The Cinderella Mission (Family Secrets #1)(33)
Author: Catherine Mann

“What would you do?” she insisted.

He relented. “Since there’s light, I would climb.”

She set her teeth and ignored the fear. “Then let’s climb.”

“Hey, now.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Just because it’s what I would do doesn’t make it the smart move. I’m a reckless idiot and there’s no reason for you to be the same. I could go without you—” Her glare silenced him. “Or we can park our butts here and wait. Clyde will come looking when he sees the rental car’s still out front.”

“Unless that wasn’t an accident. You said never to trust anyone.”

Ethan stayed silent.

Of course he’d know that. Johnny’s directions and convenient timing to return to work took on a sinister tone. “I’ll let you decide who’s going up first. But as long as there’s light, we’re climbing. We can spot each other.”

Ethan studied the slope, then Kelly, and shook his head. “If this wasn’t an accident, who the hell knows how many more traps have been set. We’ll sit tight. Aunt Eugenie doesn’t know details about my job, but she has a number to call if I don’t return. A direct line to Hatch. Once she does that, they’ll activate the tracking chip in my shoulder and locate us.”

A chilling thought settled in her too-damned-logical brain. “Which shoulder?”

“What?”

“Which shoulder is your tracking chip embedded in?”

“The left.”

The one with the bruise smeared across it from his tango with the weights. She almost didn’t want to know, but had to ask, “Do you think it’s still working?”

Ethan’s jaw set as if he was already planning to bar her way up that wall of dirt. “Carla designed it to withstand stress. It’s fine. If not, we’ll just jam your stone under my skin.”

“I told you not to diss the crystals.” If there was even half an ounce of truth in those mystic possibilities, they’d no doubt maxed their bad luck for the day.

The light overhead dimmed, flickered. Went dead.

End of bad luck? Apparently not.

Just his damned luck. As if it wasn’t bad enough he’d been trapped in an unstable cavern with a ton of debris waiting to crash down on their heads. As if he wasn’t already beating himself up over not finding a way to drag Kelly out of this dank hellhole.

The fates had decided to punish him by submerging him in complete darkness with Kelly’s voice echoing around him for the past hour.

Of course if talking kept her calm, then fine. He would keep listening to her recounting of every childhood holiday since birth while they shared peppermint sticks.

She racked up serious points in his book for grit. Kelly hadn’t complained once of the damp cold that chilled to the bone. And there wasn’t a chance she’d survived that plunge without some injury. His arm was throbbing like a son-of-a-bitch. He was used to shrugging it off, but Kelly—what a job initiation.

He hated the helplessness of the situation, waiting for the chip to activate once Aunt Eugenie reported them missing. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do to get them out. The inky darkness posed countless hazards, even if they somehow made it up the slope without releasing an avalanche of rubble. Too many sheer drop-offs waited on the trail back.

On his own, he’d chance it. But the risk was too great to gamble with Kelly in tow.

Give him an enemy to bag. A crook to down. A target to shoot. Anything but depending on fate and luck to pull them through when he knew fate could be a heartless bastard.

Kelly’s light laugh broke through the darkness. She paused midstory, somewhere around dyeing eggs or baking cookies. “As much as I’m sure you’re enjoying hearing the details of my fifth Easter, maybe I should teach you some meditation instead. We could alternate power naps.”

Ethan massaged his aching arm. At least the pain would keep him awake. “I need to stay alert.”

“Or we could take turns keeping watch.”

“Okay. I’ll go first.”

“Mule.” She slugged his arm.

He stifled a wince along with a curse. He didn’t need her turning into Florence Nightingale on him since there wasn’t a thing she could do to help him anyway. “What kind of cookies were they?”

“Sugar cookies. Cut out shapes with colored spr-sprinkles.” Her chattering teeth clacked through the last word.

Knowing he would regret it, he called to her, “Come here.”

“Why?”

“It’s only going to get colder.”

“I’m f-fine.”

And the little pit bull dared call him stubborn! He rolled out the only excuse he could conjure that would lure her into accepting what she needed. “Well, good for you, but I’m freezing my ass off over here.”

“Oh.” Rustling sounded from a few feet away as she scrambled closer. “Ethan?”

“Right here.”

Her hand landed in his lap. No chance she would miss the furnace of heat there. Damned inconvenient that the libido didn’t turn off even in life-threatening situations. Just the opposite. His body screamed procreate before you die.

Kelly’s hand slid away. He stifled a groan, tougher than withholding sound when she’d slugged his arm. He tucked his good arm around her and drew her closer until she dropped between his legs. He locked his arms around her waist and tucked her back against his chest. Her bottom nestled against him.

No way could she miss the obvious.

“Uh, Ethan?”

“Ignore it, Kelly. I am.” Not.

“Maybe we should talk about—”

“Nope. Don’t think so.” He had enough trouble resisting her voice when she talked about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. He’d damn well explode if she switched to discussions about his too-obvious arousal. “Let’s move on to Halloween number five.”

“Tell me about yours instead.”

Her question sideswiped him. Leave it to Kelly to zero in on his first holiday without his parents. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on Hatch’s mysterious file about their deaths.

He’d thought he’d squelched the pain from their accident years ago. But now that he had reason to believe it wasn’t just an accident, old ghosts of the past came back to bite him on the butt when he least expected. As soon as he closed this case, he would make it his personal mission in life to find out what the hell had really happened that day.