Holly Read online

  It was when she reached the room, saw that the beam was nothing special, that she heard the sound. The unmistakable sound of a rattlesnake. Instantly, she froze into position, her heart pounding in her throat. When she’d calmed herself enough, she turned just her head slowly in the direction of the sound. Not two feet from her was an enormous rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike if she moved even an inch. Holly had been so busy looking up at the beam that she’d almost stepped on the snake.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought. Okay, so now what did she do? Wait until sundown and the cool temperature made the snake seek warmth? How about testing her snake books? They were three layers of leather, hot beyond belief, but guaranteed to withstand any snake bite. Guaranteed, huh? Did that mean she got her money back if they didn’t work?

  She told herself to stop being sarcastic and to think of a way to get herself out of there alive. No sudden movements, of course, but how about a slow, steady tiptoe out?

  “Nice snake,” she whispered, then swallowed when the tail rattled enthusiastically. Slowly, she stepped backward.

  One second she was standing on the floor of an old house and the next she was falling through the air. She screamed in fear and shock, then let out an oomph as she hit bottom.

  Blinking, she lay on her back and looked up. She seemed to have fallen into an old cistern. About twelve feet above, she saw the floor with its broken boards, and as she watched, the snake slithered over to peer down at her.

  “That’s all I need,” she muttered. “Caught in a pit with a rattlesnake.” Wincing with pain, bruised from the fall, she removed her camera from its case around her neck, then shot four quick photos of the snake. Blinded by the flash, it moved away from the edge.

  Holly put her hand to her back and rolled a bit to one side to look around her. She was in a pit about twelve feet deep and eight feet in diameter. It had most likely once been a root cellar or used for ice storage and had probably originally had dirt or stone walls. But some industrious owner had smeared a layer of concrete over the sides, which made them slick and unclimbable.

  A feeling of panic rose in Holly, but she tamped it down. Of course she could get out. Slowly, feeling her body for any injuries, she got up off the debris-covered floor. If the walls were modern enough to be concrete, then there was probably an aluminum ladder nearby.

  On the floor was a foot-deep cushion of rotten wood and plants—and animal carcasses. It looked as though anything that had ever fallen into the pit had not been able to find a way out.

  As she looked up at the high walls, she told herself that she was smarter than the animals, and that of course there was a way out.

  An hour later, she was beginning to panic. She’d piled all the debris up and tried to climb on it, but it was so rotten her feet went through to the bottom. The decaying wood had cushioned her fall, so she hadn’t been hurt, but she couldn’t climb it.

  Above her head were the old floorboards. She could see a rusty hinge that had once been the trapdoor that led down to the cellar. If she could latch onto the boards, could she pull herself up? Latch on with what? she wondered.

  Stepping back, she took inventory of what she had to use. She had her camera in a case with a thin nylon strap. She had a bottle of water and what she was wearing. Her walking stick and flashlight had flown out of her hands when she’d fallen.

  “A rope,” she said as she started unbuttoning her shirt. “I have to make a rope.”

  Chapter Two

  HOLLY JERKED TO ATTENTION WHEN SHE HEARD the sounds above her head. Curled into a ball, wearing only her panties, her tall snake boots, and her watch, she was buried between layers of debris, trying to stay warm. Her throat was raw from screaming for help; her eyes were raw from crying in fear and frustration.

  It was mine-shaft dark in the pit, her camera battery having long ago given out, and it was freezing. Although she couldn’t see it, she knew that hanging above her head, dangling just above her reach, was the rope she’d fashioned out of her clothes. After two hours of work, she’d managed to catch the arm strap of her bra on a nail (modern, not square cut) protruding from a plank that had fallen to the side above the pit. She’d not tried to catch one of the rotten floor boards for fear it would break under her weight.

  It had taken hours, but she’d finally managed to catch the strap on the nail.

