Dangerous Ground (Fiona Carver)

by Rachel Grant

  She jerked the rope to signal she was ready, then counted to three and plunged into the icy stream.

  It might have been the longest minute or two of Dean’s life. Even with the current on their side, it was harder to pull her through than he’d expected. He imagined her body scraping against the rocks, but there was no help for that. Fast was the one and only goal.

  He pulled on the rope, hand over hand, reeling her in like the biggest, greatest fishing prize of all. The rope snagged at least twice, and he released some slack to give her room; then he pulled with renewed vigor.

  She broke free all at once, sliding from the narrow opening, coughing and gasping. She rolled over and looked up at the overcast gray sky. She burst into tears, her body rolling into a ball in a natural reaction to the cold wind after being submerged in icy water.

  The first words she managed to say after coughing the stream water from her lungs were, “I was counting on more sunshine.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Fiona didn’t think she’d ever be warm again, but at least she was alive. And there was daylight. Sweet, precious natural light. Plus, she’d gotten a solid rinsing in the stream and almost felt clean. Dean was still only in his skivvies, and she realized he hadn’t gotten dressed even though he was exposed to the cold wind, simply because he didn’t want to delay in pulling her out.

  They both stripped out of their wet underwear, then hurriedly pulled on their wool base layers, which were warm in spite of being damp below the knees and from elbow to wrists. Next came fleece and wool layers, then wind- and rainproof outer layers. She crammed her feet back into her wool socks and sturdy but wet boots.

  She didn’t know if she should throw these boots away or have them memorialized in bronze when this was over. They were good boots that had served her well, but her feet ached from the constant walking over uneven ground. She had blisters that were beyond the help of moleskin.

  Funny how she’d been able to ignore the pain in her feet until now, when they were freed of the volcano. It just hadn’t been something she’d allowed herself to focus on. But now that the most urgent concern was behind them, there were new urgent concerns moving up the queue.

  “We need shelter and a fire. ASAP,” Dean said, pretty much echoing her thoughts.

  She pulled out her USGS quadrangle map from the plastic case where it was tucked behind Dylan’s hand-drawn map and looked around for landmarks to get her bearing. Thankfully, there wasn’t a layer of fog today, and she could make out the point of a nearby island, as well as the shape of the shoreline below.

  She held out the map to Dean. “It looks like we’re about here.” She glanced up; they were a fair distance below the snow line, closer to sea level, and shifted her finger down several contour lines. “Or rather, here.”

  He let out a low whistle. “I knew we’d gone a lot of miles inside the volcano, but I didn’t expect us to be this far east.”

  “Me neither. I don’t think it’s possible to hike back to the side-by-side.”

  “I’m pretty sure it will be gone or disabled anyway,” Dean said.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “So what’s our closest shelter? The airplane is on the other side of the mountain. That’s gotta be a two-day hike, given the terrain, and the village is at least a half day’s hike from the plane.”

  No way could they make that hike without a tent for shelter.

  “The nearest place where I know we can find shelter is the World War II base.” She traced the route on the map. “About a third of the base was covered by a lahar mudflow in 1963—it’s one of the reasons the historic base wasn’t considered a suitable site for the submarine base—but there are a few bunkers and magazines that are extant. Plus, we can salvage wood—maybe even coal from storage drums if they’re still intact. Build a toasty fire. It’ll be more comfortable than the airplane.”

  “Looks like it’s only a few miles from here,” he said.

  “Yeah, but they won’t be easy miles.”

  “Nothing is out here.”

  They quickly repacked their packs, redistributing the weight for hiking now that some of their food had been consumed and there were multiple streams they’d cross, so they wouldn’t have to carry much water; then they set out.

  Dean used his high-powered zoom lens to scout their route whenever they were forced to make a decision. They had to zigzag up and down the slope at times when they reached uncrossable crevasses or streams. After several hours of hard hiking, they took a break for a late lunch by a stream, boiling water with precious Sterno for a hot tea drink. “Tonight, I want lamb roast for dinner, with a lemon-rosemary glaze and scalloped potatoes on the side. For dessert, I want pavlova with fresh strawberries and cream.”

