Something inside the Ice Queen started to thaw.
“Right now?” he teased.
She clawed his back and felt sand beneath her fingertips. “I’ll let you rest. Maybe after a swim.”
“How nice of you,” he said with a laugh. He rolled to his side and pulled her with him. He blew out a breath as if saying damn that was amazing.
“I know, huh?”
He kissed the top of her head in response.
“I didn’t even mind the sand… much.” It was everywhere. Sticking to her skin wherever Trent touched.
“The sand sucks.”
She kissed his jaw and moved away from him a few inches. Her body buzzed with energy and a need to move. “How about that swim? Wash off?”
He placed his hands behind his head and watched as she reached for her underwear. The smile on his face never fell. “You’re beautiful,” he told her, making her pause. His stare was a little unnerving. It seemed there was something else he wanted to say but didn’t.
She dropped her hand to his leg. “You’re all kinds of sexy yourself, Barefoot.”
He reached for her then, and kissed her. When he pulled away he took the bra from her fingertips and tossed it to the side. “No need for this.” He stood and brought her with him. “When will you have the opportunity to skinny-dip on a beach again?”
She didn’t consider herself an exhibitionist, but she wasn’t shy either. With a smile she said, “That ground is hard on the back. Last one in is on bottom the next time.” Then she turned and ran.
Trent caught her at the water’s edge and picked her up around the waist. Together they fell into the water.
She emerged shaking water from her hair and smiling. Trent held her and pulled her deeper. “That’s not fair. We hit the water at the same time.”
“Not exactly. My feet were in first.”
Monica splashed water in his face. “Brat.”
When they were waist deep, he turned her around to face him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and let her body float. The water caressed her skin as she let her arms fall to the side and she leaned back. Trent held her, his eyes gazed down at her naked frame. His thumbs found the swell of her breasts and teased them.
“This is the life. I finally get why you like it here.”
“Warm Caribbean water, a beautiful woman.”
He spun her around to keep the sun from glaring in her eyes. “Do you bring women here often?”
“Would you believe me if I told you you’re the first?”
Oh, yeah… the ice was melting. “You don’t strike me as the kind who lies.”
“I never lie.”
“Not even little white lies? You know, the ones where you tell someone you’re fine when you’re really not?”
“Well…”
“Or the ones where you say you’ll call when you know you won’t?” She was fishing now, and cursing herself for doing it. Theirs was a temporary fling. They lived in different places, different lives.
Those warm eyes that melted when he held her hardened a little. “If I tell someone I’ll call, I call. I don’t like games.”
A wave caught them both, and washed over her head. Trent pulled her face from the water. Monica unlocked her legs from his waist and stood beside him. “I don’t care for games either,” she told him. “We both know what we’re doing here… now—”
“Is right here and right now,” he finished for her. It saddened her to think on that.
A shadow passed over his eyes before the salt from his lips met hers with a brief kiss. At least she knew where she stood. No use pretending they could be anything more than what they were right then.
“Well, California, how about I give you a second shot for that top position?” He set her from him with a smile that wasn’t quite as bright as she liked.
“California?”
“You keep calling me Barefoot. I have to have something.”
She liked it. “I’m listening.”
He gave a quick nod toward a rock in the center of the lagoon. “First one to the rock and back wins.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You said you didn’t like games.”
“Friendly competition, not games. I’ll even give you a head start.”
“How much of a head start?”
“I don’t know. Ten… nine… eight.”
Monica dove into the water and kicked her feet. She reached the rock first, but Trent was fast on her heels. It was useless. He was a stronger swimmer and a faster runner. When she reached the beach, he was there and didn’t even appear winded. “Not fair. Home court advantage.” She felt like a kid… a naked kid without a care in the world.
He reached for her and she dodged his hand. The chase was on. Sand kicked up from their feet as Monica managed to escape him with quick unexpected moves. He cornered her toward the cave. She ducked inside, laughing.
The chase was fun, but the catching was so much better. They circled the pool of water inside the cave. Monica considered a dash back outside but thought maybe staying inside would hold a better reward. If her time with Trent was limited, there wasn’t a need to swim it away.
She paused at the exit of the cave and sucked in a deep breath. “A gentleman wouldn’t make me take the bottom twice.”
Trent lifted both hands in the air. “I give up. You can have the top.”
She took a step toward him. “You’re so easy.”
They were both laughing when the world started to shake.
The jolt knocked them both to the ground.
It took a nanosecond for Trent to realize what was happening. This wasn’t a roll-over-and-go-back-to-sleep quake, this was a loud, plane-crashing-into-a-building quake. The sound inside the cave jolted him to his feet. Something was falling, somewhere. He caught sight of Monica who had been standing next to the entrance. She was now on the ground and rocks were falling.
She screamed. He found his feet and rushed to her side. The earth kept moving.
The light from the outside faded with a loud crash. All he could see was Monica being crushed by the falling rock.
When he reached her, he attempted to bring her to her feet to escape the falling rock. She grabbed his shoulders with terror in her eyes. Trent pulled her and she screamed.
Her right leg was pinned under a rock.
The earth grew quiet.
