Laura Altom - Saving Joe

In the flashlight’s dimming glow, fear came alive in her eyes. “We’re not going to swim through that, are we?”

“No,” he said, already on the move. Leading more by memory than actual sight, he stepped onto the nearest boulder, praying he wouldn’t slip on the slick seaweed. He landed with a jolt, and the dog in his arms whimpered. “Sorry, boy. We’ll be there soon.”

“Be where?” she inquired from behind him, shining the light over his shoulder.

He shouted above the crack of waves against rock. “We’re going back to where you found Bud. You can push Bud through the hole he fell through, then climb up yourself.” He paused to gauge her reaction to his plan, but she’d stopped.

“What about you?” she asked.

“What about me?”

“You’ll never fit through that hole. How are you getting out?”

“I’m not.”

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing.”

“Joe…” She held out her hands, a feeble attempt to show him the danger of their surroundings. Her one word said it all.

To stay in the cave would be deadly.

He knew it.

She knew it.

“Go on,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. I’ll be all right.”

“The hell you will.”

A cold wave slapped Joe’s right foot and the numbing water seeped through his boot, wetting his thick wool sock, slithering like an icy vine around his ankle.

“Gillian,” Joe said. “You saved my dog and I’m grateful, but if you don’t get the both of you out of here soon, you’ll be trapped. By getting myself mixed up in that whole drug case thing, I’ve already taken more lives than I care to admit, and I damn sure won’t be held accountable for yours now, as well.”

“Your testimony saved lives. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.” Dammit if she didn’t raise her chin. “I won’t leave you.”

He looked away from her determined stare. Sighed.

“Up there,” she said, in a voice tinged with panic and cold, waving the ever-weakening flashlight toward the rear of the cave. “That looks like a waterline against the rock. I don’t think the waves break beyond that point.”

Bud whimpered.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Joe said. “If you take the dog back to the cabin and get him all bandaged and warmed by the fire, then I promise to spend the night in that hole.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You don’t believe me? Geez, lady, what gives you the impression I’d want to end it all in a crappy place like this?”

“The truth?” she said, water now swirling about her knees.

“Is there anything else?”

She aimed the light directly into his eyes. “Back there, just a minute ago, when you first told me to leave you here, you were smiling. Sure, it was a faint smile, but a smile nonetheless.” She made a leap of faith, jumping across a swirling froth of water and onto the same rock he shared with the dog. “Just a minute ago, Joe Morgan, you offered to save my life. All I’m trying to do is return the favor.”

He laughed. “You ever think to ask why I was smiling, instead of jumping to your own wrong conclusions?”

“Okay,” she asked. “Why?”

“Because just like I already told you, I feel directly responsible for my wife’s death, and though I couldn’t save her, I will, by God, save you.”

“But I’m already saving you.”

Bud whined.

“Great,” Joe said, taking the lead. “Now that we’ve got that sorted out, how about we launch a joint mission in saving each other?”

Gillian’s only reply was a grunt as she steadied herself against Joe’s right shoulder before stepping past him and onto the next rock.

“Hurry,” she said a few seconds later, already a good ten feet deeper into the cave.

Shooting her an actual grin, he shook his head. “I’d forgotten how bossy women can be.”

“I’m not bossy, just right. This is no time to dillydally.”

“Do I seriously look like the type to dilly or dally?”

“Why, Mr. Morgan,” she teased. “Was that a joke?”

Passing her, he scowled, then pointed to a deep, high crevice. “Shine the light over there.”

She did.

“Think we’ll all fit?”

“Sure.”

A few minutes later, Gillian landed with a thunk on soft sand. The rock walls surrounding her felt cool and dry. A good sign, she figured, in light of the fact that everything else she’d touched that night had been slimy.

Joe knelt to settle the dog beside her, then he, too, found a seat in the sand before shutting off the flashlight.

Never having been a big fan of the dark, Gillian knew this tight, dank space should’ve thoroughly creeped her out. But somehow, with Joe and Bud beside her, it didn’t seem all that bad. More like an adventure than real danger.

And while, before she had felt like a big screwup on her first time in the field, down in this cave Joe had probably never been safer from the bad guys!

She shivered.

“Cold?” he asked.

“A little.” But she suspected her tremors had more to do with the fact that she’d come uncomfortably close to blowing her first assignment than anything to do with the cave’s chill. With any luck, her fellow marshals would be so busy playing cards, they wouldn’t notice she hadn’t called in.

Joe said, “Bud’s probably all right if you want to take my coat from him.”

“Nah. He needs it more than me. Besides, we’re squeezed in here so tight, it’d be more trouble than it’s worth just trying to get it on.”

She thought she might’ve felt Joe shrug before settling the dog across their laps. By which point they were wedged so close at their shoulders, hips and legs that damp heat fogged between them. Joe’s warmth came as a stark contrast to the sharp rock digging into Gillian’s other shoulder.

As the water in the cave rose, its pounding smacks against the rocks lessened into deceptively gentle laps.

Was it coming for them? Or had their dry patch of sand told the truth about keeping them safe?

Bud whimpered.

Gillian instinctively reached down to pet him, only her hand collided with Joe’s.

He jerked his back.

Thank God. Had he felt it, too? A sort of split-second biochemical hum passing between them?

She rubbed Bud’s silky-soft ear, which was much easier than attempting to deal with her sudden uncomfortable awareness of Joe as a man instead of her assignment. Biochemical. That attraction? All science, and nothing else.

No denying Joe was a bona fide hottie.

Which only helped make their current situation all the more uncomfortable. What this awkward mess called for was talk. Lots and lots of talk. From the first day she’d opened Joe’s file, she’d found a question burning to be asked. To some, it might seem insensitive, maybe even flip, but to a man who loved his family as much as Joe Morgan, there was something about his recent actions that didn’t add up.

She cleared her throat, then went for it. “How come you left Meghan with your wife’s parents?”

“What?” Even in the pitch-black cave, Joe’s fury was plain to see. He’d tensed his entire body. His leg and arm, which moments earlier had been pliant, were now unyielding stone.

Ack. The question had been brutal, the answer none of her business. So why couldn’t she now keep from blurting, “Sorry, but it doesn’t make sense. You just leaving her. Seems to me if you wanted to protect her, you’d keep her with you.”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he said with a deep sigh. “I see her as often as I think it’s safe. I call a lot, too. Yeah, I’d like to be with her more, but seeing how, thanks to everyone’s favorite drug lord, I’m now your basic danger magnet, in my best parental judgment, the only way she’s safe is if I’m gone.”