Sea of Dreams (The American Heroes Series Book 2) (14 page)

“I’m going to bring Crosby up,” he told her.

Beck began to deftly climb the old ladder with only one free hand. He held Crosby tightly against him with the other.  Blakesley positioned herself at the top of the ladder, listening to the floorboard groan and praying they couldn’t give way as she held her arms out for Crosby.  Beck lifted the little girl up to her mother as he drew within range and Blakesley scooped the child up, holding her fast as she scurried away from the hole.  She was gone from the room when Beck pulled himself from the hole.

He found Blakesley sitting on the staircase by the entry, holding Crosby and rocking her gently. Crosby was crying softly again, cuddled up against her mother, as Beck stood over them both for a moment before crouching down and putting a big hand on Blakesley’s shoulder.

“Is she okay?” he asked softly. “I didn’t get a good look at her. It was pretty dark down there.”

Blakesley’s nose and mouth were buried in the top of Crosby’s blond head.  She looked up at Beck, the bluish-green eyes watery with emotion.

“She seems to be,” she murmured. “No broken bones or big bleeding wounds.  I’ll get her back to the hotel and into the bath and get a better idea.”

He smiled faintly, squeezing her shoulder before putting the same hand on Crosby’s blond head.

“You sure you’re okay, honey?” his smile broadened when their eyes met. “You took quite a fall.”

 Crosby wiped at her wet eyes, smearing dirt on her face. “Y-yes,” she sniffed. “Are you sure you didn’t see any bunnies?”

Blakesley looked confused as Beck shook his head and squeezed her little hand. “No bunnies, I promise,” he stood up, looking at Blakesley. “Maybe we should take the girls back to the hotel for now. I think Miss Crosby has had a big day.”

Blakesley nodded, standing wearily until Beck reached out and took Crosby from her.  He cradled the little girl as Blakesley followed him out into the late afternoon sunshine.  As they neared the BMW, they could hear Charlotte’s high pitched voice. Beck opened up the door and Charlotte practically threw herself out.

He had a good grip on Charlotte as her mother came to the rescue, putting the little girl back in her car seat.  As Charlotte fussed, Beck put Crosby into the car and snapped on her seat belt.

“You take the girls back,” he told Blakesley. “I’ll follow in my truck.”

Blakesley finished with Charlotte and turned to Beck. “I’m going to have Nikki take them back,” she said quietly. “I want to see what that hole is all about.”

He shook his head at her. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he replied. “You should probably call the City or the Fire Department and have them check it out.   That hole was purposely built underneath that floor and more than that, it had a tunnel that branched off from it. I’m not exactly sure, but it seemed to me that it ran off in the direction of the canyon behind the house.”

Blakesley’s eyebrows lifted. “Seriously?” she gasped softly. “Could you see anything? I mean, what did it look like?”

“Like an old tunnel with loads of old stuff cluttering it up,” he replied. “You may even want to call a museum.  It looked like a treasure trove down there.”

He could tell, just by the look on her face, that she wasn’t going to leave the house before she saw it and he knew that, very shortly, he’d be back down in that hole. It was just a hunch he had.

“I really want to see it,” she half-demanded, half-pleaded. “I’ll send the girls back with Nikki and we can take a quick look. Please?  If this is under my house, where my girls are going to live, then I really want to see what it’s all about.”

He knew better than to argue. He was coming to see that Blakesley Thorne was very determined in most aspects of her life and not one to take no for an answer.  It was a rather diva quality but, truth be told, he didn’t really care. He liked her that way.  After a moment, he puffed out his cheeks and sighed heavily.

“All right,” he agreed. “Send the girls back and we’ll take a look.”

She lit up with a bright smile. “Awesome.”

He pointed a finger at her. “But just a quick look,” he insisted. “And I want you to stay with me, okay? It could be very dangerous down there and I don’t want either of us getting hurt.  Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

He wasn’t sure he believed her but he did the gentlemanly thing and didn’t dispute her.  Blakesley handed her car keys over to Nikki and told the young woman to take the girls back to the hotel and get them into the bathtub.  Nikki pulled out of the driveway, very carefully, driving like a grandma as Blakesley and Beck watched the SUV slowly pull out onto the road and disappear.   When the car vanished, Blakesley turned to Beck.

