SEALs of Summer 2: A Military Romance Superbundle (74 page)

The woman’s eyes widened as if she’d never seen anything more amazing. He had to smile. Making a starving old woman gleeful ranked way up there as the best part of this miserable day.

“Merci.” The woman’s old teeth worked the bread.

“Yeah, you bet.”

He held up his hand to say goodbye and started running again.

A few minutes later, a moped sped around the same toppled tree. Luke waved his arms over his head at the guy. “Hey! Hey, wait!”

The guy on the moped pulled up next to him. “You okay, chief?”

Luke flinched at hearing the stranger use Tico’s name for him. Maybe it was a common nickname for an older guy. Or maybe all Americans were “chiefs.” He didn’t know, or care at the moment.

“Can you give me a ride?” Luke asked.

“I dunno. Gran’s been calling and I’ve got to go.”

His jaw nearly came unhinged. “Gran? The High Priestess of Light?”

The man nodded. “You heard her calling too?”

He checked his iPhone. No messages. “No. No one called.”
Ysabeau
, his heart squeezed.

“Huh. She’s asking for help. Someone’s trapped at her granddaughter’s house and—”

Luke swung his leg over and hopped on. “Go! Go!”

The man shrugged and opened the throttle.

‡

E
verything was dark.
Not black, but a dusty gray. Ysabeau couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Terror flooded her senses.

The bad man is here!

Pinning her down…twisting her leg behind her…jabbing a hot knife into her ankle…
can’t see his face…he’s coming…from behind…

“No!”

Ysabeau woke up screaming and choked on dust.
No, the bad man’s dead. Grann and Deolina blew him straight to Hell.

Suddenly, she remembered where she was and how much trouble she was in. How much time had passed? An hour? Days? Impossible to know.

She tried to move and pain exploded up her leg as if there really was a knife lodged in her femur and a caiman was trying to saw her leg off. The sheer violence overtook her pain sensors and she cried out in agony. Whimpering, she curled into her folded arms. She wasn’t going to survive this.

After several long minutes, the pain subsided to a dull throb and her brain started to think again. She had to get out of here. “Help! Help.”

No one answered her call.

Moving very, very slowly, she opened her arms. An ocean of pain flooded through her. Holding still, she waited for the waves to pull back and spread her fingers to touch the edges of her cave. She decided to call it that, letting her mind imagine a big open cave complete with waterfalls and ancient cave drawings, which was better than calling it a tomb.

Letting her fingers be her eyes, she touched all she could reach. Slowly. Carefully. At the edges of her pain threshold, she pulled back before she blacked out again. Over her head, she found she could spread her arms all the way out and not touch the edges of the cave, which meant she had at least four or five feet of space in front. Hopefully, more. Above her head was something like three feet. This she knew because she’d smacked the top when she tried to sit up. As she stretched her arms out behind her, she realized her space was hip-wide plus two feet on both sides. The cave narrowed down considerable after that until she got to the spot where her left leg was pinned.

Her right leg was free and didn’t seem to be injured at all. This was a blessing and a curse. Immobility had caused that leg to tingle and shoot pins and needles as it fell asleep. She knew what she had to do, but didn’t relish the thought of awakening the resting caiman with the sharp teeth around her leg.

She panted for a few seconds and braced for the pain. Tentatively, she began lifting her right leg. Finally, she had bent it until her foot touched the top of her cave. It was more like two feet to the top, than three.

Ah
, that felt good to stretch her right leg and her lower back. She relaxed her forehead on the floor of her cave and rested. She’d been taking yoga classes on and off for a few years and wondered what this pose would be called. Dying dog?

A strange sound rumbled through the cave. She was laughing? Clearly, she was losing her mind, or worse. Maybe hysteria was a bad sign that there wasn’t much oxygen left. She reminded herself to hurry.

Her fingers felt along the floor, searching for anything she could use to support her little cave, maybe lift it up enough to pull her leg out. She touched…

“My purse!”

Dragging it up toward her face she dug inside it hoping, praying for a tool to get her out of here. Her fingers encircled a water bottle. She opened it and gulped down half the bottle. Then she realized she should be thinking about rationing the water and reluctantly put the lid back on. She continued searching through her bag, trying to put names to all the objects she touched.

Granola bar, banana, thank you Deolina, vial of…wait!
Her hands fingered the vial.

“Luke’s pain meds!”

Sweet Lord, she forgot she had them in her purse. When Luke had been obstinate about taking drugs, she threw the vial in her purse to take it back to the clinic. There had to be a couple of days’ worth of Vicodin in there.

Thanks to my American!

It was nearly impossible to get the lid off in the dark, especially with the pain pounding through her body. Holding the vial in her mouth, she felt in her purse again. The cell phone.

Why didn’t she think of it earlier?

She flipped the phone open and her cave filled with a beautiful blue light. Excitement nearly exploded out of her heart. The vial fell out of her mouth when she yelled “Yes! Thank God!”

She was laughing and crying all at once.

Dialing Gran’s number by heart, she held the phone to her ear and waited to hear, “Child, where’ve you been? De cards are ominous.”

But she didn’t hear a thing.

With shaking hands, she turned the cell around and saw that there was no signal. Why should there be? She was buried under a five-story building.

“Oh, Gran.” She cried in earnest.

What if she never heard Gran’s voice again? Or anyone’s voice again?

