Chains of Fire (16 page)

She tried to clamp her legs together again, and when he slipped his finger inside her, she gave a hip roll that made him break a sweat. When she moaned, his control cracked. He tore open the condom and rolled it on fast, then positioned himself and pressed hard.

Her eyes flew open.

“Hurts?” He was surprised he could still speak.

“Yes.”

“Stop?”
Shit.
Why had he asked that?

She shook her head, braced her feet against the cushion, and lifted her hips to his.

She was helping him. Which made him want to go as fast as he could. Which was really fast.

Instead, he held himself still, let her do the work, and hoped she didn’t notice the tremor as he leaned on his arms. Finally she whispered, “You can move now.”

So he did, nice and slow, and that was the most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life . . . and ultimately the most rewarding, because when they were finished, he knew Isabelle was his love . . . forever.

Rescuers had found them?

She blasted out of the tent in her long johns and socks. She looked around.

The lantern sat on the table. Food sat beside it: one of the endless energy bars, a juice box, and something that looked like a former banana.

No light. No heat. No voices. Just the sound of that damned saw or drill or whatever from the back of the locker room. As she stood there in her long underwear and her socks, her excitement wilted around her.

The sound was nothing but Samuel doing . . . something.

Hugging herself, she ignored the food. Climbed back in the tent. Huddling back into the sleeping bag, she tried to get warm again. To go back to sleep. Because what was the point of getting up?

They had tried to dig out. After days of blistering exertion and foolish hopes, they had failed. They were trapped here on the set of
Silence of the Lamb-lined Boots
—she made an internal note to tell Samuel that one—and she wanted to die in peace.

But that power tool went on and on, the screeching high and constant until she was grinding her teeth. When some piece of metal slammed to the floor, she jumped so hard she gave herself a kink in the neck.

“Honestly!” She slapped on her clothes, crawled out of the tent, and went in search of Samuel.

A tall ladder leaned against the wall at the back. He was perched on top of it, cordless saw in hand, chopping open the huge tin heating duct strung across the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” she shouted.

He continued working.

“What are you . . . ?”
Oh
. He was wearing orange earmuffs.

She put her hand on the ladder and shook it slightly.

He cut the power to the saw. Grabbed at the ladder. Pulled off his earmuffs with controlled exasperation. “Do you mind not scaring me into next week? For a second there, I had visions of falling and rupturing another disk.”

“I’ve been calling you for five minutes and you couldn’t hear me.” It had been more like thirty seconds, but she was too aggravated to be honest. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to see where this ductwork goes.”

Her heart leaped with improbable hope. “You think it goes out?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. But it’s worth a try.”

She sank down on a stuff sack with a stowed tent inside. “Where did you get the saw?”

“Ski patrol. Batteries were charged, so I thought I might as well put it to use.” He actually looked pretty good—bright eyed and confident, with his jacket flung at the base of the ladder and someone’s red plaid flannel shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. In fact, with that black beard covering his chin, he looked like . . . like . . . He looked like the lumberjack in that paper towel advertisement.

Probably he looked so animated because he was making a horrible amount of noise and using power tools.

She’d look that way if she were putting on makeup and getting ready to go dancing instead of sitting here miserably wondering whether it was worse to be dirty or wash in the freezing water. Thank God she’d taken that shower the night the avalanche hit. Because if her hair were still that sticky and disgusting, she would be going insane.

What was she talking about? She
was
going insane.

“If you’re going to sit close,” he said, “grab the ear protection over there.” He pointed toward the neat piles of tools and batteries.

She stood and rambled over. “Did you know I’m claustrophobic?” she asked in a conversational tone.

“No.” He sounded dubious.

“I didn’t, either. But I do now.” She picked up the ear protection and held it against her chest.

“Did you eat the breakfast I left you?”

He might as well have asked if it was
that
time of the month. Which it wasn’t, not for another week, and if they weren’t out by then, wouldn’t
that
be lovely, scrounging through the lockers for tampons? “This isn’t about food. I just . . . I want to know what day it is.”