  She’d been more than halfway up when the rope broke. A seam on her shirt had given way and Holly had fallen to the bottom again. What was left of the rope dangled a foot above her outstretched hands. She’d jumped, she’d cursed, she’d leaped, but to no avail.

  Darkness came quickly in the mountains and with it the cold air. Holly was alone in the forest, trapped in a concrete-lined pit, and, for the most part, naked. If she managed to live through the night, how long could she survive? If it rained she’d have drinking water, but the pit would be even colder if there was water in it.

  As the sun set and the light faded, Holly did what she could to make a den out of the debris on the floor. She needed something under and over her to protect her from the cold.

  What she refused to allow herself to think about was the fact that no one knew where she was. Her car was so completely hidden under trees that it might be weeks before anyone saw it. And if they did see the car, so what? This was a tourist area and there were strange cars parked everywhere.

  She wouldn’t let herself think that it would be weeks before her parents began to grow concerned about her disappearance. “Why do I have to be so independent!” she said, her arms clasped around her bare chest. Unfortunatley, it wasn’t at all unusual for her to change her itinerary at the last moment and not show up where she’d said she’d be.

  “Old houses,” she said, pulling dead vines over her, then wincing because the vines had thorns in them. Her love of old houses was her downfall.

  She pushed the little light button on her watch and saw that it was only ten o’clock. She would have guessed it was about 3:00 A.M. She had many hours to go before she would feel the warmth of sunlight.

  When she first heard the noise above her, she opened her eyes and all her senses came alert. She’d been hearing the quiet sounds of animals moving about, but this was different. This sound came from something larger.

  “Hello?” came a man’s voice. “Anyone here?”

  Holly was so dazed by cold, hunger, and fear that at first she couldn’t respond. When she tried to speak, her throat closed entirely.

  When she heard the footsteps begin to retreat, she panicked and began to kick the wall. She grabbed a rotten board and threw it upward.

  “Here!” she managed to croak out. “In here!”

  She held her breath when the footsteps above halted, then turned. In the next second, a flashlight was beaming down at her.

  Instinctively, Holly crossed her arms over her bare chest.

  “Are you all right?” A man’s voice came down to her. She couldn’t see his face behind the light.

  “Yes,” she said. “Just cold.”

  “Hang on a minute,” he said and Holly heard a rustling noise. Seconds later, a shirt, still warm from his body, hit her face. She pulled it to her, kept it over her face for a second, then quickly put her arms in the warm sleeves.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking up at the light.

  “Now listen to me,” he said in a calm, soothing voice. “I’m going to have to take the light away for a few minutes while I look for something to use to get you out. Will you be okay?”

  “You won’t leave me, will you?” Holly heard the pleading tone in her voice, heard the fear.

  “Leave a beautiful, naked girl alone in a pit? You think I’m crazy?”

  Holly wouldn’t have thought she could smile, but she couldn’t help herself. When he took the light away she wrapped her arms, now clad in his long-sleeved shirt, around herself and waited. “The floorboards are rotten,” she called up to him.

  “I thought they might be,” he said, letting her know th
at he wasn’t too far away.

  She could see the beam of his flashlight roaming about the old house. It stopped when he saw her homemade rope hanging from a fallen plank.

  “I tried to make a rope,” she said unnecessarily. She wanted the reassurance of his voice.

  “Is that what happened? And here I thought you’d been moonbathing.”

  Holly relaxed more and smiled more. She couldn’t see the man’s face, but at the moment she’d never loved anyone as much as she loved this man—the man who’d come to save her.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Some woman sent the police after me.”

  That made no sense whatever. “Who sent the police after you? Why?” Now and then his light fell inside the pit and it always seemed to land on some animal skeleton.

  “Seems you missed an appointment with the moving company.”

  Holly had forgotten all about them. “Yes!” she said. “I did. Did the moving company report me missing?”

  “No, they reported themselves to be angry. They stopped at that store at the south end of the lake and told the couple who own it that the spoiled daughter of some government bigshot had stood them up.”

