Some Kind of Hero

She was wearing a red scoop-necked T-shirt and softly faded jeans. Her hair was tied away from her face today, and he itched to loosen the band around the end of the braid and sift his fingers through the silky tresses.

He heard her speak but had been too preoccupied with his little fantasy to decipher the words.

“Did you say something?” he asked, buckling his seat belt.

She gave him a strange look, then glanced down at his feet. “I asked if those were sturdy shoes?”

Joel looked down at the loafers he’d donned with khakis and a golf shirt. “As long as you don’t intend to take me rock climbing, I think they’re adequate.”

“All right.” She pulled away from the curb, merging smoothly into the flow of traffic.

“We’re not going rock climbing, are we?” he prompted.

“No, we’re not going rock climbing.”

He waited a beat, but she offered no additional information. “Where are we going?”

“Caving.”

“Oh.” It seemed harmless enough, if he could forget that he hated close, dark spaces. If he could forget about the day he’d been lured into Conroy’s deserted warehouse and trapped for hours with the dank smell and fetid rats.

He rubbed a hand over the scar on his abdomen and tried to relegate the memories and frustrations to a back corner of his mind. There was no point in thinking about any of that now, nothing to be gained by recalling the sense of futility that had plagued him for so long.

Instead, he concentrated on the scenery as Riane drove toward Charlotte’s Corridor.

“So named,” she explained, “because the man who discovered the underground caverns, David Charlotte, couldn’t believe that such an elaborate system of interconnecting tunnels was a naturally occurring phenomenon. He believed they had to be a corridor to some kind of underground civilization.”

Riane pulled into a gravel parking lot. “He passed away before anyone could disprove his theory, and the caves have been known as Charlotte’s Corridor ever since.”

There were several other vehicles already in the lot, a few people wandering around. There were picnic tables in a shaded area at the far end of the parking lot along with a simple square building that advertised tourist information and public rest rooms. What he didn’t see was a ticket booth or concession stand or any other inherent signs of what a city dweller would consider civilization. His sense of apprehension magnified.

“These caves have almost twenty-five miles of mapped passages,” Riane told him, pulling a canvas backpack out of the trunk. “It’s one of the more elaborate systems in this part of West Virginia.”

He had no idea whether he should be impressed or not. He couldn’t imagine that they’d be expected to walk twenty-five miles—that would take days.

Riane took a long-handled flashlight out of the bag, flicked the switch, then tucked a spare package of batteries into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Where’s the rest of the group?” he asked, following her to the mouth of the cave.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, frowned. “What group?”

Uh-oh. “Isn’t this a tour?”

She shook her head. “I thought you wanted to experience West Virginia like a native.”

He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the note of challenge in her voice. Less so facing the huge, black hole in the wall of rock in front of him. “I’ve reconsidered,” he muttered.

She laughed, and his irrational fear receded. He would walk naked through all twenty-five miles of cave to hear that sound again. She had such an incredible laugh. Low and smoky, unconsciously seductive.

“Don’t be such a wimp, Logan. The only way to see the caves properly is to explore them on your own.”

Joel plunged into the mouth of the cave behind her. There was no way he was going to let her call him a wimp.

Still, he was unprepared for the sudden and complete darkness. It descended thick and fast, obliterating everything else. Riane had a flashlight but he didn’t, and the fragile beam from her light dispersed quickly in the large passageway. He could see nothing but dark, feel nothing but damp, and his breath started to come in short, shallow bursts as the horror of that day in the warehouse ambushed him again.

Focus, Logan. He closed his eyes, inhaled a deep breath. The air was cool and moist, but not foul. He opened his eyes again, took a tentative step forward.

“I think I’d like to try a museum tomorrow,” he said.

Riane laughed again. He let the sound envelop him, blocking out the awful memories. There was no one here but Riane and him. The reminder was not only reassuring, it was inspiring. He was alone in the dark with a beautiful woman. Maybe this outing had some potential after all.

It only took a couple of twists and turns for him to realize that Riane was a veteran of caving. She moved easily through the winding chambers while he stumbled along, trying not to think about the fact that he had absolutely no idea of where he was going—or where the men with the guns were hiding.

“Maybe we should have taken one of the guided tours,” Joel commented from somewhere behind her, cursing under his breath as he tripped over yet another unseen obstacle protruding from the ground.

She reached behind her to take his hand, and he happily linked his fingers through hers.

Riane continued to move ahead, unhampered by the close confines, navigating the narrow corridors and tight corners without difficulty. Of course, she was the one with the flashlight.

He had no idea how long they’d been inside the maze of tunnels when she stopped abruptly. Joel bumped into the back of her, mumbling a quick apology as he stepped back again.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Dead end,” she said, turning to face him.

“We’re lost?” He hated the note of panic in his voice, hoped she didn’t recognize it as such.

“No, we’re not lost,” she chided. “We just have to follow this corridor back the way we came and turn around. All the tunnels are interconnected, like a maze. They twist and turn in all directions. A few are dead ends, but eventually they all lead back to the amphitheater.”

“Amphitheater?”

“The big chamber that we started out from.”

“Oh.” It seemed simple, and she sounded confident enough that his uneasiness abated.

Then she moved forward, as if to step past him, and the side of her breast brushed against his arm. The current of awareness jolted him, and he heard her sharp intake of breath. Obviously, he hadn’t been the only one affected.

“We have to follow this, um, corridor back,” she said again.