Proximity (6 page)

Confident that Savannah swam next to him, he flicked on his headlamp before reaching his hand to the left of him. She looped her fingers in his, just like she always did on a dive, and fell into the easy rhythm of exploration.

* * *

Although she usually preferred diving in the Caribbean with its turquoise warm water and sea life, Savannah had to admit that cave diving created a much more primal and intimate experience with nature. She released Bill's hand and moved close to the wall to investigate what appeared to be a marine fossil embedded into the limestone wall.  She traced her fingers over the curving image, knowing Bill would follow. Dive partners for years, they were in sync with each other's every movement and breath once in the water.

The mass of him slipped next to her, his light flickering over the wall before he motioned for her to look at him. Holding an underwater camera to his face, he snapped a photo of her next to the fossil.

She grinned over her regulator and winked at him through the mask. As usual, they fell behind the rest of the group. Both had an insatiable curiosity and were known for being the last to surface or the first to get in trouble.

When he moved away, she allowed her gaze to skim over his broad back, tight ass, and long legs. That kiss last night had not only thrown her off balance, but had also set off a series of anxiety attacks about the possibility of losing her best friend. Hooking up with Bill had never been an option for her. Not because he wasn't hot as hell but because of the
curse
.

Every man who had ever loved her had died, with the exception of her father who had come damn close six months ago.

She shook her head to rid herself of the thought and caught up to him. Of course, him suddenly crossing the line into wannabe lover didn't equal
love
. She understood that, yet there had been something incredibly intense about that kiss that made her jump to conclusions.

Maybe I'm the one in love.

Impossible. With Bill?

Too dangerous.

Bill? He's too comfortable, too predictable, too geeky, too stable, too nice.

I would wreck him.

And that would destroy me.

There's no way I'm in love with Bill.

Get out of your head and focus, damn it.

The sound of her own breathing competed with the echo of her heartbeat in her ears. Bubbles danced around her face. Only the lights from their headlamps pierced the dark water for glimpses of coral, curling stalagmites piercing up from the depths, and the occasional fossil or pre-Columbian artifacts embedded in the limestone.

She took the lead when presented with a narrow passage that would only allow one body through at a time. The beam of her light showed an almost bottomless deep darkness beneath them surrounded by narrow white walls topped by low hanging stalactites that looked ominously like a series of nails.

Once free of the narrow stretch, she stretched her arms to her sides to simply indulge in having space around her. When Bill gave her the sign indicating he wanted to surface, she immediately followed suit.

"Breathtaking," she gasped at the sight of a sixty-foot waterfall sliding over twisted sheaths of ancient coral and limestone. A sliver of light from the surface danced on the water. Pushing her mask to the top of her head, she blinked at the beauty, not bothering to reach for the camera dangling from her vest because she knew that nothing would capture the sight as vividly as a memory.

"We've lost everyone," he said, swimming to a shelf of rock and pulling himself out of the water. "I'll take a look at that map."

"I thought you memorized it," she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

She joined him on the rock while continuing to gaze at the waterfall. Underground rivers were fascinating places, full of surprises and undiscovered treasures. She indulged in the tranquility of the sound of rushing water piercing the profound silence of the cave.

"We're on track, just behind them, that's all. We didn't get lost somehow." He shoved the map back inside his dry bag before leaning against the limestone and looking up at the waterfall.

"What's wrong with them? Why wouldn't they linger here for as long as possible? It's breathtaking."

Both sat there for a few minutes without speaking or taking their gaze from the streaming water. The idea that they were seeing something so rare that maybe less than a dozen other humans had ever laid eyes on it embedded in her mind.

"About those high stakes you mentioned..." Bill curved his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close.

"Bill—"

"You need to stop saying my name like you're shocked that I want to kiss you." A fraction away, he looked her in the eye. "Am I that unappealing?"

"No, I just—"

"Isn't this a romantic setting? Just the two of us sitting in front of a waterfall in a secluded cave far beneath the surface of the earth? How many people do you think have kissed in this spot?" His lips were a whisper away from hers. "We could be the first."

Desire stirred deep in her gut. She slid her mouth against his, feeling like this exploration was more dangerous than any other adventure she'd ever dared. An electric current sizzled across her lips before zapping across the skin of her face. Even her hair tingled. Hands clenched against the cool rock shelf beneath them, she smiled against his mouth.

"Surprised?" he asked before teasing his tongue over hers.

"Shocked," she admitted.

"And here I thought my reputation preceded me." He sucked at her lower lip, hazel eyes gleaming with mischief.

"Oh, it definitely does, but that works against you, my friend." She laughed before he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth and made her forget her apprehension. She pushed his mask from the top of his head and gripped his wet hair as if her life depended on being close to him.

