Secrets Rising Read online

  “I’m here on some R & R.”

  “Why Haven?”

  He shrugged. “My chief recommended it. He’s from around here. Jerry Overton.”

  “Oh, I know the Overtons,” Keely said.

  “Guess everyone knows just about everyone around here.”

  “Yeah. Pretty much. Small town. It’s nice, though. Well, most of the time. People care. Are you from Charleston?”

  She was just making conversation, passing time. She wasn’t trying to get to know him better. No, not her.

  “Grew up there. Born and bred. City boy.”

  “You’ll love Haven. It’s—”

  “Friendly. One letter short of heaven. Uh-huh.”

  He didn’t sound like he planned on loving Haven. “How long are you staying?” He’d put down a month’s rent, that’s all she knew.

  “Just the month. Then I’m headed back to work. Back to the city.”

  Back to city lights and cell phone service, she guessed. He wouldn’t be around long. Good thing she wasn’t going to get attached to him.

  They had a couple of tables cleared and pushed together, and with the jarred light on a nearby shelf, Keely dragged a couple of quilts out of the trunk and climbed up on one. She wrapped one of the quilts around herself, pulling her knees to her chest. It was getting colder. The cellar was always cold, but night had to be coming on and temperatures dipped hard in Appalachia even at this time of year once the sun went down.

  Jake took the other blanket and did the same. His gaze caught hers with unflinching gravity. He’d said they’d be rescued soon, as if he had no doubt, but she didn’t believe him. No telling how long they could be stuck down here.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked. “There’s food.” They weren’t going to starve, at least. Not all the canned goods had broken. There were green beans, jams, apples, pears, relishes…. Not exactly a square meal, but this wasn’t a situation that called for being a picky eater.

  “Not now. Did you can this stuff?”

  She nodded. “I always grow a big garden.”

  “Gardening, canning, handling guns…You’re a real all-around woman.”

  He was looking at her, and she felt herself blush. The candle was behind her, leaving her face in shadow, so she hoped he couldn’t tell.

  “I’m a country girl,” she said.

  “I noticed.”

  She wondered what he meant by that. Maybe he thought she was a hillbilly hick. Like she cared.

  “We could try to get some sleep, I guess,” she suggested.

  “I don’t sleep much lately,” he said.

  “You lie awake, stressing?” She did that, too.

  “Sometimes.”

  He sounded guarded, as if he didn’t want to admit to any vulnerability. She felt another twinge of something, a disquieting bonding with him that she never would have expected. She wondered why he was on R & R.

  “I’ve had trouble getting used to sleeping alone,” she admitted. “I don’t miss much about Ray, but I miss that. Having someone there to hold me.” She pulled the quilt tighter, felt the guilt hit her. “I shouldn’t say that.”

  “Why not?” Jake asked quietly. “If it’s how you feel, say it. It’s not like Ray is going to hear it and be offended.”

  That almost made her laugh, but it was too sad. Even if she didn’t miss much about their marriage, he’d been too young to die. He’d loved her in his way, hadn’t he? He’d bought her a birthday present six months in advance. That had to say something. She’d probably never find that little box in the rubble that was left of her house now, but it was the thought that counted.

  Of course, he may have left a dead body in her rose bed, too.

  “I’m never getting married again,” she said. He watched her, steady, and she had the weird sensation that they were the only two people left on Earth. Down here, trapped in the cellar, they might as well be. The flicker of the candle played light and shadow on the hard planes of his face, softening them. “You ever been married?”

  Did he miss having someone to hold him at night?

  He shook his head. “Never. Got close once, but I escaped.”

  “How?”

  “She dumped me.”

  He was so matter-of-fact, she couldn’t tell if he was upset about it or not.

  “Do you miss her?”

  A beat passed before he answered. “No. Now that sounds bad, doesn’t it?”

  “Dating anyone?”

  “No.” His smile was heart-stoppingly slow. “Why? Want to set me up?”

  She laughed. “No!” Selfishly, no. But that wasn’t something she needed to be thinking about, wanting him for herself. Even if she was more aware of him right now than she’d ever been aware of a man before in her entire life.

  This conversation wasn’t going anywhere good. She was starting to feel…hot. Maybe she was displacing her fears about the situation. But that was no excuse for being stupid. She didn’t know Jake, not at all. Her first impression of him had been that he was angry and impatient. Then he’d seemed possibly dangerous. Now she didn’t know what to think.

  Other than that he was single and available, and she didn’t need to be thinking about that.

  “Wow,” he finally said. “That was pretty certain.” His lips curved further, proving he wasn’t offended.

  “It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.” She sounded prim enough now, didn’t she? “And I don’t set people up anyway, so it’s not personal.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not interested in dating.”

  “Planning to be a monk?”

  Jeez, what had made her ask that? She felt her face heat again, dammit. She was embarrassing herself.

  “No, not exactly,” he said, amusement tinging his voice. Then he seemed to sober. “Men and women, they make things too complicated, you know? Defining and analyzing what should be natural and easy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Relationships. Sex. Marriage just gets courts and judges and lawyers involved.”

