"Aaron, we've got to get out of here," she pleaded, raising her voice above the whistling of a sudden, inexplicable wind. "This cave isn't stable."
Aaron bared his teeth. The wildly fluttering candle flames carved his face into grotesque shadow. "Then it's time to say good-bye." He cocked his weapon.
"Townsend, don't be a fool," Rafe snapped. "Another shot will bring the whole damned ceiling down on you too."
Aaron hesitated. Perhaps he'd heard the sense in Rafe's warning. Or perhaps he'd become aware of the dust and artifacts that were swirling in ever-rising eddies around his legs. "What the hell—?"
He glanced down for only a second. But a second was all Rafe needed. He slammed into Aaron's arm, knocking it sideways. Aaron dropped the gun, but not before a shot zinged wildly off the rocks, creating another ominous cascade. Thrown backwards by the quaking earth, Silver yiked as she grabbed for a handhold on the wall. She slid down behind the chest. That's when she noticed the eerie, green glow pulsing at its center.
"Oh... my... God," she breathed, struggling to right herself. She was uncertain where to train her eyes next. The men had slammed into a wall. Locked in a grunting, flailing tangle, they were oblivious to the phenomenon rising from the chest. Roiling, swelling, the glow belched into a noxious green cloud. Sulphur and some other eye-stinging fumes assailed Silver's senses; her head started to spin. For a moment, in the feathery, fanlike plume of those gases, she could have sworn she recognized the headdress of the ghost from her nightmares.
Dear God. Could that be Nahele?
Aaron loosed a triumphant bellow. Silver cringed, her heart speeding. The knife had slid from Rafe's fingers. Aaron kicked it out of the way and threw a punch. Rafe's head struck the wall. As he doubled over, Aaron dove for the gun and took aim.
"No!" Silver screamed.
The earth heaved again. Thrown off balance, Aaron's shot went wild. He fell to his knees, his eyes bulging as that green phenomenon closed around him. Suddenly, he was clawing at his throat, wheezing in pure terror. "The ghost!" he gurgled, his .45 spitting again.
Rafe lunged away from the cloud.
"Don't breathe," he yelled to Silver. "The gas is poisonous!"
He tackled her to the ground even before her stunned senses realized Aaron's bullets were ripping harmlessly through the cloud and striking the ceiling. A deafening roar shook the cave. Stones came crashing down as Rafe threw his body across hers, shielding her from the avalanche.
The rock slide was over in minutes. Silver quaked, hearing Rafe's labored gasps. Gunpowder mixed with dust and the lung-burning odor of poison. When she wheezed, his arms tightened around her. She wasn't sure how long they lay fused together, his heart hammering into her back, his forearm squeezing her ribs in a desperate, lifesaving hold. All she knew was he lived. And she lived. In that moment, that was enough.
"Silver?" His voice, as scratchy as tree bark, sounded urgent. "Silver, are you hurt?"
She shook her head, daring to crack open an eye. She half-sobbed in her relief to see a feeble glow filtering through the haze. Aaron's lantern had survived the cave-in. But in the miracle of its survival, she recognized their doom.
The tunnel had been sealed shut.
Another ominous rumble greeted this revelation.
"Silver, we can't stay here," Rafe rasped. Loose stones pelted his shoulders, and he shielded his head, staggering upright and dragging her to her feet. "The whole damned ceiling's about to collapse."
She coughed. "I know, but the tunnel—"
"We have to dig our way out," he said more firmly, raising the lantern for a better view. "We need Snake's pickax."
She bit her lip, knowing full well Rafe was in no condition to dig them out of their would-be tomb.
She turned right and left, squinting through the dust, trying to find some better solution. That eerie, pulsing column of green caught her eye. Beneath it jutted an expensive black boot. Aaron's leg was the only part of his body that hadn't been crushed by the rubble.
Oddly enough, the gas hovered over him macabrely, triumphantly, as if it were fueled by some spark of intention rather than that inexplicable geyser of hot air that had risen from the floor to swirl the artifacts around his ankles. Chilled in spite of the heat, Silver hastily backed away.
Rafe, meanwhile, was heading for the tunnel where Snake had been prospecting.
