Someone to Love Read online

  It took Nigh a moment to understand what he meant, then she smiled. He had taken a vow of celibacy. She didn’t know why the idea pleased her so much, but it did. She wondered how many men were capable of love to the point where they’d give up sex.

  Years before, Nigh had been somewhere horrible, surrounded by men as she always was, and they were waiting to tell the American TV-viewing audience in three minutes all about the horror they were seeing. One of the men—who’d been leering at her for days—asked her what she wanted in a man. Knowing how selfish he was and what a lecher, she snapped out, “I want a man who is capable of love.” It had been a spur-of-the-moment statement, but she’d thought about it later and she knew it was right. A man who was capable of true love, deep love, love that put others above itself.

  She watched Jace as he put the candle down and began to dig at the dirt. She knew it was a futile act, but she liked that he was trying. He was a man who had loved so completely that he’d stood up against what everyone told him they thought and had remained true to his own conviction. He didn’t believe that Stacy had killed herself and he’d dedicated his life to proving that she didn’t. He didn’t want the false accusation against her or himself.

  “I think you should sit down,” Nigh said softly.

  He turned to her and looked as though he was going to make some cheery statement about their getting out soon, but he seemed to change his mind. “Yes, we should conserve oxygen.”

  He sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms, her head on his chest. One candle was almost gone and the other one wouldn’t last for long. But then, neither would the air.

  He held her, stroking her hair, and they didn’t talk. Nigh thought about telling him that she loved him too, but she knew that he knew. They had been inseparable since the first day they’d met. If they had run off and eloped that day they couldn’t have been more together.

  She didn’t know she was crying until she felt the wetness of his shirt under her cheek.

  “Sssssh,” he said, stroking her face. “Be quiet. We need to be still and quiet and breathe as slowly as possible.”

  She nodded. There was no use doing anything else. Anger would be futile. Talking was unnecessary.

  She didn’t know how long she lay there, her body close to his, feeling his warmth, her face against his heart, hearing the steady rhythm of it, before she fell asleep.

  She didn’t know how long it was before Jace woke her. “Quiet,” he said hoarsely and she could feel how he was breathing deeply. There wasn’t a lot of air left in the tunnel. “Listen.”

  She tried to raise her head, but it seemed to be too much effort. She put it back down on Jace’s chest.

  “Do you hear it?” he asked.

  She could hear nothing.

  With effort, Jace moved her away from him, then stood up, using the cold, earthen wall for balance. He put his ear against the wall.

  “What do you hear?” Nigh whispered, then took a few deep breaths, searching for oxygen.

  “I don’t know.” He moved to the other side of the tunnel and put his ear against that wall. “Maybe it’s nothing,” he said, then pointed. Whatever he heard, it was coming from the wall that Nigh was leaning against.

  Bending slowly, Jace helped her to stand, both of them gasping for air. He helped her to move to the far wall and toward the end of it, as far away from where they had been as possible.

  She could hear it now, and looked up at Jace with wide eyes. What is…it?” she asked.

  He took a breath. “Machine,” he managed to get out, then pulled her down to sit beside him on the floor, his big arms wrapped around her protectively.

  They waited, listening for any sound, then they felt it. They could feel a great rumble, a vibration coming from the wall. Nigh envisioned another explosion, or one of the ancient roof beams coming down and bringing the ceiling with it, but she was too light-headed from lack of oxygen to be concerned. She put her head on Jace’s arm and started nodding off to sleep.

  When the big bucket of the backhoe tore into the ceiling, she wasn’t prepared for it, but Jace was. He had figured out what was going on and he knew that when there was a hole made in the tunnel, the roof would collapse. He had to be ready!

  When the bucket came through the ceiling, he looked up, meaning to spring into action, but he was too depleted of air to be able to move. But he didn’t have to worry. There were a dozen faces peering into the hole and they were ready to work. Before the hole was fully open, two men had jumped into the tunnel and a ladder was lowered. One burly man slung Nigh over his shoulder, then Jace was pushed up the ladder, the last man behind him.

  Seconds after they reached the top, what was left of the tunnel collapsed, swallowing the ladder and almost swallowing the last man, but there were others to pull him out.

  There was an ambulance waiting and Jace and Nigh were put in it and oxygen masks were placed over their faces. Nigh lay on the bed in the ambulance while Jace sat beside her, holding a mask to his face.

  A man in the uniform of an emergency technician looked at both of them. “You all right?” he asked Jace, and he nodded.

  Jace removed the mask for a moment. “Who found us?” he gasped out.

  “An old man named Hatch. How long were you down there?”

  Jace looked outside the ambulance. It was daylight, but he didn’t know what time it was.

  “Since two a.m.,” Jace said.

  The technician smiled in a patronizing way. “That’s not possible. You couldn’t have lived that long,” he said as he got out of the ambulance and closed the door. Minutes later, they were on their way to the hospital.

  21

  Nigh awoke slowly, afraid of what she’d see. The last thing she remembered was being in Jace’s arms and knowing that she’d never wake up again. She wondered if she’d open her eyes and see Heaven.

  When she did open her eyes, she smiled at her thought. Sitting in a chair, sound asleep, a blanket over him, was Jace. For a moment she watched him, smiling at the sight of him, and slowly she began to remember the rescue. The bucket of a backhoe coming through the wall, then the dazzling sunlight followed by a rush of life-giving air. Men had jumped into the tunnel, ropes about their waists, then someone threw her over a broad shoulder and carried her to the top. She remembered looking back and seeing Jace climb over the ladder onto the grass and into the sunlight. Behind him, with a great roar, what was left of the tunnel collapsed. There was shouting as a man was pulled out of the falling ceiling, then yells of triumph when everyone was safe.

  After that, she didn’t remember much except lying down with a mask over her face and again breathing.

  Jace had opened his eyes and was looking at her. “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  They exchanged smiles, not needing words. Somehow, they had survived the unsurvivable.

  She sat up in the bed and Jace got up to help her, moving her pillow about, then handing her water to drink. There was an IV in her arm.

  “Tell me everything,” she said.

  “I can’t,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I have to go to London.”

  “London?” She took his arm. “You’re going to see Tony Vine, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Don’t look at me like that. This has become serious. I have to find out who killed Stacy.”

  Nigh realized that for the first time, he said the name without pathos, without agony, without regret in his voice. She clutched at his arm tighter. “You can’t go without me.”

  “You need to stay here for a day and let the doctors check you out.”

  “And I guess they didn’t tell you the same thing.”

  Jace gave her a one-sided grin. “Yeah, they told me the same thing, but I have to go. And I have to go alone.”

  “I’ll tell them where you went,” she threatened.

  He put his hand on her cheek. “Nigh, baby, I can’t let you go with me. As soon as we got here last night, I called my uncle and he fou