  If you got divorced it got courts and judges and lawyers involved. She got the idea Jake expected marriage to end in divorce…. Well, maybe if Ray had lived, that’s where they would have ended up. If she’d finally gotten the courage to take the steps necessary.

  “You don’t believe in love?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know about love,” he answered. “I’ve seen what happens to people who think they’re in it, though. I’m not interested.”

  She couldn’t argue with him, even when she felt a disquieting twinge at his flat words. She felt the same, didn’t she?

  Then she heard it. And this time she knew what it was. It wasn’t thunder. It was an aftershock. The house shook over their heads. Jake wasted no time even as the breath was so stalled in Keely’s throat she hadn’t thought past it.

  Powerful arms hurled over her, rolling her down off the table, onto the floor where his body, again, protected her and then pulled her underneath. The quilt she’d been covered in, and his arms and legs, tangled around her. Debris crashed down from above and glass jars clattered from the shelves.

  Darkness fell with almost violent suddenness.

  The candle was gone, and as more and more material rained down, she knew so was everything else. Everything but Jake, here, holding her so tightly. Oh, God, oh, God.

  Silence, then another creak, and another piece of her hundred-year-old house tumbled down onto the debris already filling the cellar. She could hear her heart beating hard, feel Jake’s as he held her.

  “We’re going to die,” she whispered.

  “No, we’re not. We’re not going to die.” His voice was raspy, close. She couldn’t see him, but he was here, his breath warm against her ear.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “You’re right,” he admitted. “I don’t know that.”

  She shuddered and he gathered her closer. He shifted, moving the quilt so that it was all the way ar
ound both of them, his hands inside it, stroking her, comforting her.

  “We’re safe as we can be, here. We’ll stay under this table.”

  The table had shielded them from what had rained down. If not for his quick action—

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered into his throat. How many aftershocks until the house crushed the table, crushed them, trapping them under its weight? She noticed he wasn’t telling her they were going to be okay anymore.

  “Neither am I. I’m right here.”

  And he was, he was right there, his arms around her. What if he hadn’t come out to the farmhouse today? She would have been here by herself.

  “I’m glad you’re here because I don’t want to be alone,” she breathed.

  “You’re not alone.”

  She turned her head slowly. She couldn’t see him but that didn’t matter. She could feel him.

  Then she could feel it again, another aftershock on the heels of the last one. And the terror was so all-consuming, it took over and she sucked in a breath to let out with a scream—but she couldn’t, he wouldn’t let her, and even as the world fell down on them again, he covered her mouth with his. And she wanted it, wanted him. She wanted to think of nothing but this moment and this man because everything else was so horrific.

  He was safe, he was here, he was now, and now was all she had left.

  Jake told himself he had no choice, he had to kiss her. She was losing it, totally, and that wasn’t going to do her, or him, any good. They had hours left, hours or days, who knew, before they were rescued. If they were rescued.

  If they didn’t die any minute now.

  He slid his hands down the length of her, pulling her near and she all but climbed up him, quivering and desperate, kissing him back. Then she tore free, and he could feel her gaze, inches over him, her breaths coming in shocky pants.

  The shaking had stopped. The blackness around them was silent again, silent but for the pounding of her heart. Silent like a tomb.

  She wasn’t the only one losing it, he realized. He was, too, and what the hell difference did it make?

  He leaned up, just a hair, and she leaned down and they were kissing again, hard and starving and oh, so sweet-hot. He wanted her.

  Dear God, he wanted her. And given how she clung to him, kissing him back with just as much annihilating fever, she felt the same way.

  She was soft, so damnably soft, and he let the taste of her take over. He pushed back the quilt, slid his hands down the denim covering her sweet little rear and up, inside her shirt, skimming the satiny heat of her skin. She let out a sound of need, ripped her mouth away from him.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered. “I don’t want to die scared.”

  “I’m here. I’m right here. I promise.” She needed him, and he needed a purpose. Or maybe he needed an excuse for needing her.

  “Don’t go away.”

  “I can’t. And I don’t want to.” He moved one arm to reach up, touch her face, read her fear and need as if he were a blind man reading Braille. His other arm skimmed up along her spine.

  She shifted, in the dark, moving beside him, where he’d pushed the quilt off of them. She lay there, breathing softly, as if waiting…. He’d moved with her, one arm wrapped over her middle where her shirt rose up, baring her flat belly.

  He felt the strangest sensation. Awe. She was offering herself to him as if there were no tomorrow—because she didn’t know if there was one. And if there wasn’t…

  Then she wanted to die in his arms.

  “Jake?”

  Her whispery voice wobbled just a bit.

  “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I promised.”

  Keely wanted to tell him again not to make any promises, but then what did it matter now? She pulled at her shirt. She made it disappear then she was there again, beside him on the quilt.

  “Keely—”

  “Don’t say anything,” she begged softly. “Just kiss me till I can’t think.”

  He did, he kissed her, tenderly this time, not hard, not fast, and it felt so natural and easy. His fingers swept up her torso as his tongue drove into her mouth and he swallowed the gasp of pleasure as his thumb and forefinger circled her nipple then squeezed it gently.