“Can we take a look now?” she asked.

He nodded, going back over to his big Chevy half-ton pickup and unlocking it.  He dug around in the utility box behind the front seat until he came up with a flashlight of his own.  By the time he turned around, Blakesley was gone and he ran back into the public wing, nearly running her over when he found her just inside the front door messing around with her flashlight.   As it was, he bumped into her and she staggered from the force of his momentum.

“Hey, ”she pretended to frown at him as she adjusted the flashlight. “Slow down, slick.”

He grinned, his hand on her arm to both steady her and keep her from getting away. “Sorry to say that I don’t trust you, but I don’t.”

Her frown was real. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’ll pretty much do as you damn well please and end up in that hole no matter how much I tell you to be careful.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he simply pulled her against him and kissed her soundly to shut her up. “You’re a bossy, stubborn and determined woman, but I kind of like that.”

She grinned up at him, all wrapped up in his big arms. “It takes one to know one.”

He met her grin. “I’ve got forty men under my command who jump when I say jump,” he rubbed his nose against her, gently. “I have a feeling I know four women who won’t jump when I give the word.”

She laughed softly, her arms going around his neck. “That’s not true,” she insisted softly. “Maybe we will sometimes.  Once in awhile.  Or not.“

It was his turn to laugh softly and he kissed her again, a couple of times, softly and sensually. “I don’t care if you do or you don’t,” he whispered. “You just tell me how high you want me to jump and I’ll do it without question.”

She made a noise that sounded a lot like a purr and slanted her lips over his, kissing him with power and passion.  Beck picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, holding fast to him as tongues tasted and lips suckled.   They were losing control again, as they had in the kitchen, but this time, Blakesley put on the brakes.  As Beck began to fondle her breasts, she pulled her mouth away from his.

“Not now,” she breathed, although his hands on her breasts were heating her up. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but there are bigger priorities right now.”

He was unbuttoning her white blouse, his mouth on the swell of her cleavage. “Bigger than this?”

His words were muffled against her flesh.  “Yes,” she insisted, although weakly. He was moving on her nipples and she knew that once he did that, all would be lost. “I’d really like to see the hole and then get back to the hotel to make sure Crosby is all right.”

He sighed heavily and came to a halt.  He had just managed to pull her bra away from her left breast and rosy nipple was inches from his mouth.  He could see it and nearly taste it. But her words had some impact on him,

“Sorry,” he murmured. “I got carried away.”

She smiled at him as he still held her breast, his mouth very close to her nipple. “That’s okay,” she insisted softly.  “I don’t mind. But we’ll find time for this later and give it the attention and respect it deserves.   Crazy-passionate sex in the kitchen is excusable once, but twice, it’s just opportunistic and cheap. Like that’s all we care about.”

He looked rather pained by her words and let go of her breast, the green eyes full of distress. “Oh, my God, you’re right,” he hissed. “You’re absolutely right. The first time… it just all happened so fast.  I just wanted you so badly but to do it where we did it… in a kitchen like that, on the floor… I’m so sorry, baby.  That wasn’t respectful at all, was it?”

She kissed him, pulling her bra and blouse back over her exposed breast. “It was an amazing experience and one I don’t regret,” she told him quietly. “But you and I aren’t in this just for spontaneous sex wherever or whenever we feel like it, are we?”

“Hell, no.”

“So we need to show some self control and give that kind of intimate display the seriousness it deserves.  It means something deep to me and I hope it means something deep to you.”

“Of course it does,” he kissed her and lowered her to the ground. “I’m really sorry.  It’s just that when I taste you, I just can’t help myself. Something about you just makes me lose control.”

She grinned. “There’s no reason to be sorry,” she said. “I feel the same way you do.”

He smiled, somewhat reluctantly, and kissed her again as she took his hand and led him back towards the room with the big hole in the floor.  He held her hand tightly, still feeling guilty that he had been so willing to make another cheap display of sex but thankful she had righted his senses.  He struggled to focus on the task ahead of them and not on his lack of self control with a woman who clearly overwhelmed him.

