One Night with her Bachelor (5 page)

He was ready to serve again.

*

Molly tightened her
grip around Gabriel’s waist as trees whizzed past. She’d never been on a motorcycle before, and the fact they weren’t even on a path but zigzagging around fir trees should’ve filled her with terror.

Her terror levels were already overflowing.

Stupid. So stupid. How could she have gone somewhere out of reach? It had never occurred to her that Gabriel’s cabin would be so cut-off. She should’ve been reachable. She should’ve been at home.

The dirt bike tilted to the side, and she held him harder. He only had one helmet and he’d given it to her, so she couldn’t bury her face in his broad back and ignore reality the way she wanted to. Where was Josh? Where
was
he?

Not knowing made her throat spasm. She fought back the sickness that threatened to come up.

He’s okay. He’s probably just hiding. Playing a practical joke on his scout leader.

But what if he wasn’t? What if he’d had an accident? What if he’d been snatched by a predator—either the four-legged or two-legged kind?

Every frustrated word she’d ever snapped at him rushed back to haunt her. Every time she’d lost her patience or been too tired to play. Every guilty feeling she’d tried to talk herself out of feeling returned with a vengeance.

Your son needed you, and you were making out with a guy in a cabin with no cell coverage. You horrible, horrible mother.

As soon as Gabriel had told her about the lack of network, she should’ve turned around and hiked back to her truck.

Her fingers clenched, digging into his hard abs. Before they’d climbed onto the bike, he’d slung a camouflage rucksack onto his chest, presumably carrying it on his front so she could fit behind him on the saddle. Her hands were between the sack and his stomach. The bag rubbed against her knuckles with every bump in the dirt.

They reached a path, and the bike slowed before stopping. It rumbled gently beneath her as Gabriel let it idle. He leaned to the side so he could look over his shoulder. “Campground’s down this path to the right.”

“Why are we stopped?”

His jaw worked from side to side. “Up to the left, there are old copper mine shafts. My half brothers were scouts, and they used to come home from camping trips full of ghost stories about the mines. If I were a kid, I’d want to explore them.”

Oh God. Josh exploring mine shafts? Her son—her beautiful, rambunctious son—lived for excitement. If he’d heard about the mine shafts, he’d probably given in to the impulse to discover them.

Her breath came hard and fast. Gabriel watched her silently, his steady gaze leaving the decision up to her.

“Go to the mine shafts,” she ordered.

Gabriel’s right leg twitched as it kicked the bike back into gear. The bike jerked hard, and Molly gasped as she tightened her embrace to stay on. They wove their way up the rocky path that looked like it had hardly been used. Gabriel barely slowed as they crested a peak and rode around a perilous ridge. A river cut a path through the forest about a hundred feet below, and the mountain on their other side left no room for mistakes. Molly’s palms sweat and ached.

Finally the path veered onto safer ground, and they skidded to a stop. Gabriel patted her leg, as if to say
Get off the bike so I can, too
. She slung her leg over, but her muscles jellified as soon as she took in the scene in front of her. Josh’s friend Jake sat at the base of a tree, sobbing. And a small clearing was marred by a gigantic hole in the ground.

“Oh my God. Josh! Josh!” She started to run, but Gabriel yanked her back against his chest. She fought him with all her strength. “My baby! Let me go!”

He spun her around, backed her up against a tree and took the helmet off her. His face held no fear, only calm determination. “We’re going to find him and everything’s going to be okay, all right, Molly?”

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but dig her nails into his hard arms.

“What’s his friend’s name?”

“J-Jake.”

“Okay. I’m going to let you go, but if you go anywhere near that hole you’re not just endangering yourself but Josh, too. Got me?”

She nodded. Her boy was in a hole. In a hole in the
ground
.

She pressed her lips together till the metallic tang of blood swept across her tongue.

Gabriel grabbed her hand and led her to Jake, cutting a wide path around the hole. Every instinct, every fiber of her being, screamed for her to run at it and jump in head-first to be with Josh. Only the insistent pressure of Gabriel’s grip kept her moving away from it toward Jake.

“Hey, buddy. Where’s Josh?”

Jake sniffled and pointed at the hole. “We were walking around looking for the mine shaft, and the ground just… it just—”

“Has he said anything? Made any noise?”

Jake shook his head, his breath catching. “I-I called his name, but he hasn’t an-answered.”

Sobs racked Molly’s body as her strength gave out. She collapsed to her knees and hugged Jake. But he wasn’t the one she wanted in her arms. He wasn’t the one she needed to hold.

Gabriel’s hand landed on her shoulder. “Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?”

She shook her head. “Only today.”

“Okay. The path back to the campsite’s too treacherous if you don’t have experience. When we find him, we’ll have to carry him out, so I need you guys to make a stretcher.” Gabriel opened up his rucksack and dropped some canvas fabric and two metal poles on the ground next to her. “Unfold the poles so they’re as long as they can be. Lay them on the canvas next to each other with enough room for Josh in the middle. Wrap the canvas around the polls like this.” He motioned as if he were wrapping a long, thin gift twice over. “Can you do that?”

She nodded and got to work, grateful for something to take her mind off all the horrifying images crowing for her attention.

Josh, broken and bloody.

Josh, already gone.

Josh, buried.

Gabriel’s hand landed on her shoulder. “Molly, I’m going to do everything I can. Trust me.”