  Her kiss turned hungry, fueling his, and his fingers slid down now, down to her pants. She ripped at his jacket, clawing at his shirt as he slid his hand inside her jeans and felt, knew, how much she wanted him, wanted this.

  It was a bad idea, she thought suddenly. She was still thinking and she knew it was a bad idea. She didn’t know him. She didn’t do one-night stands.

  She opened her mouth to say it was a bad idea, but she forgot why as she moved her hips against his hand, pressing that damp, pulsing part of her into his fingers. The thud of their heartbeats charged the air, interwoven with fear and hope, survival and desperation. Then her hands traveled their way back to his shoulders, pushing back his jacket, tearing at his shirt. He sat up, head down to keep from hitting the underside of the table.

  Jacket—gone. Shirt—gone. Jeans…

  Gone, too.

  She heard him go through his pocket, the thud of what she guessed was a wallet hitting the floor. Protection. He’d remembered to think of protection while she could barely remember her name. Then he was back, slipping his hand down her bare belly…bare thighs.

  Yes. This was what she wanted. And she knew it, couldn’t pretend she didn’t.

  His fingers slid inside her and she gripped his shoulders hard, and a moan escaped her mouth just before he covered it with his. She wrapped her arms all the way around him, tugging him down over top of her. She felt the whole length of him against her, fitting perfectly, felt blood surging low in his body. She wanted him to bury himself inside her, right now. But first he kissed her eyelids, her nose, her chin. She wanted him to kiss her everywhere.

  Trembling, she cupped the back of his head, pulled him down toward her breasts as she arched up to him now. He took one nipple, then another into his mouth and she sighed and writhed under him. His response was real, heat and hunger.

  He tongued down her stomach, lower, to the V of her thighs where he placed his mouth there, at the swollen center of her, and sucked so hard, she cried out in a sound of pain and pleasure that begged him not to stop, begged him to make her forget everything but this intense thing happening right here between them.

  Mindless sex.

  One harmless fantasy before she died. And since things were pretty much headed in that direction, she was allowed.

  She moved, lifting her legs, draping them over his shoulders, clearly begging for more, and he gave it, circling her then sucking again, harder, not stopping even as she clawed her fingers into his hair and made short, gasping sobs. Convulsions ripped through her as he replaced his tongue with his fingers and she felt so tight inside, so hot, she thought she’d die right there if he couldn’t be there, right there, with her, all of him.

  “Keely—”

  “Don’t leave me.”

  “I’m not leaving. I’m here.”

  “Closer.”

  He thrust inside her. Taut contractions gripped her as he sank in over and over, and she shattered again, and whatever was left of reality, of fear, was left far behind, lost to the world they made for themselves. The friction of his heat, her own pent-up and denied need, exploded and he shuddered into her as she wrapped her arms and legs tightly around him, going up into flames right along with him—again.

  In what was left of her brain, a tiny piece of her mind broke loose from the sheer bliss of physical feeling to spin the thought through her that this was something different. Sex with Ray hadn’t been like this.

  But like so much else in her day, that thought made no sense.

  She slept curled into his shoulder, and woke by surreal degrees to a terrible roar.

  Chapter 6

  The roar was followed by dead silence.

  She heard her name, called down through a crack in the
debris above. A crack of light. That had been lifting equipment she’d heard. They were being rescued!

  “I’m here! We’re here!” she called back.

  “Don’t move,” came the order back.

  Jake’s arm tightened around her. Jake. The stranger. The stranger she’d…

  Had a mindless fantasy with before she died. Only she wasn’t going to die. And she was so happy about that, but—

  Complicated emotions ricocheted through her.

  There were more sounds, debris being hand-removed as they closed in on the pocket of safety she and her oh-so-familiar-now stranger had found in the cellar under her demolished farmhouse. She felt a flash of fear as one piece of debris broke free and fell, crashing onto the pile of rubble she could now clearly see beyond the shelter of the table they lay beneath.

  Then she realized she was naked. Jake was naked. Oh, God. She was going to be rescued naked.

  Unlike her, he seemed totally unembarrassed by his nakedness, simply went about fixing it in the tightness of their quarters. Cool, composed, always.

  He yanked on his jeans, handing over her shirt, separating out his and hers. Without a word. What was he thinking? What had she been thinking? It might have been natural and easy last night, but it didn’t feel natural and easy now.

  Had there ever been a worse morning after in the history of one-night-stand morning-afters?

  In the awkwardness of the confined space, she managed to wiggle into her clothes. She utilized her nearly nonexistent acting skills to behave as if this was normal for her.

  One-night stand. She hated that term. But what else could she call it? Comfort, need, shock, fantasy. Whatever the reason, she’d had a one-night stand with someone she did not intend to have a relationship with. A stranger, no less.

  The rubble of the cellar surrounded them. For one moment, it was utterly still, utterly silent from above. Then something moved.

  Something moved in the cellar.

  At first, it was only the sound of movement that she knew. A soft thud, thud, thud, like something very small, something very light.