A Coral Kiss Part 28

"I a.s.sume this isn't the cavern where you hid the box?" Jed's voice was tinged with impatience.

"No, but isn't this wild? Who would have guessed there was a breathing s.p.a.ce down here? It must have been created when these caves were first flooded. This cavern didn't fill completely with water. It doesn't smell too bad. Maybe there are some fissures in the rocks overhead that let in a little fresh air."

"Amy, we're not here to explore these caves. Let's get going." Jed started to lower his mask.

"Just a second," Amy called, "I want to see how broad that ledge is." She swam over to it and raised her hand to grasp the edge of rock.

"Watch where you put your hands. You can't see what's up there."

"There's nothing up here," Amy a.s.sured him as she used her grip to hoist herself a little higher in the water until she could just barely see over the edge of rock.

She swept her light across the surface of the ledge and found herself staring into the empty eyesockets of a human skull.

Amy's scream ricocheted off the cavern walls, filling the small s.p.a.ce and echoing horribly.

"Amy! Oh, G.o.d..." Jed kicked forward, grabbing for her as she shoved herself away from the ledge and floundered awkwardly in the water. "Amy, what is it? What's wrong?"

He braced her with one hand, using his other to keep himself afloat. He flashed his light toward the ledge.

"A skeleton, Jed. Up there on the ledge. It's Wyman," Amy gasped. "It must be."

"Are you okay?" he demanded.

Amy nodded mutely, still struggling to steady her nerves. Jed released her and swam toward the ledge.

Hoisting himself up with one hand he surveyed the rocky surface.

Amy watched in horror, wondering how Jed could calmly study such a grim scene. One glimpse had been more than enough for her. When he eventually dropped from the ledge and swam back to her he looked strangely thoughtful.

Amy swallowed, trying to make her question sound rational. "What do you think happened, Jed?"

"Offhand I'd say someone was afraid the body might somehow float out toward the entrance of the cave.

Whoever killed him apparently decided to leave him on that ledge so the currents wouldn't pull the body out into the open. See this water line? High tide doesn't reach the ledge."

"Oh, G.o.d, Jed, it really did happen, didn't it? Just the way LePage told me it happened. My mother must have killed him and then hidden his body in here. What are we going to do?"

"About that skeleton? Nothing. It's been lying there for twenty-five years. It can go on lying there forever.

Come on, we've got a job to do." Jed adjusted his mask and dived beneath the surface.

Amy glanced nervously back toward the ledge and then put the mouthpiece of the regulator between her teeth. She lowered her mask and went under the water. Her light instantly picked out Jed. He was waiting for her to precede him back to the main corridor. Since they were retreating along the nylon line, the order of who went first was reversed. Amy took a grip on the line and kicked forward, telling herself she would not think about the skeleton. Jed followed, reeling in the nylon.

Amy reached the narrowed mouth of the pa.s.sage and slowed to edge her way carefully past the entrance into the wider main corridor.

Suddenly the water seemed to shudder around her. She felt the vibration of the falling gravel and debris even as the nylon line went taut in her fingers. The water began to cloud almost instantly as loosened silt floated around her. In seconds Amy's light was useless. The beam barely penetrated the blinding fog of swirling debris.

Amy's light grasp on the nylon line became an unshakable grip. If she released it she would never find it again in this silty soup. And if she lost the line, she was probably as good as dead. Her sense of direction was gone. There were no reference points to tell her which way to turn in the corridor. She couldn't even tell which way was up and which was down without the line. She couldn't see more than a few inches in front of her face.

All of the problems she was facing registered in an instant, as well as the probable cause. Something, perhaps merely the change in water pressure caused by her swimming past a weak point, had started a slide. The falling materials had kicked up an incredible cloud of silt. But the biggest shock of all came when she tugged gently on the nylon line and got no answering response from Jed.

The line was still rigid in her grasp. Amy prayed that meant Jed was still holding onto the reel on the other side of the gravel fall, but she knew it could also mean that the reel had been trapped beneath the falling debris. Jed might have been trapped as well.

Cautiously, vividly aware of the possibility of jarring more of the interior loose, Amy swam back along the line. She kept the light on because, useless as it was, it was better than the terrifying, oppressive darkness that would descend on her if she switched it off. She aimed it at the line and found she was barely able to pick out the white nylon in front of her.

She didn't have to swim far before she found the jumble of materials that now sealed the narrow entrance of the pa.s.sageway through which she had just emerged. Carefully she tried tugging again on the nylon, aware that she might loosen more debris in the process. There was still no response.

Fear unlike anything she had ever known was welling up in her. If Jed had been caught by the fall and knocked unconscious he might already be dead. If he was alert but trapped by debris, she had to get to him before he ran out of air. They must both be rapidly reaching the bottom of the first third of their supply. Jed had been very clear about the fact that they had to turn back when they got that low. They would need almost a third of the supply to retreat from the cave. That left only the remaining third to keep him alive while Amy cleared the pa.s.sageway.

