by Susan Hatler
“I’m counting on it.”
My cheeks tingled and my stomach maintained that warm, fluttery feeling as I bent to reach for the paint cans. For a few minutes, the business of hauling everything up to the fourth floor on foot claimed my focus, and we climbed the stairs in silence.
Once we reached the apartment and I used my shiny, new key to open the door, something from earlier circled my brain and I couldn’t help but ask about it. “You were about to tell me something this morning? When you first came into the bakery, I mean.”
“I was?”
I nodded as we piled up the supplies in one corner of the living room. Correction, my living room. The fact that I lived here was so exciting I almost couldn’t stand it. “You said you’d been thinking. But that was all you said.”
He snapped his fingers, a light flickering in his eyes. “Oh, right. And that was when you whacked your head on the glass display case.”
“I whacked nothing,” I informed him in a cool voice. “I tapped it, at worst.”
“Didn’t sound like a tap to me.” When I took a menacing step in his direction, he threw up his hands in surrender. “Okay, you win. In truth, I felt awful about startling you and still do.”
“Yeah, well, you sure joke about it like you don’t care,” I teased, turning around to open the windows to let in a little air, which would be needed once the painting began. All of a sudden, strong arms slipped around my waist.
He pressed his mouth to the back of my head, near the top. “That’s roughly the spot, isn’t it?” he murmured, his lips against my hair.
I shivered, my knees feeling weak all of a sudden. If I had been seriously irked with him—which I hadn’t been, at all—then any trace of it would’ve melted away with his kiss. “Something like that,” I whispered.
“Here?” He kissed me again, closer to my ear this time. Goosebumps popped up on my arms.
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember. Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought I did,” I murmured, and then giggled when his arms tightened around me.
“You tapped it at worst,” he said, making us both laugh.
I twisted my head around to look at him and, just like that, all of the laughing stopped like we’d flipped a switch. His mouth was only an inch from mine, his breath warm against my skin. His gorgeous eyes seemed to take up the entire world. Eyes I could have drowned in. My feelings for him were definitely dangerous.
“Okay, time for a serious question.” I wiggled from his embrace, which wasn’t something I especially liked doing, since being in his arms was pretty much the closest thing to heaven I could imagine. I remembered how nice his lips tasted and most definitely wanted more, but there was work to be done.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Is this your idea of a date? Helping me paint the apartment?” I raised an eyebrow.
A line formed between his eyebrows. “Dissatisfied?”
“No, no!” I waved my hands. “No, not at all!”
“I was only kidding,” he chuckled, going over to the paint cans and examining the colors I picked out. “As for the official date thing, well, I figured you have a lot going on in your life right now. I’ll take any opportunity to spend time with you.”
I swear, I thought I was going to flat-out swoon right then and there. I mean head-over-heels, eyelashes fluttering, where’s-my-fainting-couch swoon. Who wouldn’t?
“Besides,” he added, holding up a can of a purplish-gray color I’d chosen for my bedroom, “Melinda told me today that she’s worried about you. You’re taking too much on your shoulders right now.”
My heart stopped, the swooning officially over. He was only here because his cousin told him I needed help? Great. “I see,” I said, my tone flat.
He glanced at me. “Don’t think we were gossiping about you. Believe me, we did a lot more talking about the wedding. Or, rather, my cousin talked while I listened.”
I couldn’t help chuckling. “She’s excited. And I’m dying to hear about what her dress looks like . . .”
“You know she’d kill me if I spilled a word, don’t you? I’m surprised she didn’t write up a contract for me to sign in blood.”
“Okay, okay. I would hate to see you lose your life over something so relatively trivial. Plus then I’d have to pay someone else to help me with the painting and changing out the light fixtures and the plumbing—”
“I get it,” he said, smirking.
We both laughed and then got down to the business of putting down tarps and taping off the doorways, window frames, baseboards. By the time the living room and kitchen were finished, the daylight had dimmed and my stomach growled.
“I didn’t realize how much work this would be,” I admitted, noticing the prep work was a much bigger job than I’d anticipated. When was the last time I’d worked on something for myself, though? I couldn’t even remember. Plus, it was going slower because I usually had additional pairs of hands on projects. I mean, it hadn’t taken nearly as long to tape off the entire common room at the Founding Friendships building. “How could taping a living room and kitchen in this tiny apartment take so long? I think I’ve bit off more than I can chew.”
“Eh, I wouldn’t be so harsh.” Jason winked, tossing aside the last empty roll of painter’s tape. “You’re eager. Nothing wrong with eagerness, especially when it means being rid of some pretty interesting décor.”
“You’re quite the diplomat, you know.” I would have chosen a different word for that wallpaper. Garish, for starters. “I can see you killing it at big, high-powered meetings, saying just the right thing to make everybody happy.”
A dark cloud seemed to pass over his face and his shoulders rose up to his ears. Then he checked his sparkly watch, and then frowned. Oops. Had mentioning his high-powered meetings been the wrong thing to say. I’d thought I was giving him a compliment.