  He laughed. “How about grilled chicken with sliced cheese and whiskey for dessert?”

  “I suppose that will be satisfying.”

  “I’d suggest we bag one of the caribou that were introduced to the island for hunters, but then we’d have to drag the carcass to the base and figure out how to smoke it.”

  “Plus, without fog and rain, that much smoke would give away our location,” she said.

  “Would you believe I used to be vegetarian?” he asked.

  “Oh, totally. I mean, given your work.”

  “Yeah. But that’s also why I gave it up. Too many expeditions where I needed a high-protein diet to get through the day and didn’t have the luxury of not eating meat to survive, especially when that’s all the locals had to subsist on.”

  “And when you’re home in LA? Are you vegetarian then?”

  “No, but I do eat a lot less meat than I do on expeditions. My wife was vegan, and I learned to cook from her, so I have a pretty good array of vegan and vegetarian recipes to choose from that are satisfying when I’m home. I’ve never really developed my meat-cooking skills.”

  “Can I just say that I find it particularly cruel that a woman who was vegan and probably doing everything right health-wise was struck down by brain cancer?”

  He nodded. “Hell yeah. I was so pissed about that. I still am. It was just all so . . . unfair. Violet always said the one thing she really missed being vegan was ice cream. In the last months of her life, she enjoyed a lot of ice cream.”

  Her heart squeezed. The strength of this man—who’d been in his early twenties at the time—taking care of his dying wife who was barely an adult herself. She reached over and placed a hand on his thigh just above his knee. “I’m so glad you had each other.”

  He smiled. “Me too. I wouldn’t trade a single minute, not even to avoid the pain of losing her.”

  That might be the loveliest thing she’d ever heard.

  She had a feeling he didn’t talk about Violet much, and she appreciated that he’d shared that facet of his life with her.

  They finished eating and again packed up the remains of the meal, adding to their growing bag of garbage, but each stop lightened their load a small fraction.

  The wind whipped at them as they descended the volcano, and a fog rolled in, which made picking their path carefully impossible. This was the worst kind of hiking conditions. If they had any other choice, they’d do the smart thing and stop. But they couldn’t afford the luxury of being cautious. Not when there was no shelter to be found. Some rock outcrops provided wind block, but the slope was too steep. They might sled down the mountain in their sleeping bag hitched to the inflated thermal pad.

  They had no choice but to keep going, even as night fell and they were socked in.

  They used their red headlamps and hoped anyone searching for them wouldn’t see the light in the thick fog, but at last it paid off, and they reached the bottom slopes of the volcano, leaving uneven, rocky ground behind and returning to muskeg and marsh. They were close to sea level with less than a half mile left to hike to the WWII site.

  The fog thinned, but darkness had descended, and without stars due to cloud cover, it was almost as dark as inside the volcano. Worse, the grasses here
were high—nearly six feet, as they’d been near the archaeological site that first morning—and she knew for a fact there were collapsed structures hidden in the tall grasses.

  “I’m starting to not love this island so much,” Fiona said. “I think it might be out to get us.”

  He laughed. “If Chiksook were out to get us, I think it would have swallowed us whole already and then maybe spit us out for good measure.”

  “I’m pretty sure we were spit out of a volcano earlier today.”

  “Huh. You’re right. I take it back. The island hates us. Or maybe it’s just Mount Katin.”

  “But Mount Katin is Kanuux̂, the heart of the island. I think it’s all or nothing with Chiksook—volcano and island are one.”

  They picked their way slowly across the marshy, high-grass terrain, and even with all their caution, they still made a mistake.

  They were on the outskirts of the base, away from the uneven ground of the lahar flow that was difficult to traverse, with grasses that had grown around the rocky volcanic debris. Here, the ground was more even but covered in sloppy muskeg.

  Fiona knew the moment she’d placed her weight on her forward foot that something was off, but her body was already pitched forward, so there was no backtracking. A scream tore from her throat at the sudden drop as she plunged through the thin ground cover into a pit, with Dean falling along with her.

