With a groan he sat up. He pulled her up beside him, wrapping both arms around her so she could lean against his chest. Lightning flickered on the horizon again, a series of dull flashes. Mel hugged her tighter. “Are you okay? Are you in shock or something?”
“I’ve felt better,” she said. “I’m just—stunned. I feel—all shaky.”
“It’s gotten so damn dark,” he said. “I don’t know if we can get any farther.”
“I—I might have a light,” she said. “If it still works. I forgot about it until now. Maybe I am in shock.”
She rummaged in her vest and found her pen light. It was no larger than a fountain pen. But it worked. Its beam lit a circle of light around them.
Mel took her face between his hands and kissed her. “You’re wonderful.”
“I just feel stupid for forgetting it,” she admitted.
“I’ve got a fanny pack with nothing in it but my wallet and car keys,” he said. “Neither of which helps at this point. Can you tell where we are?”
“Not by this,” she said, regarding the light’s thin beam.
“Shut it off. Save it,” he advised. “Try to see a landmark during the lightning.”
She obeyed and snapped off the light. When lightning next flashed, she stared down at the black valley. It was like staring into a maelstrom of darkness.
“The landmarks are gone,” she said in a small voice.
It was true. The road was gone. The houses were gone. In the distance the very highway was gone. Kitt bit her lip, fighting down a surge of hysteria.
“Steady,” Mel said in her ear. “Next time—look across the valley. I think the original ranch house is still there. It was up in a grove of oaks, right?”
“Right,” she said, then bit her lip harder. She waited for the light to shimmer again. She tasted the salty warmth of her own blood. When the next ghostly glow shuddered over the world, she strained her eyes. Then her heart bounded.
Across the water pitching in the valley, she saw a dark grove of trees on the high rise of the opposite hill. And—barely visible—the rust-red shingles of a roof—the lodge of Hole in the Wall. And above it, the Harris’s old house!
She could have wept with happiness. Something man-made still remained solid and surviving in this ruined world. “My God,” she breathed. “We could have gone there.”
“No,” he said, his breath warm on her neck. “We would have had to cross the creek bed. We would have never made it.”
She shivered and drew nearer to him, her back against the dependable hardness of his chest. She tried to keep her voice steady. “If that’s the house, then we’re north of it, right?”
“Right.” He swore again. “So how do we get out of this bloody rain?”
She thought back to her childhood, to the careless summer days when she and Nora had climbed this path with their books and blanket and limeade. She struggled to remember.
“About a quarter mile farther north,” she said, “there’s a place we called the Hermit’s Cave. My father told us not to go there. He said it wasn’t safe. We went anyway.”
“Why isn’t it safe? Do they have mud slides around here?”
“Rock slides sometimes. But mostly he said it because the path was so steep. We could fall and break our necks.”
“What are our other choices?” Mel asked.
“On this side? Nothing.”
“Then we’ll go for the Hermit’s Cave,” he said. He stood and drew her to her feet. “Want me to take the light? Can you walk?”
She handed him the light, then tried to put her weight on her foot. Pain speared through her as her ankle crumpled. She nearly fell, but he held her.
“I’ll need to lean on you,” she said. She put her arm around his waist.
“You’ll have to get us there,” he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll lean on each other.”
Below them, the flood waters rushed on in the darkness.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HOW SHE DID IT, he didn’t know, but somehow she found the way through the storm to shelter. The only illumination was the ridiculously small beam of her tiny pen light and the inconstant lightning.
After a seeming eternity, they reached a wide spot in the ledge, and she said, “We’re here.” She shone the light on a dark tangle of vines and scrubs that cloaked the hill’s stone face. When she pushed back a screen of rain-battered branches, he saw the edge of the crevice. She said, “Follow me.”
He kept his arm tightly around her as she led him inside and toward the back. “It’s warmer in the rear,” she said. “And there used to be a spring, a little one.”
“A spring?” he said sarcastically. “Just what we need—more water.”