“Now that you mention it, I have another one of those high-powered meetings first thing in the morning,” he said, going from Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, Mr. Helpful and Handy, to Mr. Stressed-Out Tension Ball. It was sad how his demeanor changed when he talked about work.
“You change when work is mentioned. Did you know that?”
He shrugged, leaning against the kitchen counter. “It doesn’t thrill me, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe you really ought to consider planning a new career, then.” I watched him open his mouth. Since I assumed he would disagree with me, I kept talking before he could interrupt. “I don’t want to pry into something personal, but you were my number one cheerleader when it came to taking a chance on this apartment. I owe it to you to cheer you on if you want to take a chance on something new, too. We’ve talked about you wanting to be a teacher. You told me what changed your mind, which is no longer a factor in your life. I’ve seen how great you are with kids and think you’d be a great biology teacher. Just wanted to let you know.”
Oh, boy. He would hate me, wouldn’t he? I’d stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong and now he would forget I existed and rightfully so. Nobody liked a Know-It-All.
He sighed. “That means a lot, Avery.” His expression still didn’t look particularly happy, though. More like exhausted. “You know what? I still haven’t told you what I was thinking about this morning when I saw you at the bakery.”
“How do we keep getting sidetracked?” I asked, immediately knowing the answer. Because he had the power to make me forget everything but him, especially when that magic dimple flashed or he kissed the top of my head like I meant special something to him.
“I was thinking we should to go back to the tunnels, as soon as possible. Maybe tomorrow? Only this time, we ought to get video of when we go in. We can use it when it comes time to tell people about what we found. We’ll want proof of how things looked when we got there.”
“What about the cops?” I asked. It would take a long time for me to forget the embarrassment of having them discover us, and of what they thought we were up to.
He shrugged. “Now we know to keep an eye out for them. No sweat. We don’t have to search for the entrance, since we’ve already found it, so that means less loitering outside where they can see us. Unless you can think of somebody you trust with this, somebody to run interference for us if they show up again.”
I knew plenty of people, but wasn’t certain if any of them would wish to get involved. I also didn’t want to get them into trouble if the police caught us trespassing. “I think this ought to stay between the two of us. If you wanted to back out, I’d understand. I mean, it could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous, hmm?” He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s a good thing danger is my middle name.”
I giggled as a shiver ran up my spine.
“Come on,” he said, gesturing toward the door. “We’ll pick up something to eat, my treat, but then I have to get going. Unfortunately.”
“I’m in,” I said, another shiver rolling through me. This amazing feeling I got around Jason was getting to be a habit—one I didn’t want to let go of anytime soon.
Chapter Thirteen
The next night, we arrived at East Sierra Park much better prepared to look for tunnels the second time around, especially since we now knew there was a chance we’d be walking underground. Not the best time to remember my long-standing discomfort in tight, dark places where just about anything could be crawling or creeping around. Eeek!
But I had Jason with me, which took the edge off of my growing unease as we walked the same trail we had earlier in the week, this time keeping a sharp eye out for police officers, who might be patrolling the park. It was still early enough in the evening that the park hadn’t closed to the public. They would more than likely be on patrol when it came time for us to leave.
And I didn’t think they’d buy Jason’s squirrel excuse twice in one week.
I kept an eye on the clouds overhead as we made our way up to the rocks where we’d found the door. The weather seemed angry and unsettled, with the threat of thunder and lightning to boot. Ironically, this felt like the perfect weather for our adventure.
Sort of like the thunder and lightning going off in my head, and in my gut. It was one thing to imagine an adventure, but another to know you were about to walk straight into one. Especially an adventure that probably involved spiders, webs, and maybe even rats. Yikes!
I was starting to lose my nerve.
Jason looked over his shoulder just in time to see my shudder. “You okay?” he grinned, taking my hand.
“I guess now’s the time to warn you of my lifelong aversion to cellars and all such kinds of underground arenas,” I said, chuckling to try to keep things light and positive when I felt the exact opposite.
“I’ll protect you from any scary stuff,” he promised.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Like big, giant webs woven by enormous spiders.”
A cold tingle rolled down my spine. “By all means, elaborate?”
“And ghosts. I would definitely protect you from ghosts.”
“You are truly not helping at all,” I said, but couldn’t help smiling a little. I knew my frazzled nerves were silly. I mean, ghosts? In old goldmines? Yeah, that actually sounded pretty plausible. “I’m having second thoughts . . .”
“All right, no more jokes. Think about why you’re going through with this. That’ll help you focus. Why are you doing this crazy thing?”
“To save the Founding Friendships building.”
“And what does it mean to save the building?”
His question brought the image of Sylvia to my mind, and her kids. Images flashed in my mind, like the way Nora had watched Jason fix the plumbing. How Meredith finally had a home of her own and a little security. She’d be out on the street again if Founding Friendships closed down.
“It means everything,” I whispered.
“I thought so.” He stopped and turned to me, his hand still wrapped around mine. “Which is why we’re going to do this.”
“I feel a little freaked out. Why was it me, of all people, who ended up with those newspaper clippings? Dark places give me the heebie-jeebies!”