  She landed on her back, knocking the wind from her, and tried not to panic as she struggled to breathe. At last, she wheezed in a breath with a groan as she shone her light upward.

  Holy hell, they were eight feet down, in a narrow hole with corrugated metal sides. Getting out would be difficult.

  Dean shone his light on the hole up above and cursed. “This was a trap.”

  She studied the remnants of the ground cover above and saw what he did—paracord rope holding what remained of the muskeg mat together.

  “Holy shit,” she said, her heart sinking. “After all this, we’ve been caught by Victor and his crony?”

  “He must’ve known that if we got out, we’d head for the nearest shelter. He’s probably lying in wait for us in the ruins, in case we didn’t fall in this or another pit.”

  Victor’d had time—nearly two days—to rig all sorts of traps. This wouldn’t even have been hard, as the US military had left so many structures behind to rot, many of them dug deep into the earth.

  “I’m sorry, Dean. It’s my fault we walked straight into this.” She’d failed him now too.

  He pulled her close. “Oh, sweetheart. This isn’t on you.”

  “I should have realized he’d guess where we would go.”

  He threaded his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head. “No. This isn’t your fault. Blame Victor and whoever he’s working for. But don’t blame yourself. The whole reason we’re even alive right now is because of you.”

  “And you,” she said, cupping his cheek with one hand, stroking his beard.

  “It’s been a team effort, all the way.” The hand at the back of her head pulled her closer; they were a hairbreadth apart. “You’re amazing, Fiona. I hate that you’ve been in danger but so thankful to have you by my side.” He brushed a thumb over her cheek. “And if this is it for us, I’m going to have my ice cream before I go.”

  He moved forward that final millimeter, and his mouth was on hers.

  It wasn’t a chaste or comforting kiss. It was a full-on, I want you now sort of kiss. His tongue slid between her lips and oh damn, it felt so right. So perfect.

  She responded with the same passion. The same need. She’d craved this since that first night, when life was simple and she’d gone for a walk with ornithologist Bill. But nothing was simple now, and Dean was ten times more enticing than Hot Bird Man had ever been.

  His tongue slid against hers, and she let out a soft moan of thankful joy. This. So much this.

  Their mouths were locked together as he cradled the back of her head and she ran her hands over his pecs, wishing there weren’t so many layers between her fingers and his skin.

  If she was his ice cream, she was melting in his heat. She didn’t know if any single kiss had ever been this powerful, but then, just this morning, she’d been certain ramen noodles were the greatest meal ever created, so her scale might be skewed.

  No. No, it is not. This kiss is absolutely, positively exceptional.

  He released her mouth, and she could just see his fine features in the gray light of a rising moon. His mouth curved just slightly. Perfectly. It was a bad-boy smile. A playboy smile. And ohmygod it was utterly delicious. “I’ve wanted to do that since day one.”

  “Me too,” she whispered. “You were mysterious Bill, and I wanted to let you kiss me in the moonlight.”

  “I—he—never mind,” he said, and then his mouth was on hers again, taking and giving.

  She would have happily let the kiss go on forever, but they were interrupted by a sharp laugh from above. “I knew you two would hit it off.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Dean jolted backward, breaking the kiss of a lifetime.

  He hadn’t heard what he thought he’d heard.

  No. It was a dream. Or maybe a nightmare.

  After all, Fiona was Dylan’s. And he was kissing her in a way that could and would only lead to sex.

  He looked up, toward the gap in the matting they’d fallen through, and snapped on the white light of his headlamp.

  His belly plummeted, and his heart raced. His eyes teared. Please, please, please don’t let this be a dream.

  “Hey, Dean. What brings you to Chiksook?”

  He met Fiona’s gaze, unwilling to believe his own eyes. “Do you see—?”

  She nodded and looked up. “Hey, Dylan. Think you can toss us a rope?”