“It’s OK,” he told her. “I’m here.” Above her, the rock still crumbled. One small shake…
Trent peered through the now darkened cave, the only light came from the opening at the top, and he reached for the rock holding Monica in place. “I can’t move,” she cried.
He looked past the blood under the rock and grasped her leg with both hands. He pulled against it and more rock came down a few feet away.
Monica covered her face with her hands. Trent leaned over her to keep more rock from hitting her.
The dust settled and he pulled her hands away. “Listen. I’m going to dig. You’re going to have to push out when I lift the rock.” If he could lift the rock.
Her eyes were moist with unshed tears. “That was a big one, Trent. An aftershock…”
Was inevitable. He knew.
He dug around her leg like a madman. When he felt her leg shift in the sand, he wedged the rock to keep it from collapsing again.
“OK, I’m going to try the rock again. You ready?”
She nodded and rose up on her elbows and bent her good leg.
“One… two… three.” Trent heaved the rock. His back protested, his arms were on fire, and the rock wasn’t moving.
He kept trying, sweat poured off his brow.
Monica’s hand stopped him. “That’s not going to move. We need to dig.”
She sat up as best she could and helped him dig the sand away from her leg. He didn’t even want to think of the pain she must be in. There was blood dripping down her calf, he couldn’t see the rest of her foot under the rock.
As they dug, the rock sank
into her leg and the hole. Monica cried out twice as the rock shifted. Trent kept digging. Just as he felt they were getting her loose, the aftershock hit.
Terror took the place of reason and Trent shoved her leg to the space he’d dug out as the rocks started to move again. He saw her toes and reached for her shoulders to pull her away.
Monica screamed.
Several feet from the cave opening, he collapsed with Monica in his lap.
Rock filled the space where she had been trapped.
His arms surrounded her, both of them too shocked to move.
Only when she whimpered did he release the vise grip he had on her.
“It’s OK. You’re safe.” Only again, he wasn’t sure of that either. They were in a cave and a ton of rock separated them from the outside world. The steep walls of the cave didn’t give him a means to climb out from the top and Monica wasn’t in any shape to walk, let alone climb.
“Save the white lies for someone who’s good at them, Barefoot.”
He hugged her again and felt her shiver. They were both caked with sand and dirt and he hadn’t even assessed her leg yet. After scurrying out from under her, he attempted to look at the damage.
“It’s broken,” she said before he even looked.
“Are you sure?” It wasn’t obvious to him looking at it. There was a gash where the rock had fallen on it and it was swelling rapidly. But there wasn’t a bone sticking out where it shouldn’t be… that had to be a good thing.
Monica glanced behind them to the pool of water. “I need to get the dirt out of there.”
He lifted her as gently as he could and settled her next to the pool. He found the bag he packed for their day, thankful it wasn’t on the outside of the cave, and removed the towels from inside. With painstaking slowness, he helped Monica take the surface dirt off her wound. They both had scrapes but other than the one on her leg, none were terribly deep. At one point she shoved the towel in his hand and leaned back. “You’re going to have to do the rest.”
“Do the rest?”
She swallowed. “Scrub the rest out.” Her color went white just saying it.
“That’s going to hurt.”
“Has to be done.”
“You sure?”
“I won’t scream if you don’t.” She attempted to joke, but he knew she was hurting.
I can do this. He cleaned the edge of the towel with the water from the pool. “Hold on.”
She gripped his shoulder.
By the time he was done, there were nail marks in his skin and Monica was ghost white. It took some time, but he soon managed to clean her off and get her dressed. She had a small roll of tape and exactly three gauze pads in her backpack. “Never leave home without it,” she told him.
She’d been taking prophylactic antibiotics since she arrived on the island, so that was one less worry.
One less.
Neither of them spoke the obvious until after Trent managed to arrange Monica on the beach blanket.
“Now what?”
Trent removed his cell phone from his pack.
“No service.”
The expression on Monica’s face didn’t change. “I didn’t think there would be in here. Did you tell Reynard where we were going?”
Trent shook his head. “He’ll know something’s wrong when we don’t come home.”
“The clinic staff will call Walt.”
Trent wedged himself between her and the wall and gave her someone to lean on. “We have some food. Water.”
Monica nodded.
“Someone will find us.”
Someone would. The question not asked was when.
Chapter Fourteen
If I don’t move… if I don’t breathe. It didn’t matter what she did, her leg hurt like a bitch and there was no escaping it. She had six ibuprofen and antibiotics, though probably not the ones she needed, to last for a couple of days. The water in the pool was fresh but neither she nor Trent thought it was a good idea to drink from it. Not right away in any account.
“You know those little white lies you’re against telling?” she asked Trent as night fell and the light from above started to fade.
“Yeah?”
“I need you to tell me we’re going to be OK even if you think we’re not.” There weren’t many times in her life when Monica had been scared. This was one of them. What if no one found them? What would they do when they ran out of food?
“My car is on the road. Someone will spot it.”
She didn’t want to remind him that the road had appeared abandoned. And it wasn’t as if the islanders were looking for places to play these days. Most were just trying to survive.
“How did that earthquake compare to the first one?” she asked.