Blakesley let go of his hand when they entered the room with the big hole over near the tack closets.  She stood back, eyeing the unsteady scene, as Beck took several steps into the room and crouched down to better inspected the floor.  It seemed to him that it was leaning somewhat, like the hole in the floor had created a big sinking point that dragged down the rest of the flooring, so he wasn’t too sure that more of the floor wasn’t about to give way.  He sighed heavily.

“Baby,” he turned to look at her. “I’m just not comfortable with this. Everything in this room looks unstable to me and I just don’t think it’s safe.”

She stood by the door, taking his suggestion seriously because it looked to her, too, like everything in the room was tilting towards the hole.

“I don’t disagree with you,” she said, “ but I’m afraid that once I call the City about this, they’ll block off this entire wing while they study this and I may never get to see what’s underneath.  They’ll have it all sectioned off for study for God knows how long; you know this house is a historical landmark, so the State of California is going to get involved, too. Everything in that hole belongs to my family. I’d really like to see what’s down there before I’m kicked out and never get to see it again.”

He sighed again, looking back to the hole before rising to his feet.  “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “But you stay with me, and you hold on to me, and you do exactly what I tell you. Okay?”

She nodded and walked up behind him, holding his hand tightly. He gave her a wink and squeezed her hand and, very carefully, led her towards the gaping hole.

It was still daylight outside but the sun was beginning to set.  Since the electricity wasn’t live in this room, there were no lights to turn on so they fired up their flashlights.   Beck went to the side of the hole with the ladder on it, taking a good look at the edges of the hole before putting his foot on the first rung of the ladder.

“It looks like this room wasn’t built on a raised foundation,” he said, shining the flashlight around the hole. “If you look at the edges of this hole, you’ll see packed earth beneath the floor with the exception of this pit.”

She was holding on to him as he began to descend.  “So this entire room isn’t about to collapse?”

He shook his head.  “Now that I can see what’s under the floor, I don’t think so.”

“But it looks like it’s leaning.”

“I know it does, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

Beck took four or five rungs before holding his hand up and helping Blakesley find her footing on the ladder above him.  Another five rungs and he was on the floor of the pit.  He took Blakesley by the waist when she was half-way down, lifted her up, and set her on the floor beside him.

Blakesley shined her flashlight on the surrounding pit, noting the crude dirt walls that still looked like they had pick marks on them.  Awed, she timidly put her hand against the side of the pit.

“Wow,” she breathed softly. “Somebody dug this out.”

Beck was already shining his flashlight down the tunnel. “They sure did,” he said softly. “With picks and shovels and who knows what else. The question is why.”

The smell, the dankness, was starting to creep over Blakesley as if only now noticing it. They were deep in the earth, like a grave, and although she wasn’t claustrophobic, she really didn’t like the sense that they were buried alive.  She pondered Beck’s statement, on her family’s history, searching for a logical answer when a thought suddenly occurred to her.

“Remember what Old Mike said?” she said, her hand on the dirt wall. “He said that there was a room dug into the side of the canyon, where people back in the old days would hide from Indians.   Maybe this tunnel is part of that safety system.”

Beck stood at the mouth of the tunnel, shining his bright white light into the murky darkness.

“Maybe,” he said quietly, then held out a hand to her. “You wanted to look so let’s go look.”

Blakesley took his hand and followed him to the tunnel entry.  She was spooked and curious, excited and wary.  As the beam of her flashlight fell on the wall, she could see the Spanish writing etched into the earth.  She was instantly fascinated.

“Oh, my God,” she gasped. “What is this?”

He looked at what she was indicating and took a closer peek.  “I saw this when I pulled Crosby out of here earlier.“

“It looks like Spanish,” she said, trying not to get her fingers all over the writing but understandably curious. “I don’t really know Spanish. Do you?”

He nodded. “Part of my job is to be multi-lingual because we deploy in so many different countries.  Every man on my team knows at least one other language. My languages are Spanish and Italian.”

Blakesley was looking at the scratching on the wall. “What does it say?”