He grabbed her hips and yanked her against his chest. His air tank clanked against the rock as her thigh slid between his. The hooks of their BCUs knocked together, reminding them of the limitations of their impromptu make-out session.

"I can't tell who's winning or losing," she whispered against his mouth after remembering their little game.

"If you chicken out, I win...or maybe lose...and you let me leave." He slid his finger down her face, lips still clinging to hers. "Because I want you, Savannah. I want the whole sha-bang."

"Why now?" She couldn't stop kissing or touching him. Here in this cave sequestered away from the rest of the world all things felt possible and doubts felt sacrilegious.

"Because I can't take one more superficial relationship when the real thing is right in front of me."

"I don't want to lose my friend." She framed his face in between her palms.

"Is this you diving into the ditch?" He quirked an eyebrow.

Remembering their challenge, she licked a drop of water from his chin before grinning against his skin. "Like I said, your reputation precedes you and I don't believe for one minute that you're serious about the whole sha-bang business. You're playing with me, going through some fucked up shit because you're terrified—"

"—Are you a clinical psychologist all of the sudden?"

"Your business has hit the big time, socialites are hunting you, and I'm safe Savannah. That's all I am."

"You're wrong."

"I'm your safe place to fall, just like you're mine. Although you do kiss like a dream, I'll give you that."

"Thanks for that small crumb of encouragement." He smiled, but his eyes looked sad. "I can't live in limbo, Savannah, and I don't think there's anything safe about you."

"Then the game continues." She leaned back from him, lifted the mask she'd knocked off of his head and placed it gently back in place before meeting his gaze. Regret for all that could never be stirred between them in that instant. She straightened his headlamp and patted him on the shoulders. "We'd better find everyone before they get worried."

Anger flashed in his eyes before he slid off the shelf and back into the water. With one last look at the waterfall, he shoved the regulator back in his mouth and motioned for him to follow.

She looked up at the sliver of light and wondered who the winner would be if she surrendered to temptation and indulged in an affair with Bill. Unfortunately, she believed that they'd both lose if that line were ever crossed...but, damn, she craved him more and more with each kiss.

She sank beneath the surface and kicked after him, the beam of light from her headlamp illuminating the shape of his legs moving a few feet in front of her. He took the lead through the next narrow passage lined with sharp stalactites and stalagmites that made her feel as if they were navigating between the teeth of a mystical creature.

The roar came from the deep. Water started to toss and churn around them, slamming their bodies into the slick walls at their sides. A piece of limestone from above crashed down, barely missing her arm.

She grabbed Bill's ankle to stay connected and also to keep her bearings as the world suddenly spun out of control. Unable to surface and unable to communicate with each other in the narrow space, they had no choice but to keep going forward. She trusted him to press on, kept her eyes locked on the falling chunks of debris, and kicked hard to keep pace.

Finally, the space opened up, but the rocking of the cave increased. In sync, they surfaced and grabbed each other for support against the slamming water.

"What the hell?" she asked after spitting out her regulator.

He looked at her through his mask, eyes wide beneath his headlamp. He held onto her while rocks fell from the cave ceiling and the water sloshed against them.

She wrapped her legs around his hips so they wouldn't get separated and said, "Earthquake!"

Chapter Four

Suction from below pulled a their tangled legs while the world shuttered and shrieked around them. Encompassed in pitch black except for the narrow beams from their headlamps that shook wildly as the water spun them in a crazy circle. Chunks of rocks fell against them like meteors.

"Fuck!" Derek's voice.

They weren't alone.

"We're here!" Bill shouted, twisting his face around to try to see the others.

"Over here! There's a ledge. Get out of the water!" Jon waved his flashlight from several feet ahead and above them. "Hurry. Looks like it could be whirlpool. Swim!"

"Let me go," Savannah said as she pushed against his shoulders. "We're tangled."

"Stop moving. Let me drag you." It took all of his strength to remain upright in the swirling, churning water. He had no idea how deep these caverns were—no one did—and the thought of being sucked into a bottomless watery grave crept into his mind and worked against his calm. He didn't need to struggle with Savannah on top of it. "Hold onto me."

Gaze locked onto Jon's waving beam of light, he kicked hard in that direction. They all did. Stewart yelled something incoherent over the roar of the shuddering cave walls. More and more pieces of the earth fell in on them while the water continued not only to turn but rise. He kept his focus, felt Savannah's arms slide around his waist as he turned and dragged them both to the slick surface beneath Jon.

"Throw me your fins!" The other man instructed. "You need to climb up. Fast. C'mon."

Savannah already disengaged from him and tossed hers up before he could get a chance to move. He met her gaze through the shadows beneath the lamp and nodded for her to go up before him.

