“Done what?”
Good question. “Been trapped in a mine.”
The silence was as absolute as the darkness. He’d count to a hundred and if she still didn’t respond, he’d nudge her. He was on seventy-two before she finally spoke.
“If you mean, have I been stuck in a cave before, you’re correct.”
Damn. He let out a low whistle. “Obviously, you were rescued.”
“Not exactly. No calvary came to my aid. They were all dead.”
Her words had been spoken as a matter of fact, but the lack of emotion in her tone gave him a clue. Could it be the more monotone her voice, the more deeply she felt? When had she last spoken like that?
“This gravel is different. We’re going to have to figure something out.”
He shrugged out of habit. “Or we could just wait to be rescued. I don’t know what time it is, but I’m guessing in about forty-eight hours at the most, someone will notice we’re missing and start to search. With the right equipment, they could probably get us out of here in a couple hours.”
“So, your plan is to just sit here and wait?” The shock in her voice was impossible to miss.
“It would keep any further injuries from occurring. We’ll probably be hungry, but if we don’t move much, we won’t use energy. The temperature in here is comfortable, thanks to it being summer, so we could simply sit and wait.”
In the deep darkness, he could hear her breathing increase. Did it scare her to simply wait? It grated on his nerves to be the one rescued instead of the one doing the extraction, but it did make a lot of sense in this case to simply remain still.
“No.” The single word came out on a controlled breath.
He waited, expecting an explanation, but none was forthcoming. Fine. He wasn’t excited about waiting either. For all they knew, if they moved three more feet of gravel, they could be free. “Good, that’s not my style.”
“Mine either. Then what are our options for digging out of here? We could look for another exit. That rabbit might have an escape route.”
He shook his head. “I’m sure he does, but I doubt we’d fit through a rabbit tunnel.”
“Well, it was abigrabbit.”
Huh? She couldn’t really be contemplating—
A chuckle sounded in the darkness.
More humor? It seemed odd coming from her, yet he had no idea why. “You mean like Alice in Wonderland? If so, I hope you have some of that special mushroom or we’re going to get stuck.”
“Not likely. Too bad Dog here couldn’t sniff us a way out.”
Something about her name for what looked like a Jack Russel Terrier bothered him. It was impersonal as if she wanted to keep it at a distance. Maybe she did, knowing Whisper would be coming back for it, but the chances of the animal being happy about that now were slim. “Don’t you think you should come up with a real name for your dog?”
“Why? He’s not mine.”
“Maybe not, but even foster parents don’t call the children ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ just because they won’t be keeping them.”
Silence greeted his statement.
Was she thinking of a name? “I’ve been thinking about getting a dog myself.”
“Why?”
Her question surprised him. “For company. The great thing about a dog is its loyalty and unflinching desire to be in your presence.”
“But you have to feed it and play with it and take it to the vet. That’s a lot of responsibility.”
Obviously, she’d never thought about being a mother. He’d always wanted to be a father, but that wasn’t about to happen now. Not since his last wildfire. “A dog is a lot less work than a horse and you own a horse.”