Pain ripped through her, tearing her to shreds. Her heart, leg, soul, everything hurt. With the blue light from her phone, she found the vial and opened it. She swallowed two pills without using her precious water and put her head back down on her arms to rest. Soon the pain meds would kick in.

Maybe she’d survive this after all.

*

The moped pulled
up in front of Ysabeau’s house. Luke jumped off before the guy stopped the thing.

“Ysabeau!” he yelled and ran toward the house.

The house was still standing with the exception of the caved-in entryway and the section of ceiling that had collapsed into what Luke knew to be the living room. He had a flashback of sitting next to her on the couch. If Ysabeau had been sitting on the couch when the quake hit…

“Ysabeau!” he screamed, terror ripping through his throat with the word.

There were several people using shovels, hammers and their hands to move the debris. Jumping into the thick of things, he lifted a piece of rubble that had to weigh over a hundred pounds. He went for the next chunk, which was even larger and heavier than the last, dug his fingers into grooves and pulled. He grunted with the effort, but the thing wouldn’t budge. He needed a jackhammer, or a—he glanced at what the guy next to him was using—crowbar.

“Help me!” he yelled at the guy working beside him.

The man turned around. To Luke’s great surprise, he was staring at Tico’s ugly mug.

“Chief! When did you get here?” Tico asked.

“Five minutes ago. Help me move this thing.”

Tico shoved the end of the crowbar in and the two of them heaved together. The concrete moved, a little.

“Again!” Luke commanded.

The concrete moved and creaked.

“Don’t…stop!” Luke grunted. His arms felt like they were tearing off his shoulders, but he kept on. Ysabeau was under there. He’d never quit.

Finally, they got it out.

“That was some amazing shit,” Tico said, rubbing his aching arms. “What are you smoking? You’re a rock, man. I’ve never seen anyone that strong.”

Luke frowned at him. “Why are you stopping? Ysabeau needs us.” He attacked the next block of concrete.

“Ysabeau? Where is she?” Tico scratched at his scalp, looking bewildered.

Suddenly, Grann came up behind them. “Mr. Carter! I did not get inside your head. I gave you my word.”

It looked like Gran’s face had fought the side of the house. Her nose was broken and swelling like a horror movie. “Gran? Are you all right?”

“I’m as good as I get right now. Can’t be worrying about me. Let’s get dis rescue done.”

He agreed. “Have you heard Ysabeau?”

“No, not yet. I keep hoping. For now, we are listening for Deolina. She’s trapped inside de house, Mr. Carter.” She pointed toward where the living room used to be. “We’ve got to get her out.”

Luke blinked. “Deolina?”

“Yes. She was sitting on the couch when it hit.” Tears streamed down her face. “Dat darn fool was having a vision about Ysabeau and wouldn’t move. I got out. She didn’t.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll rescue her.” Tico continued jabbing his crowbar into the rubble.

Realization hit. Ysabeau was not trapped inside. “Where’s Ysabeau?” Luke asked.

Grann made a strangled sound unlike anything he’d ever heard.

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Please, tell me.”

“She was…going…to see you. I gave her the check. She wanted to give it back.”

“Damn.” His heart sunk. That was the reason she was trying to find him? To give back the check? She must really hate him if she wouldn’t take the money to save the clinic.

“Gran!” A man yelled. Was it Gochi?

Suddenly, there was a lot of whooping and hollering.

Grann pressed her hands to her chest. “Praise God and all the Saints. I knew dat old devil wolf was no match for her. No match at all.”

Luke watched her hustle off toward the exuberant men. He had no idea what just happened.

Tico clapped him on the back. “They’ve got, Deolina. They’re pulling her out now. She’s alive!”

Luke swiped the sweat out of his eyes. He should be bone-tired, or dead. Hearing the great news had buoyed his spirits. Deolina was alive. He said a prayer of his own and ran after Gran.

It took three men to lift Deolina out. Her large body looked like it had been rolled in flour. White dust clung to her skin and chunks of plaster were ground into her cornrows. Dried blood stuck to a gash in her forehead.

“Deo! Are you all right?” Grann took her hand. Her other arm hung limply by her side. “She’s not breathing!”

“Put her down,” Luke ordered.

The three men eased her onto the grass. Luke pressed two of his fingers against her neck. No pulse. He got down on his knees and put his ear to her chest. No sound. Tipping her chin up, he gave her two quick breaths and then started the chest compressions.

There was a flurry of excitement behind him, but Luke tuned it all out. His focus was on Deolina, the formidable black magic priestess who predicted this mess. If only he’d listened to her instead of thinking she was a nutcase, he could have snatched Ysabeau up and taken her to California before the earthquake hit. “If only’s” weren’t worth shit.

On and on he worked, forcing blood into Deolina’s heart, waiting for her to take over. He blew two more quick breaths into her lungs.

“Deolina, you’d better stop this nonsense and come back to us!” Grann yelled over Luke’s shoulder. “Do you hear me? Right now!”

Deolina sputtered and started to gag. Her eyes flew open and she stared up at Luke.

“Welcome back,” Luke said.

The crowd cheered. Men danced and hugged each other. Grann mumbled a bunch of words Luke suspected were grateful prayers.

“You did it, chief!” Tico pounded him on the back.

“Help me up,” Deolina whispered.

Luke cocked his head at Tico and they both hooked her under the arms and hoisted her to a sitting position.

“Give her some water!” Luke ordered and several people scrambled to find her a water bottle.