“It’s small, but it’s warm,” she said. She shone the weak light far into the shadows. The cave went back for another fifteen or twenty feet, its ceiling growing lower until it met the rubbled floor.
He heard the trickle of water from somewhere. Not the plunging rush of the rain outside, or the muted growl of the flood below, but like a tap left gently running.
Then he saw it: a tiny stream glittering in the light’s beam. The rivulet sparkled as it ran down the wall into a small natural basin. The water swirled there a moment, then sank through a crack and disappeared into the rocks.
Kitt kneeled before it, setting the light on a stony outcropping. Mel watched her shadowy profile as she scooped up water and washed her face. “Mmm,” she said with sensual happiness. “It’s some kind of a hot spring. Lord, that feels good.” She turned to him. “Come here.”
He crouched beside her. She dipped her hands in the water and brought it to his face. He almost gasped with pleasure at the warmth. He put his hands over hers and held them against his flesh.
“That felt almost as good as sex,” he said with something near reverence.
She laughed and pulled her hands away. “We can take turns washing up. I wish it was bigger.”
So did he. The thing was no larger than a punchbowl, but to him it looked as tempting as a hot tub. She stood, drawing herself up by clinging to a ridge of rock. He rose and put his arm around her. “You’re still shaky on the ankle. Give me the flashlight. I’ll take a look at it.”
She gritted her teeth, nodded and gave him the light. She sat down on a stone. “Nora and I used to come here and pretend to camp.”
He flashed the feeble light around the interior. He narrowed his eyes and sucked in his breath. “Somebody still does.”
“Does what?” She wiped her wet hair back from her eyes.
“Comes here and camps,” he said in a low voice.
Her gaze followed his. “Good grief,” she breathed.
The feeble beam of light gleamed on a long shelf of rock. And on that shelf of stone flashed man-made objects. Glass. And metal. And plastic. He grinned as his heart speeded in happy disbelief. On the stone was an old-fashioned lantern, its chimney glass blackened with soot. Beside it, a red can of kerosene. Stacks of canned goods—soup, orange juice, beans, green chilies, a tin of tuna. Clear plastic zippered bags held—blankets?
“We’ve died,” he said. “We’ve gone to heaven.”
She laughed giddily, as if she didn’t believe the sight either. “Somebody still uses this place. Who’d have thought it?”
He swept the beam of light toward the back wall. On the floor was an inflated mattress, the kind used in sleeping bags. An old checkered oilcloth partly covered it. There was a half-empty wine jug beside the mattress.
“Somebody still comes up here and camps out,” she said in wonder.
No, Mel thought. Somebody comes up here and makes love.
The light glittered on something trodden into the rubble of the floor. He recognized it as the foil wrapping of a condom. This spot wasn’t some boyish Tom Sawyer hideaway. It was somebody’s secret love nest.
From the plumpness of the air mattress, he’d guessed the place had been used recently. He wondered who, but didn’t care. They
’d left the mattress and blankets, and for that, he considered all their sins forgiven.
Kitt shone the small light past the mattress, where stones circled a heap of ash and half-burned sticks. Nearby was a haphazardly stacked pile of wood. “Mesquite,” she said. “They’ve built fires here. Oh—fire.”
She said the word with the same wonder and satisfaction with which some women might say “diamonds.”
“Matches?” Mel asked dubiously.
“There have to be,” Kitt said, turning the light back to the stone shelf. “There’s everything else. Look—a can opener, even a corkscrew.” She rummaged purposefully among the booty until she found a tin box. She grinned up at him and held out the box. “Waterproof matches,” she said. “And there’s still kerosene in the lantern.”
She lit the lamp, her hand shaking with excitement. “Just in time,” she said, shutting off the little flashlight. “These batteries are almost gone.”
They stood in the glow of the lamp. Her shadowy face was wet, mud streaked her neck, and her left cheek sported a bruise. But her expression was beatific.