  Holly grimaced. With her father being an ambassador, she was nearly always assumed to be spoiled and disdainful of the “little people.” She heard him moving things. “What does that have to do with you? And might I ask who you are?”

  “Nick Taggert,” he said, “but we haven’t met. At least I haven’t met you. Still okay?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but don’t stop talking. How did the police get involved in this? Did someone see my car?”

  “No.” He was pulling on something and she was afraid the floor would give way and he’d end up trapped in the pit with her. But then she could climb on his shoulders and get out—unless he broke a leg in the fall, that is.

  She tried to clear her head. He was talking.

  “The moving men stopped at the store to get something to drink and told the woman you hadn’t shown up for the appointment. She then called the police and reported a possible kidnapping, and she said that she knew who the kidnapper was.”

  “You?” Oh no, Holly thought. Was she being rescued by a criminal? What was he planning to do to her once he got her out of the pit? It wasn’t possible that he’d put the concrete in the pit to use it as a trap to catch naked women, could it?

  Holly put her hands over her face for a moment and told herself to get a grip.

  “Yeah, me,” he said. “The police banged on my door and demanded that I tell them what I’d done with you.”

  “Why would anyone think you had kidnapped me?”

  “Try this,” the man said as she heard something hit the side of the pit. When he moved his light downward, she saw a thick grapevine. “I want you to cover your hands with the shirt cuffs and hold on to the vine while I pull you up. Your knees are going to get scraped but—Wait a minute.”

  Holly listened to a rustling sound, then something soft landed at her feet. It was his jeans. “Put them on. They’ll protect your body while I pull you up.”

  Holly tried to pull the jeans on over her boots but they wouldn’t go, so she unlaced her boots. “Can you catch them?”

  “Try me,” he said, and he caught her boots easily.

  Holly put on the jeans, rolled up the cuffs, and grabbed the vine.

  “Don’t let go,” he said. “Wrap your legs and arms around the vine and cover any exposed skin so it won’t be scraped.”

  “Okay,” Holly whispered, then wrapped her body around the vine and held on while he pulled. As she went up, she thought, Whoever he is, he’s certainly strong.

  When she reached the top, his hands were there to steady her, and it was natural in the relief of the moment that she threw her arms around his neck. For a moment she cried, and he held her and stroked her hair. “Sssh, hush now. You’re safe.”

  After a while, he gently pushed her away. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

  When Holly stepped back from him, they heard a thud, followed quickly by another one. When he shined his flashlight into the pit, she saw that her boots had fallen down into it.

  She looked up in the darkness at the man. She couldn’t see his face or he hers, but they both knew she was asking him a question. How could she walk out barefoot?

  “Okay,” he said. “You wear the shirt, give me back my pants, and I’ll piggyback you out of here. Sound like a good plan?”

  “Perfect,” she said as she held on to his arm to steady herself to remove his trousers. It was unnecessary on his part and maybe she should have protested, but he kept the light full on her, and even after she stepped out of the trousers, he kept the light on her legs. Holly was very glad she’d spent so much time working out lately.

  Besides, it was odd, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so close to a man as she did to this one now. Except for Lorrie, that is. But then, Lorrie was the exception to every situation.

  He put on his trousers nearly one-handed as he kept the light on her. Minutes later, he said, “Ready?” and she knew he’d turned his back to her.

  Never in her life had she experienced anything as erotic as that walk out. The man was lean, trim, and well-muscled. He was naked from the waist up and her legs were bare. She slipped her legs around his waist, clasped her ankles, then put her arms around his bare back, her cheek on his warm skin.

  “My hero,” she said, trying to make a joke, but she was being too honest to make him laugh.

  “Any time,” he said, and clasped her ankles with one hand, the flashlight in the other.

  Holly, at last released from the fear of dying in that pit, felt the warmth of his body, and as he walked through the forest, she felt herself relaxing.