"It's a dead end," she panted, trying not to notice that every gulp of air felt like a prairie fire in her lungs.
He muttered an oath, swinging her way again, his dust-caked face ghostly pale in the flare of the lantern. "Are you sure?"
She wished she wasn't. "It's only half excavated. Let's look for a hole in the ceiling. Maybe we can climb our way to the next level."
He shook his head, grimacing as he raised a hand to his bloodied crown. "If the ceiling's caving, the floor above us will be no safer."
"Oh. Of... of course." Silver's throat constricted as she watched him battle his pain. She suspected the dust-laden air was the least of his problems. "Rafe, at least let me look at that wound—"
"There's no time," he panted, scrabbling back to the center of the room. "We have to get you out of here."
She quailed. Just me? "Rafe, please—"
"Listen."
She shivered into silence, desperately wanting to say the things she hadn't said, the things she should have said, but too afraid her confessions would sound like she'd given up. Because she hadn't given up. She just prayed Rafe hadn't either.
The seconds stretched. Silver strained her ears. Rafe was frowning, and she wondered what had alarmed him. She could hear nothing more than pebbles skating off the tower of boulders that blocked the tunnel.
Then she noticed steam rising from a newly formed crevice at the rear of the cave. Suddenly, something scrambled out of the hole. An exuberant bark reverberated off the walls.
Rafe dodged more falling rocks as he swung the lantern toward the noisemaker. "Is that... Tavy?"
A very wet, very jubilant otter bounded out of the settling dust. Pausing to shake herself, Tavy sprayed half the room with water. Then she launched herself full-waddle into Rafe's arms.
"Good God." Rafe staggered, nearly dropping the lantern as he clutched the wriggling, tail-thumping pup to his chest. His features crumpled, and for a moment, Silver thought tears might erode his hard-won composure. "What's Tavy doing here?"
"She wouldn't leave your side," Silver whispered thickly. "Tavy crawled into your coat before Snake threw you in the wagon."
Rafe's chest heaved as he fought the pain and fear that so insidiously gnawed at his reason. For a moment, Silver's mention of a river conjured old memories of picnic baskets, pack mules, and spiders. But there was something else. Something more important. He struggled to remember it through the fog in his skull.
Max's treasure map!
The memories flooded in then, of the millionaire smoking his cigar, swirling his cognac, and pointing at the parchment littering the desk in his study. "Legend says," Max had confided eagerly, "that Nahele lived deep in the earth, in a crystal cave. The prettiest thing you've ever seen, with an underground river that leads straight to the surface and a waterfall..."
The earth tremored again. Tavy popped out of his embrace like a greased watermelon. Dashing straight to the crevice, she turned, barked an encouragement, then plunged.
Rafe's heart quickened. Grabbing Silver's hand, he hurried after Tavy. Together, they watched the otter skate down a rock slide, dodging in and out of steam, until she vanished in the yawning darkness below. Moments later, Rafe heard a splash.
"Come on, Silver." He tugged her closer to the edge. "It's our only way out."
She hesitated, but the walls were shaking all around them now, affording them little choice.
"You can do it," he encouraged above the rumbling din.
She nodded uneasily, and somehow they shimmied through Tavy's crevice. Scrambling, sliding, they skated down the bridge of rubble that connected the
cave to the chamber below. Steam gusted up around them; sweat dripped from their faces and hands; still, they managed to hold on to each other until they reached solid ground. Once there, they could do little more than gape.
The lantern light glanced off glittering spires of crystal. Luminescent with shades of rose, green, and blue, these spikes rose from the floor and plunged from the ceiling like fangs in some sleeping giant's mouth. The cavern was massive, perhaps the size of Silver's mansion, and the river that snaked through its center bubbled and seethed like some medicinal hot spring.
"It... it's beautiful," Silver breathed, watching the play of light across this otherworldly landscape.
Rafe nodded weakly, wiping his sleeve across his forehead. The stalagmite he braced himself against was moist and cool, and to rest there was an insidious temptation. The heat made breathing hard, even harder than the dust had in the chamber above, and he felt light-headed.
"Rafe, perhaps you should rest—"
"No," he said quickly, thrusting himself up and away from the rock. The last thing he needed was an argument about his condition. He didn't have the stamina for it. Besides, how could he tell her that if he let himself close his eyes, he might never wake up again?