  Dean’s brother grinned, his teeth showing through a scruffy beard. “Sure thing, Fi. But it won’t be easy for me to pull you up. I’m not at my best after the last six weeks. How about we start with you, and together, you and I get Dean out?”

  Of all the scenarios he’d imagined, his brother rescuing him from a pit was not on the list.

  The corrugated metal walls were rusted and had enough gaps that climbing would be possible with help from a rope, and as long as one wore gloves.

  As Dylan suggested, Fiona went first, with Dean giving her a boost and pushing from below as she found toe- and handholds while Dylan pulled from above. It took only a few minutes for her to clear the top edge, and then the rope was tossed back for Dean.

  The metal buckled under his weight, and he needed more help from Dylan and Fiona than he wanted, but with the rope wrapped around a metal pillar—all that remained of some long-ago structure—for leverage, they were able to hoist him to the top. From there, he scrambled from the pit and collapsed on the squishy, muskeg-covered ground as soon as he was free.

  Dylan and Fiona both fell backward, gasping for breath right along with him. They’d been sitting in a line with Dylan as the anchor, legs outstretched as they pulled him to the surface.

  Wind whipped around them, slightly louder than their combined gasping breaths. Finally, Dylan said, “Sorry, man. That trap wasn’t meant for you. It was in case anyone from Pollux came looking for me.”

  A gazillion questions circled through Dean’s mind. But first he needed to breathe. Then he needed water. And food. Probably fire too. He was damn cold. When he could speak again, he said, “Please tell me we’re close to shelter and can build a fire.”

  “Gotcha covered, bro. Soon as we can all move again, I’ll take you to my humble abode.”

  Fiona scooted toward Dylan and gave him a hug. Dean watched his brother’s arms enfold the woman he’d just spent some seriously intense days with, and he tried to release his jealousy. This was what was meant to be. His brother. Alive. With Fiona.

  It was everything he wanted.

  His eyes teared with joy, even as his heart split with pain.

  Every part of Fiona’s body ached, and there was
a good chance she’d sprained something either in the fall or while climbing out or while pulling Dean up. Who knew? Adrenaline had cloaked everything in the moment, but now that they were safe, ensconced next to a warm fire deep inside an elephant magazine, all the little aches and pains came alive and demanded attention.

  She scanned the inside of the magazine. “I love what you’ve done to the place, Dylan.”

  He laughed. “It’s a fixer-upper, for sure, but it’s served me well.”

  Months ago, on her first trip to the island, she and Dylan had visited this base together, so they could both gauge the work they’d be doing here. He’d pointed out the chimney sticking out of the lahar. She’d thought the chimney was debris, just another random piece of metal, displaced by the flow, but he’d then pointed to the dark gap at ground level. “That’s the entrance to one of your magazines or batteries.”

  “No way,” she’d responded. “If that were an elephant magazine, the opening would be a ten-foot-wide steel pipe.”

  “It was, once upon a time. The rocks and debris in the lahar came down and covered it.” He’d crawled forward on hands and knees and shone a light through the hole. “Yup. Lahar crushed the exterior end of the pipe, and debris covered it. Looks like a magazine. It’s still sound. I mean, a fixer-upper, but still standing.”

  “Once I realized where I was when I got out of the volcano, this was my goal. Knowing this was here was what kept me moving.”

  He’d moved more debris around the opening, further disguising the small tunnel. But even more magnificent was the hearth he’d rigged—a small, rusted, military oil/wood/coal stove he’d salvaged from one of the rusted-out Quonset huts—which utilized the extant chimney he’d spotted so many months ago.

  He’d positioned the stove so the stovepipe—which he’d also salvaged from a hut—pointed to the vent at the top, drawing most of the smoke out of his hidey-hole. It provided warm, Franklin-stove-style heat plus worked as a griddle for cooking.

  “This is amazing, Dylan. You’ve been using coal to heat?”

  “Yeah. I tried diesel at first but couldn’t get it to work—the rubber tubes all rotted, gaskets were unreliable, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have all the parts—so I gutted it and converted to coal and wood. Between driftwood and coal barrels, I’ve kept warm and dry.”