“Hard to say,” his soothing voice said in her ear. “My house made a lot of noise but the walls didn’t come down.”
Her vision was adjusting to the darkness of the cave but it was still impossible to make out the entrance.
“The first one could have loosened those rocks. Made it easier for them to fall this time.” At least his words sounded good to her ears.
Trent shifted beside her and she sat up. “You should lie down. That wall on your back can’t be comfortable.”
“Sitting up will keep me awake.”
Monica couldn’t make out his expression in the dark. She rested her hand on his chest in hopes of comforting him. His voice was tight and his entire frame was rigid. “We might as well try and sleep. Even when Reynard realizes you’re not coming home, it will take time for the clinic to get word to the doctors and for anyone to actually search for us. No one is going to spot your car in the dark.”
Trent sighed and shifted his weight down from the wall. Monica had her leg propped up on her backpack and Trent used a rolled-up towel for a pillow. She used his shoulder as hers.
Once she was snug against his chest, and as comfortable as she could be for a night in a cave with a broken leg, she attempted to close her eyes.
She could tell that Trent was just as awake as she.
“You know,” she whispered, “before the earthquake and the wall crashing down on me, I was having a really good time.”
Her chest rumbled with his soft laugh. “I know how to show a girl a good time.”
“I didn’t think it would be possible to have any desirable memories from this crazy week.”
“And now you’re stuck in a cave all because I wanted you to myself.”
She winced at the tone he was using against himself.
“Hey.” She poked his chest with her finger. “I wanted you to myself, too. You had no way of knowing this was going to happen.”
“I’ll remind you that you said that in the morning.”
She wiggled against him and jostled her leg with a hiss.
“You sure you don’t want to take two of those Motrin now?”
She wasn’t sure of anything. “I’ll wait until I can’t bear it anymore.”
His hand stroked her hair and down her arm. The rhythmic movement lulled her eyes closed. She heard Trent mumble in her ear three words.
“I’m sorry, Monica.”
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered back before she fell asleep.
The phone rang, jolting Jessie from her dreams. Beside her, Jack reached for the phone next to his side of the bed.
Her eyes swung to the digital clock across the room and noticed the time, 4:23 in the morning. Nothing good made the phone ring at this time of night… or day.
“This had better be good,” was how Jack answered the call.
Jack paused and listened to the caller. “This is her husband.”
Jessie leaned over and turned on the lamp. Jack was sitting up in the bed with his eyes wide open. He glanced at her, and his brow furrowed.
Jessie’s heart sank. “What’s wrong?”
“Ah, huh.” He held up a hand, asking her to hold her question. “She didn’t call? When was the last time anyone has seen her
?”
Monica!
Panic gripped Jessie by the throat. She dug her nails into Jack’s thigh. “Is it Monica?”
“Hold on,” he told the person on the phone. “Monica didn’t show up at the clinic last night. She and Trent haven’t been seen since yesterday afternoon.”
Jessie’s jaw dropped. “What? That’s not like her.”
Jack returned his attention to the phone. “I didn’t know there was a second quake,” Jack said to the caller.
Another quake? Monica’s missing? Jessie tossed back the covers and climbed out of bed. She found her purse next to her dressing table and removed her cell phone from the front pocket. She punched in Monica’s number and listened to it ring. “C’mon, Mo. Pick up.”
It went to voice mail, Monica’s chipper voice telling the caller to leave a message. “Monica? Dammit, Mo where are you? Call me the second you get this. You hear me? Mo?” Her hand shook as she ended the call.
Jack approached her from behind and cradled her shoulders in his hands.
“What happened? Where is she?”
Jack shook his head. “That was one of the doctors. She went to Trent’s house to sleep shortly after I left. Was due back at the clinic eight hours ago. When she didn’t show up the nurse at the clinic left a message for the team leader at the hospital.”
“Did they check Trent’s house?”
“They’re not there. A friend of his said they left midafternoon and haven’t been seen since. With all the commotion after the aftershock, no one thought to search them out until nearly midnight.”
“Monica wouldn’t just leave. She’s too responsible. Oh God, Jack. We need to find her.”
“We’ll find her. Shhh, it’s OK.”
Only it wasn’t all right. Call it sisterly intuition, but she knew her sister and Monica would have to be half dead before she even called in sick for work. To not show up… not call?
Jack pulled out of her embrace. “You get dressed. I’ll call the pilot and the family.”
Jessie nodded, went into her closet, and grabbed the first thing she saw.
Monica moaned in her sleep but didn’t wake. Trent’s eyes had fluttered shut for only a few minutes at a time. He kept his ear tuned to the outside noises coming from above their heads. At first light, he planned on exploring the cave a little more. Maybe the quake opened up another passage, one with an exit. The cool air was coming from somewhere, and it wasn’t from above their heads. In fact, the only warm air came from above the cave. The constant drip coming from the foliage above and into the pool was its own torture device. It was as if each second was ticking away on their clock of survival. Trent might have been able to deliver the little white lies Monica needed, but his own mind kept a constant ticker tape of doom.
Not Quite Enough (Not Quite series) Page 13