Tavy's bark echoed somewhere to their left. Summoning his strength, Rafe caught Silver's hand and hurried her in that direction. He wasn't sure how long they stumbled and climbed, following the winding, hissing rush of the river.
Somewhere along the way, he peeled off his coat. Further along, she stripped down to her chemise and bloomers. He knew he had to be in a sorry state, since he couldn't work up an ounce of lust. At times, he felt as if he were floating above his body, watching them struggle along the rocky bank. At other times, he was only too painfully aware of his laboring lungs.
And then, thankfully, they reached a dead end. A wall. Falling water could be heard roaring on the other side, just as Max had said.
"I'll be damned," Rafe muttered.
"The river seems to go through a tunnel," Silver panted, leaning as far over the bank as she dared. "I can't tell how far, but with the waterfall so close, the tunnel can't be too long... can it?"
Tavy's chirping rolled across the water. Once again, she climbed up on the bank, shaking her fur. She waddled to each of them in turn, giving them a snuffle and a kiss. Rafe's throat swelled. Even Silver looked misty-eyed. Then Tavy galloped to the edge of the bank. Holding their breaths, they watched in uneasy silence as the otter baby, fearless now in her element, dived, letting the current sweep her under the mountain.
Silver hugged her arms to her chest and turned anxious, luminous eyes to him. "She made it, Rafe. I know she did."
He nodded. There was nothing more to say. Whether Tavy made it or not, they had to make the same journey. They had no choice.
He kicked off his boots. "Don't give up, Silver. Whatever happens, you keep swimming, all right?"
She bit her lip. Even so, a tear spilled down her cheek. She'd been so incredibly brave, even though he knew she was terrified, and not just for him. "We can rest first—"
"No." He smiled. It was the sort of smile he'd honed over the years: cocksure, devil-may-care. He was afraid if he didn't convince her to swim now, she never would, because she wouldn't leave him behind.
He met her gaze evenly, another tactic he'd learned for his cons. "It's better this way."
Her fingers shook in his hand. "Then you have to promise me you won't let go—"
In answer, he kissed her. He combed his fingers through her hair, and crushed her hips against his, and made love to her with his mouth. He would have breathed his last breath into her if it would have guaranteed she'd make it to the other side alive. But she pulled away shakily, accusation glimmering through her tears.
"Don't kiss me like that! Not like it's going to be the last time!"
He fought down a crushing desperation. Guilty as charged. But he couldn't tell her that. Not if he wanted her to fight her way to the surface.
"Come on, then." He reached once more for her hand and pasted on what he thought would be his last smile. "Tavy's waiting."
The water was hot. Unbearably so. But Tavy had survived, so they plunged in, gasping as the nigh-scalding liquid poured over every inch of their flesh. Muslin and denim were poor protectors compared to an otter's waterproof fur. Human senses were even poorer navigators for the pitch void that yawned before them.
Rafe prayed for the second time in as many days. Swim hard, he begged her with his eyes. God, make her swim hard.
Gulping head-pounding breaths, they dived, leaving the feeble light of the lantern behind. The current was fierce and swift; it propelled them, as blind and helpless as newborns, into the womb of Mother Earth. In the deepest, darkest heart of the mountain, an eerie timelessness prevailed. If not for his lungs, and their urgent need for air, Rafe would have had no sense of the minutes ticking off his life. In that space, deprived of all sound, all color, all gravity, there was nothing but the elemental force that drove them relentlessly forward to some unknowable end.
Then suddenly, there was light. They shot out of the tunnel in a burst of black bubbles and foam. The dull, muted roar of the waterfall pounded somewhere before them. If Rafe could have breathed, he might have sobbed. The waning moon shimmered like a smile on the surface above them; a long, spindly shadow jutted somewhere beyond that. Kicking frantically now against the current, he dragged Silver toward the sky and what he prayed was the limb of a tree.
A shout rose, sounding dim and far away above their splashing. "Over here, Silver!" Max called.
Two plump skirted figures—Cellie and Fiona?—scrambled with Max down the riverbank. Then there were hands, blessed hands, all around Silver as they hauled her to shore.
