She continued on. Foot, hand, foot, hand.
“You’re doing great,” Cullen called up.
Ladders were child’s play. She’d been climbing them since she was six years old, helping her father pluck the ripe peaches from Mom’s precious backyard tree. The climbing wasn’t worrying, it was the small tremors she detected. The ground moving? Her body shivering from the cold? The metal giving way under stress?
Peaches. Think of the peaches.She could practically smell the enticing aroma of those succulent fruits, bursting with sticky sweetness from their fuzzy skins.
The perfect one,to yourright there,Kitty Kat. You got it,baby. Yes,sir. That one’s a beaut.
Because she wasn’t strong enough to balance a basket of heavy fruit, she’d pluck the peaches and drop them carefully down into her father’s waiting hands. If he missed, there was hilarity as he danced as if trying to avoid exploding peaches.
Laughter. She remembered laughing so hard she had to cling to the prickly trunk to avoid losing her balance.
It was her mother’s voice she heard in her memory then, a glimpse of her full-cheeked face laughing at her husband and child.“That’s enough forten pies.”No anger then, her expression was soft and loving, not hardened into bitter lines of disappointment. It had been a long while since she’d enjoyed a happy memory of her mother.
Next time I call,we’lltalk about the peaches,Mom.
If there was a next time.
Foot, hand, foot, hand.
The groaning grew louder, rising into a squeal of metal that became a shriek.
“Kit!” Cullen shouted up at her as the rungs gave way under her feet.
FOURTEEN
He tore off his mask.“Hold on! I’m coming!” he shouted. The ladder trumpeted its failure in a scream of twisting iron as the lower portion gave way. His nerves were electric. Kit swung by one wrist in a desperate clutch. Caught by his lantern light as he surged forward, she flailed, fighting to grab the section still fixed to the wall and succeeding, but a moment later that rung split too.
She clung tight. He thought he could reach up and snag her, prevent her fall, but the distance was too great and the entire ladder yanked free from the wall, crumbling, pelting him with rusty flecks.
Amid the shower of material, he tried to position himself to catch her. Too late. Too slow.
She cried out as she catapulted toward him. He had no other thought than to keep her from striking her head or breaking a leg, but she was turning and twisting as she toppled and he couldn’t judge the angle properly in the gloom.
She hit him like a cannonball in the center of his sternum. Unable to compensate, he careened over backward,forcing the breath out of his lungs and sending his hat flying. Pain sparked through him. Fortunately, she’d only fallen ten feet or so, but they still wound up in a tangled pile on the earthen floor.
He cranked his head up to see her, sprawled half on top of his chest, the crown of her head inches from his chin. “Are you okay?”
She breathed hard, hair swept over her eyes so she peered at him from under a curtain of bangs. “I was about to ask you that.”
“Totally fine,” he said in utter disagreement with his screaming ribs and protesting spine. Her elbow had caught him in the cheekbone, but since he already had a blackened eye from Nico, it hardly mattered. She eased off him and got to her knees, took stock a moment, then stood before offering him a helping hand he was not too proud to take. It was a long way to standing, but he managed with only a brief groan.
“You didn’t hit your head?” Last thing they needed was another injury on top of the concussion she’d likely received in the truck crash.
“No.” She peered more closely at him. “Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?”
He forced himself to straighten. “No worse than high school football double sessions.”
“I’m glad. And relieved.” She spoke shyly. “Thanks for breaking my fall. But I would feel really bad if I hurt you.”
Her earnest comment eased the aching places. He brushed the debris off his pants, hiding his face, which would no doubt betray his pain level. Years of wear and tear from police work and his four decades were beginningto catch up with him. His pride spoke up.Nothing ahot shower,a double cheeseburger,and a quality mattress won’t erase.
She scuffed a broken ladder rung aside with her boot as she looked around. “Where’s Tot?”
Tot answered Kit’s question before he did. She released a long, plaintive yowl that bounced and echoed from a yard or so down the tunnel where he’d laid her in a spot of relative dryness. No doubt the cold was seeping through the thin fabric of her blanket. He was still trying to restore his lungs to full working capacity, grateful when Kit busied herself scooping up the baby and holding her close.
“Dark down here, isn’t it, Tot? But the air is so nice and clean.” Kit pulled her mask down. “Let me warm you up, okay?” She kissed Tot’s furrowed brow, which quieted the hollering and seemed to please Kit. “I’ll carry her for a while.”
