
A hysterical chuckle emanated from way down deep in her lungs. The problem was she’d have to follow him through to the next life to do that. The chuckle turned into a ragged cough as stirred-up dirt stung the back of her throat.
He was instantly beside her, strong hands on her shoulders, worried face peering into hers. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I—I’m starting to get a little claustrophobic. Please help me find the other torch.’ She hoped he couldn’t hear her fear, hated appearing so weak.
He stood silent, the flickering muscle at his jaw betraying the difficulty he was having in formulating what he needed to say; he appeared to be wrestling with something big. At last he spoke. ‘It got smashed in the fall.’
Fear gorged her throat, a steel band clamping her chest, winding tighter and tighter. What was he doing, telling her things she didn’t want to hear? Didn’t he understand she wasn’t as strong as she made out? She prided herself on being a realist, but right now she needed platitudes, not the horror of the ugly truth. Any second they might be engulfed in total blackness, with not even a hope of light until they were rescued.
If they were rescued. She started to shiver uncontrollably.
They were entombed.
Suddenly the earth walls were closing in on her. She panted, gasping for breath in the increasingly stuffy air before sinking to the ground, all strength gone.
Jamie hunkered down beside her, wrapping his arm about her shoulders. ‘Breathe ... in ... out. That’s it. In. Out. You’re doing good.’
She followed his instructions, concentrating only on the sound of his voice, his arms around her a circle of safety. And as his strength and calm seeped into her once again, the mind-numbing terror gradually ebbed, fading into a feeling closer to a dream than to reality.
The only thing she knew for sure was that for the moment she was safe. Beyond that ... ? She refused to think. Jamie’s body solid against hers, his soothing words and soft caresses were enough for now. They had to be. She buried her nose deeper into his neck, inhaling his familiar smell.
‘Th—thanks. I think I’m okay.’ She braved a small smile up at him.
He pressed his lips to her hair. ‘That’s my girl.’
When he moved to pull away, her arms tightened around him. ‘Don’t leave. Just hold me. Please.’ His body had become her lifeline; she didn’t have the strength to let him go.
‘Gem,’ he said gently but firmly, ‘the battery’s running out. I have to keep going while I can still make out where I need to dig.’
Reality sank back in. He was right. But she still needed a little more time in the safety of his arms. Fighting down the hysteria once again rising inside, she summoned every trace, every ounce of courage in her body, and came to a terrifying decision. ‘Turn the lamp off. Save the battery. Just don’t leave me alone. Not yet.’
He hugged her to him. ‘Are you sure you can handle the dark? I know it freaks you out.’
She took a deep shuddery breath. ‘If you hold me and keep talking I—I think I’ll be all right.’
His hand caressed her cheek. ‘Okay.’ He tilted her face gently up to meet his. ‘But first, where’s that shell you found?’
Where was it? She patted at the pockets of her shorts and pulled it out. ‘Here.’
He closed her hand tightly over it with his own. ‘Opals are supposed to symbolise good luck. I believe that and I want you to believe, too. Now, close your eyes and imagine you’re somewhere safe and cool.’
He stretched his massive arm about her shoulders. She shut her eyes to do as he said but when the click of the switch met her ears, the press of the unseen solid black void closing in on her brought all the terror back. ‘Talk to me Jamie.’ Did he hear her panic?
‘I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.’ His tone was emphatic, reassuring. If anyone could get them out of this he could. ‘Harry must have felt the tremor,’ he continued. ‘He’ll have organised a rescue team and if they haven’t started digging, they soon will. My dad won’t stop until he finds us.’
‘You have a lot of faith in him,’ she whispered into the dark, a tight rein held on her voice to fight the horror that threatened to engulf her.
‘I do. Harry’s been the one constant in my life, always getting me out of trouble.’
‘What? What sort of trouble?’
He cleared his throat as if uncomfortable with the admission. ‘Stupid teenage stuff. Vandalism. Petty theft.’
‘You?’ she gasped, disbelieving.
‘Yeah, I kinda fell apart after Mum died. I was angry
with her for leaving me, angry with Harry for not being able to stop her death from happening. Angry with the world, I guess. I got mixed up with a ratbag gang. Went a bit wild.’
‘Why did you never tell me about this?’
‘It’s not something I wanted anyone to know. Lucky for me, Harry rescued me. He sold the house and dragged me around Australia with him while he worked at whatever job he could find. I hated leaving our home, hated our new life to begin with, but I reckon I would’ve ended up in jail if he hadn’t done what he did.’
‘Oh, Jamie, I had no idea. Not all fathers would make a sacrifice like that.’
‘No, they wouldn’t.’ The words came out slowly. ‘And it’s not ... easy for me to deal with, knowing I’m responsible for forcing him to sell our family home. See, Mum ... she ... ’ The catch in his voice nearly brought her undone. ‘She loved that house.’
The poignancy filled her with an aching sadness. ‘That must’ve been so tough on you both.’
‘Yep.’ He sat silent a moment before regrouping. ‘But Harry insisted life on the road would make a man of me. He made me keep up my education through long-distance but I learned more from him than from the schooling—resilience, self-reliance, self-respect. The importance of family.’
The loving respect in his tone caused something to shift within her chest and she had to fight a strong urge to reach out and stroke his cheek, to comfort him as he’d been comforting her. She’d never been privy to this side of him back when they were first together; despite her questions he’d never talked much about his family.
She didn’t want her overt sympathy to distract him from it now so she just squeezed his hand. ‘Your dad’s a very impressive man.’
‘He is, and I owe him more than I could ever hope to pay back. Until now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There are things I’ve wanted to tell you, Gem, about why I can’t sell Gracie to your museum. But the damn timing’s been completely off. The reason I have to get as much money as possible is—’ He hesitated.
‘Go on,’ she prompted.
‘I’m buying our house back. I intend to repay everything Harry’s done for me.’
Falling In Love Again Page 12