He pushed back the cuff of his work glove and glanced at his watch. “It’s Thursday, about eight.”

“Morning or evening?”

“Evening.”

“Are you sure? Because I can’t tell. I can’t tell! I want . . . to see . . . some light.” When he started to point to the lantern, she charged on: “Not those stupid LEDs that are burning through our batteries faster than we’re getting out of here. I want to see the
sun
.”

He descended the ladder and put the saw down. Walked toward her. “You know, I’ve been thinking. I bet they’ve found my rental car and deduced we’re here.”

“No
, they
haven’t
. They haven’t, or you wouldn’t be doing ridiculous stuff like thinking of climbing into a heating vent in the hopes of finding a way out.”

“Actually, I was trying to hide from you.”

She sighed. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be. You complained I hadn’t done a good enough job of getting us out of here. I’m trying every avenue.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his eyes got intense and heated, as if the solitude and darkness and cold were getting to him, too. Oh, and the threat of death hanging over their heads might be commanding his attention, too.

She intended to apologize for being a bitch.

Then he added, “I hope that suits you,
princess
.”

Her teeth snapped together. “I
hate
it when you call me that. Like I’m some kind of spoiled brat.”

“You? No. Not you.” His tone mocked her.

The way he put his hand on his hip, imitating her own pose, made her temper rise. “I put in the work. I’ve got the blisters to prove it.” She thrust her hands under his nose.

“I remember the first time I saw you. I was five. You were four, and so pretty, so sweet, so loving. Darren told me you weren’t for me.”

“I guess he was right.” She smiled sweetly.

“I guess he was.” He smiled back, all shark teeth. “But I guess the question is—what color are your panties
today
?”

That was Samuel. He
had
to remind her there had been a time when her underwear had been of intimate concern to him.

Well, not anymore, buster.
“My panties are not now nor will they ever again be your business.” Turning, she stormed away.

Until he grabbed her arm and swung her around, dragged her until she was face-to-face with him, and asked, “Why did you leave me?”

“Oh. That.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and turned away.

Yeah, she was guilty as hell, and she knew it, too. “So, princess. Tell me all about it.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“You don’t remember?” He paced around her so he was looking at her downturned face. “Because the memory burns like fire in my gut.”

“I remember. Everything was new and bright, and we were so young and . . .”

“In love?” he asked harshly.

In a low voice, she said, “Yes. I was so desperately in love with you, I was afraid to look my mother in the eyes. I never understood why she didn’t see the truth.”

The whole crap-ass situation always led straight back to her mother. “She didn’t see it because it was beyond her comprehension that her daughter could find anything in common with the butler’s son.”

“She’s not so . . .” Isabelle faltered.

“Yes, she is,” he said unequivocally. “I appreciate that your mother lifted me from the gutter, but whosoever she chooses to elevate to the status of daughter is above all others in this world, and all the more reason for her to remember the contrast between you and me.”

“She does have her reasons for being a snob,” Isabelle reminded him.

“Don’t I know it? I’ve heard it a hundred times.” He circled her again, a slow tour that kept him from exploding in frustration. “Her ancestors landed on Plymouth Rock in the
Mayflower
.”

“She doesn’t talk about her background all the time!”

“She doesn’t have to. My father told me time and again who Patricia Mason was and how that placed her—and you—far above any aspirations I might harbor. Because, you know, I’m a half-Gypsy bastard with a talent for picking pockets.” Even now, so many years later, Samuel could taste the bitterness on his tongue.

“Darren’s so much worse than my mother!”

He stopped pacing. “Amen to that.”

The moment of silence that followed was almost like the end of a prayer where they remained in thoughtful accord.

Then Isabelle had to screw it up. “Mother’s a good person. She’s a primo organizer. She’s raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for international children’s literacy. She’s assisted in dozens of adoptions. If she had the right staff, she could run the world.”