She gritted her teeth and forced herself not to be sick.

*

Molly looked traumatized,
but Gabriel had to shift his focus away from her to Josh. He scanned the area around the hole. There were trees all around, a damn good thing because the area around the hole was now type-B soil and likely to cave in even more if he stepped on it. He needed edge protection, and he knew how to create it.

Doubts tried to eat away at his concentration. He hadn’t done anything like this since the explosion. Would his leg hold his weight? Or would it betray him and send him falling into the hole?

No time to worry about it. He had to find a way in there that relied mostly on his upper body and right leg. Then he had to find Josh.

He hustled over to a tree, dug his right toes into a gap and hoisted himself up. He couldn’t trust his left leg to work properly, so he let it dangle as he wrapped climbing webbing around the trunk a few feet above his head. He clipped a carabiner into the webbing and attached one end of his rope, tying a figure eight on a bite.

He jumped down, landing on his good foot. Keeping well clear of the disturbed soil, he hurried to the other side of the hole. He took his knife from his bag and gritted it in his teeth as he climbed a couple feet up a tree. He repeated the process, tying a trucker’s hitch and finishing it with a half hitch to secure it. Then he used the knife to saw off the excess rope.

His good leg burned, and his bad one rubbed him raw. A year ago, this kind of activity wouldn’t have fazed him. He was out of practice, out of shape.

He’d be damned if he failed, though. Quitting wasn’t an option. It was never an option.

The rope stretched tight between the two trees, about eight feet over the hole and the unstable ground around it. He quickly shrugged into his climbing harness and slipped his rucksack onto his back. Then he hoisted himself up the tree again, put a pulley on the tight rope and attached the pulley to his harness with a carabiner. Now he dangled from the tension line so he wouldn’t touch the ground.

“How’s the stretcher coming?” he called over to Molly.

“Finished!” She stood and took a step toward him.

“No closer! Stay with Jake. I’ll bring Josh back soon.”

Her body looked even tenser than his rope. Her face contorted with agony, but she nodded and stood back against the tree. He pulled himself hand-over-hand, sliding along the rope until he hovered over the center of the mine shaft. It was so dark he couldn’t see the bottom—but he could see a pale body crumpled on a ledge about fifty feet down. “Josh! Can you hear me?”

He held his breath. Molly’s terror reached across the clearing, wrapping around him.

A movement. Josh’s arm reached up.

“He’s alive!”

Molly let out a noise of unimaginable relief.

He took his extra rope from his bag and attached it to the tension line and his harness. When it was securely knotted, he detached himself from the tension line and rappelled straight down into the center of the mine shaft until he was right next to Josh.

The boy blinked at him, showing few signs of awareness. He was pale, bloody, and lying at an awkward angle.

“Hey, buddy,” Gabriel said, keeping his voice light and reassuring. “We’re going to get you out of here, all right?”

The ground rumbled, and rocks skittered down from above. Gabriel shielded Josh from the mini landslide and bit back a curse. He didn’t have the medical equipment he’d been trained to use. He didn’t have a team. Even if Molly had been able to ride for help on the dirt bike he’d modified to compensate for his bad leg, the help would’ve arrived too late. He only had himself and his climbing gear. He couldn’t treat Josh’s injuries right now. His priority was getting him out of the mine before the whole thing collapsed.

“I’m going to make a harness for you, and we’ll climb back up to the top,” he said, trying to help Josh stay conscious as he wrapped webbing around his chest and shoulders. The movement seemed to jar Josh’s injuries, and the boy cried out.

“Josh!” Molly’s voice echoed down the hole.

“Mom?” he whispered.

“She’s up there waiting for you. She can’t wait to see you. Let’s go see her, huh?” When Josh’s makeshift chest harness was secure, Gabriel attached it to his so the boy hung from his chest. “We’ll get you out of here.”

He needed Josh to stay calm. If he panicked, they could both plummet God only knew how far.

Working swiftly, he pulled some cord from his bag and cut it in half. Making both halves into loops, he tied them to the rappelling rope with a triple sliding hitch. Normally he would be able to climb up the rope by putting a foot into one of the loops, sliding the other loop up the rope, then putting his other foot into it and hoisting himself up. But he didn’t trust his left leg to hold if he put that kind of pressure on it.

Never quit.

He wrapped one of the loops around his bad thigh. It would be like trying to climb stairs with his right foot and left knee—in other words, really damn inefficient. But it was the only way.

With Josh fastened to his chest, Gabriel stepped back from the ledge and they dangled on the rope. “I don’t know if you remember, but your uncle Scott was my best buddy.”

“You took me to McDonald’s.” Josh’s words were slurred and his head slumped against Gabriel’s chest as they climbed.

“That’s right. You remember.”

“Big Macs.”

“I bet your mom’ll take you for a Big Mac as soon as we get out.”

Josh shook his head and murmured, “Big trouble.”

Yeah, Gabriel was sure of that—but it probably wasn’t the kind of trouble Josh was picturing. Gabriel really didn’t like the look of Josh’s injuries. “Your mom’s going to be so thrilled to see you that she’ll probably buy you a million hamburgers.”

Josh went quiet, and Gabriel kept glancing to make sure he was conscious as they scaled the rope.

“Gabriel?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“I can’t feel my legs.”

‡