He couldn’t help himself. He bent and kissed her. After what they’d been through, how could he not kiss her? They had trusted each other with their lives. They had depended on each other utterly, and neither had failed the other.
She put her arms around his neck. Her mouth was icy, but when her lips parted, her tongue was warm, as life-nourishing as fire. Still, the skin of her face was wet and chill, her clothes were drenched, and so were his. He felt a shudder quake through her, and didn’t know if it was the cold of the rain or the heat of desire, or both.
He drew back, shaking his head. His wet hair hung in his eyes, and his hands were stiff with cold. “You’re trembling like a little leaf. Get out of those wet clothes. Wash in the spring and put on a blanket.”
“You’re as cold as I am,” she protested.
“You go first.”
“We should build a fire,” she said. “We’ll need it. To get through the night.” She fought back another shudder. “Come on. Or we’ll die of hypothermia. Can you build a fire?”
Mel’s grin was close to a grimace of pain, and like her, he was fighting bone-deep chills. “No,” he said. “I’m a city boy. But I’ll try.”
“Never mind,” she said with determination. “I think I remember how. God, this is wonderful. It’s like finding a hotel.” He helped her limp to the fire circle. She knelt painfully, piling sticks on the ashes. “Drat,” she muttered. “This wood’s damp. We need tinder.”
Mel spotted the edge of a small plastic bag, tucked under the oilcloth draping the mattress. He pulled back the cloth and opened the bag. It contained a worn paperback book. It was dry. But it was also unexpected.
He cleared his throat. “Er—do you mind using a few pages from the Kama Sutra?”
“What?” Her head snapped up in surprise, and he handed her the book. It was subtitled “A Photographic Guide to The Most Intimate Arts of Love.”
The cover picture was clear even in dim light: a naked couple, the man kissing the woman’s breasts. “Whatever,” Kitt said, gritting her teeth against the cold. She began ripping out pages and crumpling them.
Nothing fazes her for long, was Mel’s first thought, and a strange emotion flooded him, bewilderingly powerful.
And then he knew. Good Lord, I love her. That’s what this feeling is. I love her. Struck dumb by the realization, he watched as she set fire to the missionary position.
ONCE THE FIRE STARTED, Kitt basked in the life-restoring heat. She held out her hands to it, she hugged herself, she turned her back to warm it, then faced the flames again, unzipping her windbreaker and vest to better feel the warmth.
Mel sorted through items on the stone shelf. “An old beach towel,” he said in a wry voice. “Kind of ratty. But dry.” She heard the rattle of plastic as he searched the bags. “Two blankets and a pillow. Somebody’s really set up house here,” he said.
She frowned. “I wonder who? This is a long way from everything.”
“Maybe that’s its charm,” he said. He moved to her and helped raise her to her feet. “Come on,” he said. “Out of those wet clothes. We’ve got warm water. Use it. Then you can wrap up in a blanket.”
He helped support her so she could hobble to the little basin of stone. “Strip down. We can lay out our clothes and hope they dry by morning.”
The idea of being naked in front of him filled her with conflicting emotions. “Take ’em off,” he said, toying with the top button of her shirt. “This is no time for false modesty.”
He was right, but her throat was tight, and her heart pounded. “I can undress myself.” She moved his hand away from her shirt.
“Then do it,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll turn my back if it makes you feel better.”
“Yes,” she said. “Please.” She leaned against the stone and shucked off her windbreaker and sodden vest. True to his word, he turned away. Swallowing hard, she unbuttoned her top and let it drop to the stones. She struggled out of her shoes, then her socks and cargo pants. Her ankle was swollen so grotesquely that she didn’t want to look at it.
She set her jaw, unfastened her bra and stepped out of her panties.
The cool air assaulted her bare skin, and her nipples tightened. She sank to her knees and began to rub the warm water over her face, her throat, her body. At first touch, the water was like bliss, then it cooled, but she kept stroking it over herself, feeling warm and chilled at the same time.