They all followed suit, the roaring becoming louder by the second. He had no idea how long this quake was lasting—knew realistically it could only be a matter of minutes—but it sure as hell felt like an eternity.

Suction pulled at him. His fingertips slipped on the sheer rock. He stared up at his friends who looked down at him. Derek reached out his hand to help, but the pull of the water won the battle.

Submerged in blackness, he kept his hands on the rock face. The idea of drowning had never occurred to him. Until now. If he reached for his regulator, he'd be swept into the abyss.

Hands gripped his wrists. When he sputtered over the surface, he met Savannah's gaze. She held onto him, her ankles held by Derek and Jon—a human rope. Together they pulled. Her grip intensified on his wrists when he gripped hers. They landed in a heap of dive gear and bodies as the earth shuddered, boulders splashed into water, and an inhuman roar ripped through the cave.

Silent, they separated until each sat side-by-side and unmoving. When the quake stopped, still no one spoke. The sound of their collective breath echoed in the sudden quiet.

"Whirlpools...I never expected that," Derek finally said. "This was a major quake, who knows what kind of damage it caused both down here and up there. It could have busted something open upriver, currents could get strong or a wall of water could—"

"Okay, we get the idea," Stewart interrupted him.

"Aftershocks still to come," Paul added.

"Thank God we weren't still in that narrow passage," Savannah said. "We could have been crushed."

Silence.

Bill took off his mask and hooked it onto his vest before doing the same with his headlamp. Every inch of him shook from the fear of drowning, of being sucked down into the depths to become an artifact in this tomb.

"You okay?" Stewart asked before shining his flashlight onto the still churning water. "Eerie how it went from being as calm as could be to complete chaos in a matter of seconds. It felt like claws were on my ankles pulling me—"

"Yeah, I was there, don't need a replay," he said, his voice sounding overly loud in the darkness.

Quiet.

"We'll stay here until the aftershocks come," Matthew said. "Then I'll go up, make sure our way is passable—"

"And if it isn't?" Paul asked.

"There are other ways to go that all lead to the same place," Matthew responded. "We'll need to remain close this time, though. We can't afford to be separated when our landscape may have altered."

"We can't go back through that passage," Savannah said. "It was narrow enough. Bill and I barely made it through, it was all falling, I can't imagine it's passable now."

"So we go forward," Derek said.

"There are many tunnels," Matthew said, his voice optimistic despite the dire situation. "We'll make it. My crew knows our path, estimates how long each leg would take."

"In case of a rescue crew, you mean, right?" Stewart asked. "That's what you're thinking? You don't think we can get out on our own, do you?"

"Stewart, relax. Like Matthew said, there are other ways out," he said in an attempt to be supportive.

We're fucked, royally and completely fucked.

With a grimace, he blinked at the blackest black he'd ever seen that surrounded them like a blanket. All had now turned off their headlamps or flashlights to conserve batteries. Dripping water mixed with the sounds of their breathing.

And they waited.

Like a slow roll, the aftershock rocked through the cave, shaking their tiny ledge with a fierce vibration that had them all pressing back against the wall and gripping each other's arms for support.

Last dive. Why did I need to say that? Maybe the Universe misinterpreted my meaning.
He squeezed his eyes closed and wished he hadn't waited so long to cross lines with Savannah. So many missed opportunities. And now they were stuck in a cave with five other guys deep beneath the earth's surface.

When the tremor ceased, Matthew started passing their fins down to them. "We need to be prepared in case this ledge breaks next time. Suit up. Derek and I will go down first. If we're not back—"

"Don't say that," Savannah interrupted quietly. "You're just checking the passage way, right? So don't say that you might not come back. We're all sticking together."

"We are, yes, but we're going to make sure we don't waste air on all of us exploring a dead end."

"Don't say dead end," Stewart said.

"Yeah, wrong word choice," Paul agreed.

"Will you all let the man speak?" Bill blew out a frustrated sigh. "That was only one aftershock, there will be others."

"Yes, but the gaps between them will be longer. There are two other caverns on our way to our retrieval point. Both are larger than this one, the next one up has a small opening to the surface that Savannah could climb through if need be," Matthew explained before jumping into the water and flicking on his headlamp. "Stay put. Remember the route. You all have your maps, right? Just in case?"

"We do," Jon said for the group, his voice tense.

"This is some serious shit," Paul muttered once Derek and Matthew had disappeared beneath the water. "I wonder what's going on up there. That quake was a solid seven, maybe eight. Had to be."

"What do you know about earthquakes?" Stewart asked.

"Enough to know we're in trouble," Paul answered.

Savannah shifted on the rock while putting on her fins. "There are multiple ways out of here. Side tunnels that angle around, a few that were up higher, out of the water. You were the map guru, Bill. I'm right, aren't I?"