Rafe mustered his failing strength. He grabbed for the branch, determined to cling to consciousness just a few moments longer. But as he waited for his own rescue, an ominous splintering rose from the tree.
"Rafe!"
Silver screamed her warning as the branch snapped. Suddenly, he was sinking, engulfed by boiling black foam. He thrashed, gagging on water hot enough to scald his throat. The current that had once befriended him swept him helplessly forward. The waterfall and the edge of the mountain loomed before him like the precipice to hell.
No! he screamed silently at the God who had repeatedly let death snatch his one sacred desire away.
Don't You kill me when I finally have a chance for love with Silver!
Did God really care enough to answer prayers? It was a question Rafe had thought God had answered, the hard way, a long time ago. He struggled against the river, but it did little good. He'd used up his last dregs of strength to bring Silver to the surface.
"Hold on, lad!"
A mighty splash rocked the water behind him. A head as hairless as a rat's tail bobbed on the waves. Within a heartbeat, perhaps two, an arm like bulging steel tightened over his chest. Rafe coughed, reeling with fatigue as his spine collided with a mass of muscle.
"Fred?" he choked as his rescuer's legs began to churn. Slowly, doggedly, they swam away from the cliff and his doom.
"Aye, lad," the Brit crooned in his ear. "Breathe easy now. You're safe. Just like that night in the snowstorm."
Rafe shuddered, slumping against his foster father's chest. Fifteen years ago, when he'd nearly gotten himself killed trying to start life anew, Fred had rescued him. And now the lying, cheating windbag was rescuing him again, just like Fred always seemed to do when the chips were down.
Fred. Rafe's head lolled. A disjointed sense of irony washed over him. Papa...
It was his last thought before exhaustion finally drowned him in the peace of oblivion.
Chapter 17
According to Max, three days passed while Rafe lay unconscious, three days of abject agony for Silver—at least, that's what Max would have had Rafe believe.
But the sting of Silver's handprint on his cheek was not a distant memory. And Rafe couldn't help but be worried when
he woke to find Max's chubby face smiling down at him, not Silver's.
"You gave us all the devil of a scare, son, while you were traipsing 'round the Land of Nod, " Max said, patting Rafe's shoulder and then sinking back into the plush, wingback chair that he'd pulled next to the bed. "The womenfolk have been duking it out for three days over who would take care of you.
"'Course, thanks to her crystal ball, Cellie had the advantage of knowing when you'd feel up to rejoining us, so she hurried down to the kitchen to rustle you up some soup. Fred went to fetch the doctor, and Fiona's getting Tavy."
"Fiona's getting Tavy?" Rafe repeated weakly as Max sipped from a snifter of cognac.
"Yep." Max chuckled, winking broadly. "Tavy's a heroine now. After she led you and Silver outta that cave-in, Fiona's had a change of heart about an otter's 'rightful place' as a hat. Fiona even donated a whole wig for Tavy to chew on—which is a good thing. 'Cause Silver's gonna hit the roof when she comes back from Leadville and finds Tavy gnawed on a half dozen of her shoes."
Rafe was still pulling tufts of cotton from his brain, but he'd managed to free enough wits to register the most important of Max's news items.
"Silver's in Leadville?" His sense of disappointment grew sharper as hurt needled him.
"Well, she didn't go willingly, son. She practically had to be pried from your side. Still, you had plenty of nursemaids, and she was needed for business."
"Business?" Rafe repeated dully, the knife plunging a little deeper.
"There, there. It ain't how it sounds. I couldn't very well have a wedding while my best man was stretched out on his back, now could I? So, Cellie and me postponed the dang thing for a month, which is fine by me.
"But then Cellie's cousin, Judge Gates, wired and said he'd be presiding over a California trial on our new date. And with the judge unlikely to make the wedding, Silver flew into a tizzy. She was afraid Marshal Hawthorne would arrest you for some back warrant. So, Silver went to talk to Gates."
Rafe groaned, letting his head drop to the pillow. His self-sufficient heiress was going to be the death of him. No fugitive wanted to attract the attention of a judge, much less a federal judge with a reputation like Gates's. Around San Francisco, Gates was known for his unwavering honesty and his bulldog adherence to the law.
Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) Page 30