At last, shivering, she felt almost clean again. She felt a rough cloth cover her shoulders. Mel had draped the towel about her. She stared up at him. The lantern’s glow made light and shadow dance on his face, and in its inconstant flicker, she couldn’t read his expression.
“You said you wouldn’t look,” she said, her heart beating harder.
“I didn’t look much,” he said. “And what little I saw was lovely.”
She tried to rise and pull the old towel more tightly about herself. But pain shot through her ankle; it wobbled, and Mel caught her. “Turn around and lean against the wall,” he said. “I’ll help dry you off.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” she breathed, tightening the towel across her breasts protectively. But she faced away and leaned one hand against the wall to support herself. She let him help her dry her shoulders and back.
He did it with such firmness he was almost rough. But it felt wonderful. It felt right. He was getting her blood circulating again. He took her by the arm and gently pulled her to face him again. “Finish the job,” he said gruffly. “I’ll bring you a blanket. Then sit by the fire. I’ve pulled the mattress close to it so you don’t have to sit on the ground.”
When he took his hands from her, she missed his touch. A kind of anxious heaviness settled in her chest, and her flesh tingled. She finished drying and didn’t resist when he took the towel and wrapped an old red blanket about her. It smelled fusty, but it was deliciously dry and warm.
His arm around her shoulders, he walked her to the fire. He helped settle her on the air mattress, then knelt beside her and helped towel her hair. “Lord,” he murmured, “when your hair reflects the fire, it’s like fire itself.”
He got up and gathered her dropped clothes, spread them next to the fire to dry. “You have a comb in this vest of many pockets?” he asked.
She smiled a bit shakily. “Yes. On the inside left top.”
He retrieved it and handed it to her. “I’m going to wash up.”
“I won’t look,” she promised. It seemed a childish thing to say, but she couldn’t help saying it.
“I don’t care,” he said. He chucked her under the chin affectionately. “I might like it if you did.”
Mel picked up the other blanket and moved to the basin. She thought she heard the wet rustle of his shirt sliding free from his body. She knew she heard him kick his shoes off and unzip his jeans.
Kitt combed her hair and tried not to im
agine him naked in the lantern light. She couldn’t stop herself. “Argh!” she heard him cry. “For two seconds it feels great, then you’re cold again.”
She kept combing. “Do it fast,” she recommended. “And rub hard.”
“Argh!” he said again. “Part of me’s warm and part’s freezing.”
She laughed and pulled the blanket more snugly around her. Discreetly, she stole a glance over her shoulder. He was a gold and semi-dark figure, kneeling on one knee before the basin, scrubbing his face. He had a fine body, broad of back and shoulder, long of leg. His muscles were hard, and as the light played on them, shadows threw them into high relief, their curves changing intriguingly.
Quickly she looked away, but his image seemed branded on her mind. She combed her hair and tried not to think of what might happen next.
“Oof!” he huffed. “Enough is enough.” She imagined him standing, drying himself as best he could in the already damp towel. She heard the flutter of the other blanket being flung open.
Then he was beside her, wrapped in a faded blue blanket. He carried his wet shirt. She was stroking the last of the tangles out of her hair. He smiled at her. “You look like a mermaid sitting and combing her hair.”
“I should have been a mermaid. It would have been safer to be half fish.”
“Down there, it would have been safer to be all fish. But since you’ve got legs, let me see your ankle.”
She made a face, but stuck her foot out from beneath the hem of her blanket. It was swollen and discolored. He picked it up and set it on his lap. “You think it’s a break or a sprain?”
“A sprain or strain, I’m pretty sure. Maybe a torn ligament.”
He massaged it. “Does that hurt?”
“Yes!”
His hand went still, then stroked her shin. “It’s too late for a cold compress. You’re probably as swollen as you’re going to get. I’ll wrap it. Lie down.”
She clenched her teeth and obeyed, stretching out on the mattress. She felt vulnerable and dangerously close to naked. She heard the sound of something ripping and said, “What’s that?”
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