“She runs your life.”

“I owe her everything!”

“She makes you pay with obedience.”

That brought her face up to stare at him hotly. “I am not obedient.”

“Remember when you were little, and she told you healing was vulgar because it involved touching people and enveloping their disease or their wound to cure them?”

Isabelle sighed. “She’s not big on physical contact.”

“I gathered that. That must be why your dad looks so gaunt. He hasn’t been laid for years. And you—does she ever really hug you, or is it that cheek-touch thing I always see?” Before Isabelle could get indignant, he said, “I can’t even imagine what Patricia thought when she realized you had a gift. It’s different, and different is not something of which she approves.”

“No. She is quite—”

“Stuffy? Medieval?
Congested?”
He started pacing.

“If you want to be that way, fine.” Isabelle’s voice rose. “But her goals and mine frequently coincide.”

So now they were back to the subject at hand. “Is that why, when things got too real, you ran away? Did she give you the excuse you were looking for to get away from me?”

“Are we talking about when I was sixteen? Again?” Isabelle pushed her hair out of her face. “Samuel . . . I was only sixteen!”

“Yeah, and I was seventeen—and you left me to face your mother and my father.” He turned and paced around the other way.

Isabelle spun on her heel, observing him warily. “My mother found us. In the act!” It was clear her humiliation still burned.

“She didn’t find us. My father told her about us.” He walked away from Isabelle. “What does it matter how we were discovered? Who told on whom? What’s that got to do with it? You didn’t have to run away.”

“I didn’t run away. She took me away.” Isabelle looked sullen.

She never looked sullen. Good. He was getting to her.

“You let her. You could have let me know.” He leaned his knuckles against a table and stared at her, chin down, eyes narrowed. “Do you know what it was like, sitting at that table when Darren and your mother told me you’d
gone away
? That you were beyond the reach of my grubby paws, and to make sure I stayed away, your mother was willing to pay for me to go to prep school and college? They paid me off like you were the lady and I was the stable boy.”

“You took the money, didn’t you?” She had the guts to sound resentful.

“Hell, yes!” He stepped around the table toward her. “In cash! Then I gave them both the finger and got out of there. What did you think I was going to do? Be noble and refuse? Obviously you knew what kind of guy I was or you wouldn’t have abandoned me.”

“I guess I did know.” She stepped away, ready to run away again.

The little coward.

“And all those afternoons sitting around reading each other fucking poetry were nothing but bullshit,” he spat.

She spun around. “I thought you liked poetry.”

“I do like poetry.” He stalked toward her. “I’m a fucking sensitive guy.”

“Stop saying that word!” She backed up.

“Really? That’s the problem here? My
language
?” That shut her up, he was pleased to see. “You ran. You ran like a scared rabbit.”

“I wasn’t scared.”

He flexed his gloved hands as he herded her toward the corner.

She went one slow step at a time. “I was smart enough even then to know we weren’t a good match.”

It was like a dance without music. They never took their eyes off each other, but it didn’t matter. They both knew the motions.

“We were a great match. That’s what scared you.”

“We were too young!”

“We were young, but we had everything in common. Our souls were one. We could have made it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t. But I know this.” In one swift motion, he closed the gap between them. Grabbing her coat, he pulled her close and up onto her toes. He gazed into her eyes. “The sex was great.”

“It was great because we were teenagers. It would have been great no matter . . .” She faltered, unable to finish the lie she had told herself.

“You can’t even convince yourself.”

Her pupils were dilated, swallowing the blue of her eyes.

Because she was frightened? She should be. The old rage welled in him, sharp and acrid on his tongue.

But it wasn’t merely fright that had her trembling against him.

It wasn’t cold, either.

The heat, the desire, the pure, raw sexuality they so carefully controlled fought to be free, and he could almost taste her need.

“I had you,” he said. “Lots of times. And oh, princess, how much you loved it.”