If he fell…
Monica pushed herself up against the wall, using her back to inch into a standing position. The movement spread hot pain up her leg and made her head swim. For a brief moment, she thought she’d be sick to her stomach. She hoped to hell that was because of the pain and not because the water they were forced to drink was bad.
Trent hadn’t noticed her stand and was still trying to climb a vertical wall without a rope.
She hopped on her good leg, using the wall for support. Monica needed to prove his foolishness to him. Damn testosterone brain. With one hand on the wall and the other gripping her scrub pants to hold her injured leg, she closed her eyes and tried to hop again.
“Crap!” she yelled when the movement made that white pain turn molten.
“What the hell?” Trent was off the wall and at her side with his hands around her in a second. “What the f**k are you doing?”
Tears, from pain or fear she didn’t know which, swam in her eyes. “Getting used to being alone, ass**le. You’re going to get yourself killed and I’ll be in here all alone,” she choked out right as the first tear fell. She hated crying. So damn useless. Solved nothing and only offered a headache as a reward.
Still, once the tears started there wasn’t any way to stop them. A sob escaped her throat and she punched the hard plane of Trent’s chest. “Asshole,” she said again just in case he didn’t understand just how upset she was.
With able arms, he lifted her off her feet and placed her back on the blanket.
She swiped at the tears in her eyes as if they were unwanted ants at a picnic and refused to meet his gaze. “Ass,” she mumbled again under her breath.
Trent plunked down beside her and released a frustrated breath. “I need to do something, Monica.”
“You can do something. You can talk to me; take turns yelling so someone searching for us can hear us. You can tell me we’re going to get out of here.” They were coming on twenty-four hours and their food wasn’t going to last. Thank God she’d carried a few protein bars and the Borderless Doctors version of MREs in her pack. But she’d only carried enough food to last a week while in Jamaica. She’d not eaten all of it thanks to the provisions provided by Trent while in his home, but no matter how one spun that bottle, her food was nearly gone. That left the lunch Trent packed the day before, the bananas scavenged off the tree, and that was it. Between the two of them, they had two days of food left.
After that, it was a slow death. Water would keep them alive for what, five days at most… under the best of circumstances. That was if the water… no, she couldn’t think about that. They’d both drunk the water over three hours before and neither of them showed signs of it causing any turmoil inside their bodies.
“If I’m going to die in here—”
“You’re not going to die.”
Ignoring his words, she pushed on. “If I’m going to die in here I don’t want to do it looking over your dead broken body. I’ve seen enough dead broken bodies.” With her last words, she made sure her eyes met his.
“You’re not going to die,” he whispered.
Avoiding his pointed eyes… eyes of a man who didn’t lie and had sounded so much more convincing when he’d uttered those words the day before, Monica’s gaze fell on her leg.
Blood soaked her small bandage.
The night was worse. The dark… the quiet.
Trent gave up his need to climb the walls and helped Monica redress her leg before the sun set. The inside temperature of the cave was warmer than it had been the night before. Yet even as the thought crossed Monica’s mind she knew the temperature of the cave was the same. It was her temperature that rose.
She had an open fracture and even though she’d jumped on cleaning it, dressing it… no use wondering what she could have done differently. Her leg was hot, her insides weren’t right.
Luckily, Trent seemed well enough.
“I always wanted to learn how to play the piano,” she said out of nowhere.
“Why didn’t you?” Trent asked in the dark, her head cradled in his lap. He insisted on staying alert in case he heard something in the night.
“We didn’t have money growing up. My mom still lives in the double-wide we grew up in. Jack offered to put her in something a little nicer, but she didn’t want it.”
His hand stroked her hair as they talked.
“Is there anything on your bucket list?”
He chuckled, thinking of something he wasn’t saying.
“What?” she asked.
“I always wanted to go on one of those cattle ranch weekends with the guys. You know, live on the range for a few days.”
“Like that movie… oh what was the name of it?” She pictured the lead actors but not the name of the film.
“There’s one thing… only one thing,” Trent said in his best cowboy voice.
“You only have to find out what that one thing is,” she finished for him. “Who would you go with?”
“My brothers. They’d hate it.” His chest moved with his laugh.
“Why?”
“They’re the corporate type. Good guys, don’t get me wrong, but they both like the office more than the outdoors.”
“Stuffy?”
“No, no… just suited for the city. They didn’t get why I moved here.”
“Why did you move here?”
He took a deep breath, blew it out. “After my parents died I needed something new. I don’t know, something different.”
“Did you feel trapped when they were alive?”
“No. Not that. I just needed something else.”
Monica ignored the warmth under her shirt and the sweat under her hair and closed her eyes as they spoke. “And now you’re ready to go home?”
“Past time,” he said.
Home sounded good. Really good.
Chapter Sixteen
They flew in search and rescue teams from Texas and California. The California team had members of the fire departments surrounding the hospital in which Monica worked. Several of the men knew her personally. Jessie was overwhelmed by their support and desire to drop everything in aide of finding her sister and Trent. Unfortunately, that support didn’t find them instantly. It took hours for the teams to arrive and devise a plan.
While Jack and Jessie set up camp on Trent’s property, which included actual tents for the company of men and women on the search, Glen and Jason flew in Blue Paradise Helicopters and did aerial searches.