  “Don’t go to sleep,” he said. “You fell onto a concrete floor. If you’re concussed you need to stay awake.”

  “You sound like a doctor,” she murmured and wanted to kiss his warm skin.

  “Basic lifesaving,” he said. “Don’t go to sleep.”

  “Mmmm,” she answered, snuggling closer to him, then she awoke quickly. “Ow! Why did you do that?” He’d pinched her calf hard.

  “Don’t go to sleep!”

  “I just want to take a bath, a long, hot bath, and—”

  “Fall asleep in the tub and drown. I didn’t save you to lose you. You’re going home with me and I’m going to watch you all night.”

  “Mmmm,” she said dreamily.

  He’d stopped walking and she felt his movement as he opened a car door. Her car. “That tone is what started all this in the first place.”

  Turning, he dropped her into the passenger seat, then quickly went to the other side of the car.

  What in the world was he talking about? she wondered. The driver’s door opened, the dome light came on, and he slid into the driver’s seat.

  Wide-eyed, Holly saw that her rescuer was the man she’d seen at the diner, the gorgeous man who’d ridden the motorcycle. The man who was the friend of the truck lover. The man she’d nicknamed “Heaven.”

  He closed the door, the light went out, but he didn’t start the car. “The woman at the store said you’d been ‘lusting’ after me and that she’d seen your car turn toward my side of the lake. When you didn’t show up for the movers, she called the police and told them I’d probably kidnapped you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Holly whispered. It was as dark in the car as it had been in the pit. Reaching out, she took his hand. She was very aware—vibrantly aware—of the fact that her bottom half and his top half were naked. So little clothing; so much skin. She remembered the cold of the pit and she hungered for warmth. “I was just watching you, and she thought…” Holly trailed off, not sure of what to say to explain. She took his hand in both of hers. “What made you look for me?”

  “Logic,” he said. “If you weren’t where you were supposed to be, and you turned down this side of the lake, then maybe you were in trouble.”

  “I wa
s in there for hours,” she said. She hadn’t meant it as a criticism that he’d taken so long, but it sounded like that. “I didn’t mean—”

  “That’s okay. It took me a while to get over the injustice of the accusation before logic could enter my head.”

  “ ‘Injustice of the accusation,’ ” she said, smiling. “What does that mean? That women are never kidnapped by men? Especially by motorcycle-riding men who have a secret barn?”

  “A secret—?” he began. She couldn’t see his face, but she felt him turn toward her. “You’re a snoop, aren’t you?”

  “No. That woman was afraid I’d marry you and end up working in a grocery by a lake and being jealous of my Mercedes-driving sister, so she told me about you.”

  He laughed, and as he did, he reached out to touch her face. Maybe he was going to feel her head to see if there were any bumps, but Holly felt too close to him for that. She moved toward him, and when his hand accidently touched her breast, a fire went through her. It was a fire ignited by life, by the joy of still being alive.

  He pulled her into his arms just as she reached out to him, the console gear shift between them.

  “I was so afraid,” she said, her mouth on his shoulder.

  “So was I. I saw your car hidden under the trees and I knew something was wrong. And I didn’t know if I could get you out of that pit or not.”

  “But you did,” she whispered, her lips close to his. “You saved me.”

  “Does that mean I now own you?” he whispered, teasing, as he kissed her cheek.

  “I think maybe so,” she said and moved her mouth so he could kiss her. She opened her mouth under his and when his tongue touched hers, she groaned.

  Within seconds, their relief turned to desire, and what few clothes they had on came off. When Nick’s knee hit the gear shift, they tumbled through the opening between the bucket seats into the Mini’s cavernous back.

  Legs, arms, torsos entwined; lips and tongues kissed, sucked, licked. Naked, Nick went to his back and pulled Holly down on top of him. She cried out, then used her pent-up energy and her feeling that this man had given her back her life to raise and lower herself on him into a crescendo of ecstasy.