He lifted my chin with the crook of his index finger. “Whoever sent those articles to you knew you had the guts and the smarts to make this happen.”
“There could be snakes underground,” I said, realizing this for the first time. Snakes were so much worse than spiders or rats. With all of my fears running through me, it wasn’t easy to think of myself as gutsy or smart. Who honestly thought of themselves that way?
I looked up at him and he gazed down at me, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. His soothing touch made it a lot easier to believe him. In fact, he could’ve sold me the Brooklyn Bridge right about then and I would’ve happily handed over my last cent.
“You can do this. Just think how happy everybody will be.”
“Of course I can do this,” I agreed with a smile. His reassurance during my mini freak-out made me want to kiss him. Big time. But this was not the time.
We continued up the path until we reached the familiar boulders we’d climbed before. This was easier, as we knew what we were looking for, and there was light to see easily.
“You all right?” he asked when we reached the little alcove in front of the door. I could only nod, a little winded from the climb and from the exhilaration of being so close to my goal.
And fear. Still a little bit of fear. I couldn’t ignore it.
Jason hovered nearby as if ready to catch me should I fall. I ought to have been irritated by this, since I was an independent woman and all, but there was something charming about it. He was like a hero out of an old-time movie, careful to protect me without being told to.
He slid his backpack from his shoulders, crouching over it. I watched, hunching over to avoid detection by passersby or curious cops. He pulled out two flashlights, two pairs of heavy, leather gloves, and dust masks.
“You thought of everything,” I whispered, awestruck. And here I’d thought myself clever because I wore heavy-soled boots and a long-sleeved shirt, just in case of spider bites. I might have been a little too worried about creepy crawlers, in retrospect.
“I hope I thought of everything.” He shrugged off my praise, like he did this sort of thing every day. Then he pulled one last thing from the bag: a crowbar.
“Whoa,” I muttered. The crowbar made everything more real. I mean, we were breaking into a sealed tunnel. I wasn’t about to back down or change my mind, not when we had come this far and certainly not with the images of Sylvia, Nora, Meredith and the others still fresh in my mind. In fact, this had become sort of exciting.
“You sure you want do this?” he asked, holding up the crowbar, as I nodded. “Okay, here goes. Keep an eye out. I’ll clear away the rest of the dirt from around the edges of the door before prying it open.”
I looked around, staying low, while he brushed the dirt away from what turned out to be a squat, narrow metal door. I cast a look over my shoulder when he wedged the end of the bar between the door’s edge and the rock face.
“This might get kind of loud,” he muttered, glancing up at me with a frown. “Just keep watching for anybody coming up the path.”
“Will do,” I said, just as the sound of screeching metal cut through the air. I winced, watching him stop. “Ouch,” I whispered.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“Coast is still clear, though.” I held my breath as my gaze moved back and forth while Jason grunted with the effort of opening the door. How long had that door been closed? I couldn’t imagine. The hinges certainly weren’t interested in working with us, that was for sure.
Didn’t matter. We weren’t giving up.
One more grunt, and the sound of metal scraping against stone set my teeth on edge. But it worked, which was what mattered. The door had opened enough for us to squeeze through.
“You did it!” I threw my arms around him out of sheer exhilaration and gratitude. He chuckled but returned the hug, sque
ezing me tight in a brief embrace before bending to replace the crowbar and pick up the dust masks. “Do you think there’s really a tunnel in there?”
“We’re about to find out. Here you go,” he said, handing a mask to me.
“Thanks.” I put my mask on at the same time Jason put his on. Then I donned a pair of work gloves like his, before picking up my flashlight.
“Okay.” His eyes flashed with intensity as he looked down at me. “Serious talk time. If you hear anything that sounds even remotely like a creak or a groan, turn and haul booty back to the door. Got it?”
I nodded. “Got it.”
“There’s no telling how old these tunnels really are,” he mused. “No way of knowing when they were actually built or how sturdy the supports are after all this time.”
Cold fingers of dread crept up my spine. “No big deal,” I said, my voice shaky.
He laughed, which made the dust mask move in and out over the lower half of his face. “Liar. And I don’t want you to think it’s no big deal. Because it is. I want you to be safe.” He rested his warm, strong hands on my waist. “Promise me that no matter what’s in there, you’ll keep yourself safe.”
How was I supposed to promise anything when he insisted on looking at me that way? My stupid tongue refused to work. My brain forgot how to make words happen. I could only nod.
He turned around, pulled out his phone and began recording. “We’re about to enter the tunnel,” he murmured, holding the phone before him in one hand and his flashlight in the other. I could only follow close behind, with my hand on his shoulder.
Hey, I wasn’t a total idiot. I wasn’t about to let him get away from me.
There was nothing but pitch darkness as far as the eye could see as we walked down into the cool, damp, space. We walked a few feet in and the temperature dropped a good fifteen degrees—at least. I shivered, my fingers digging into Jason’s shoulder. The soft flannel shirt he wore was sort of a comfort, even with my leather glove between us.