He sighed and tried to remember. He'd been so focused on their route that he hadn't paid much attention to the other tunnels. Shoving the flashlight in his mouth, he retrieved the map from his dry bag and studied it while the others waited.

"Yes, from what I'm guessing, we're here," he laid the map on his knees and pointed at the document illuminated by the light. Savannah's face looked almost ghostly in the shadows. "I'm estimating with the time we took anyway. So, if the structure of the cave held up better than we think," he lifted the flashlight and cast it around the walls until it fell on a small cave entrance about ten feet above the water opposite of where they sat, "then that's a tunnel that should lead to the surface."

No one spoke for a few minutes until he folded the map and flicked off his light.

"That would be a tricky climb and there's no guarantee that there isn't damage," Stewart said. "And there are more aftershocks coming."

"You're the voice of doom and gloom today, aren't you, Stew?" Bill asked, frustration at the situation finally getting the best of him.

Savannah sighed and leaned her shoulder against his. "I could climb it if we needed a way out. I could fit, like Matthew said, and I've always been good at finding footholds with these giant feet of mine. It can be our plan B."

At her words another quake shook the walls, stronger than the second one yet weaker than the first. The ledge started to crumble and the divers were tossed back into the water. He grabbed his regulator first, mask second, and headlamp third before getting his bearings. He trusted his group to do the same, none of them were novices.

He moved to what he perceived to be the center of the room, relieved not to feel the sucking pull of the deep anymore. With a huge roar, a large sheet of the wall where they'd been sitting collapsed into the water with a huge splash that rocked their bodies like an ocean swell.

None of this looked positive.

"Derek and Matt haven't come back," Stewart observed once the aftershock subsided.

"Where's Savannah?" Paul asked, flicking his light over each face that bobbed at the center of the room.

She wasn't there.

He turned around, the light from his headlamp showing nothing but dark water and sheer rock. "Savannah!"

"Maybe she's caught on something," Jon said before diving beneath the water.

"Savannah!" Paul called out, too, before diving to look for her.

Not waiting on the others, Bill shoved his regulator into his mouth and dove to find her. His heartbeat thudded in his ears, louder than any earth-shattering scream the quake had called up. He looked back toward the narrow passage that had resembled dinosaur teeth and kicked toward it while using his flashlight to scan the water below and around him.

No sign of Savannah.

The passage leading back toward the waterfall had indeed been blocked solid in the quake. A brief look at the damage convinced him that no one would be getting out that way.

He surfaced, hoping the others had found her, but no one else bobbed along the surface. "Hey! Anyone?"

He'd never been one to panic in his lifetime. Calm, cool Bill. But as he turned in a slow circle, enveloped in the eerie black, with only the sound of the dripping and breathing, anxiety gnawed at his heart.

"Where are you guys?" he asked before pushing the regulator back in and dipping beneath the water.

It would be easy to get lost down here in the absolute black.

When a light flashed in his direction, he swam toward it. When he saw Savannah's large brown eyes blinking at him from behind her mask, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward the surface.

"What happened to you?" he asked once his regulator was out.

"I got turned around." Her voice sounded shaky as she glanced around. "Where is everyone?"

"I don't know. We went looking for you."

"I didn't know what way was up," she admitted with nervous laugh, "That's never happened to me. I must have been going down, I couldn't find the surface, started to panic, everything looks the same down there."

"Yeah, I know. It does." He reached for his waist and undid the bungee cord he kept there. He held it out to her. "We're going to latch ourselves together from now on."

"Where are the others?" she asked again.

He looked around at the calm water and shook his head. "I have no idea. You didn't see anyone else down there? They all went looking for you."

"And no Matt or Derek either?" She visibly swallowed, her face illuminated by the headlamp.

"No." He tore his gaze from hers and looked around the cave. With no more ledge and the cave leading to the surface looking like an impossible climb with the sheer wall, he sighed. "We need to go. We can't stay here treading water forever."

She twisted her head to look over her shoulder toward the path leading out. "They wouldn't have left us on purpose, Bill. We can't abandon them."

"Or they got turned around like you did and are already in the next cave." He grabbed her shoulder, their legs entwining beneath the water, and forced her to look at him. "Hey, we go forward and, if the main tunnel is blocked, we take the one to the left. Remember the one I showed you all on the map?"

She shook her head 'no.'

"Why am I not surprised? Follow me." He struggled to suppress his own rising hysteria and forced a grin before adjusting his gear. Two aftershocks were not the end, he realized that.

But what if they're dead?
The thought whispered through his mind at the idea of his friends trapped somewhere deep beneath the quiet water.

* * *