She went to work immediately, increasingly careless of the danger of causing another slide. So much damage had already been done that it seemed pointless to worry about the next possible disaster.

Groping through the silty water she encountered a small mountain of gravel blocking the entrance to the branch cave. She set the dive light down on the floor of the cave. Keeping one hand on the line, she used her free hand to claw at the pile of fallen debris. The thick water swirled around her but no more gravel fell.

Amy didn't try to read the tank's pressure gauge. There was no point tracking the depleting supply of air.

She had to keep working until she'd freed the line and discovered what had happened to Jed. It took all her willpower to control the images her mind insisted on conjuring up. He had to be alive on the other side.

She was working blindly but steadily on the gravel pile, trying to convince herself she was making progress when she thought she detected a small tug on the nylon line. Relief rushed through her.

Instantly she tugged back. This time the response was definite and deliberate.

Jed was alive.

Amy redoubled her efforts. Moments later she felt another distinct change in the tension of the line. This wasn't a signal from Jed. It felt as though a weight had been lifted off the line itself.

Amy groped hurriedly, following the line to the point where it disappeared into the loosened gravel. She could still see virtually nothing, but she was encouraged by the fact that her fumbling fingers were picking their way easily through the debris.

A few minutes later her gloved hand encountered Jed's. She couldn't see it or his face, but when his fingers closed briefly around hers Amy knew everything was going to be all right.

Having rea.s.sured herself that he was alive, Amy made herself slow down and finish the clearing process with greater caution. She realized Jed was doing the same on his side of the slide. Together they widened the gap until Jed could wriggle through.

Amy groped for the dive light and tried to pick out Jed's large frame as he swam into the tunnel beside her. She caught a glimpse of his s.h.i.+ny metal tank, but that was about all.

He reached out a hand until he touched her. She felt the firm pressure and knew he was ordering her to start moving back toward the corridor entrance. She realized from the continuing tension in the line that he still had the reel. Typical Jed Glaze style. The man was good at the important little details. Amy clung to the nylon and started swimming.

She had to go far more slowly on the way out because of the lack of visibility. It would be all too easy to blunder into a projection and either injure herself or cause another slide. The endless cloud of silt still roiled in front of her dive light.

It was the sunlight pouring into the water that eventually told Amy she had reached the outer pool. The water was just as murky, but the tnurkiness was not the endless darkness of the cave interior. Amy found the original tie off point and surfaced. She knew without looking at the pressure gauge that there couldn't have been more than a few minutes worth of air left in her tank. A few seconds later Jed broke the surface beside her. Amy drew a deep, shaky bream.

"Jed Glaze, I have never been so terrified in all my life. Don't you ever, ever do anything like that again, do you hear me?"

"I hear you. I was just about to give you the same lecture." His mouth tilted at the corner as he raised his mask. "Let's get the h.e.l.l out of this pool so we can go back to the house and yell at each other in comfort. There's no point making another try for the box now. It's probably going to take a day or two for this water to clear."

Chapter Sixteen.

The skeleton was swimming slowly, inexorably, toward Amy. Jed could see the blind intent in those empty eyes. The teeth were set in a mocking grin, and pale, boney fingers moved in a curious, paddling motion that drew the thing through the black water. The long leg bones drifted in the slow current.

Amy was trapped in an underwater shower of rock and debris. She couldn't move as Wyman's skeleton approached. Her legs were pinned. She was running out of air, and in another moment long, dead white fingers would close around her throat, choking off what remained of her waning air supply. Amy wasn't watching the swimming skeleton; her eyes were on Jed, silently pleading for help.

But Jed was also trapped, snarled in a deadly tangle of nylon line, regulator hoses and equipment straps.

His weight belt had far too much lead in it. It was pulling him down, making it almost impossible for him to reach his knife so he could cut himself free and get to Amy.

He had to get to Amy, which meant he had to free himself first. But somehow he knew he couldn't untangle himself unless Amy helped him. And Amy was about to confront Wyman's skeleton.

"Jed! Jed, wake up. You're dreaming. Please wake up."

Jed came slowly out of the nightmare, aware of Amy's hands on his shoulders. He could hear her clear voice and the part of him that was still dreaming seized on the sound, seeking a way out of the murky, endlessly dark water of the cave pa.s.sage.

"Come on, Jed, it's just a dream. Open your eyes and look at me."

Jed opened his eyes and found himself in Amy's moonlit bedroom. She was kneeling beside him on the bed, shaking him gently, talking to him. In the pale light he could read the concern in her eyes.

Jed blinked, groaned and sat up slowly. He forced himself to take a deep breath, aware of the perspiration on his skin. He was oddly embarra.s.sed.

"Sorry about that," he muttered. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear away the image of the skeleton reaching for Amy. "I must have read too much of your ma.n.u.script."

"Private Demons? When were you looking at that?"

"I read part of it before we left Caliph's Bay, and earlier today I glanced at some of the notes you've been making," he confessed. He leaned back against the pillows, willing away the last of the disturbing dream. He looked up at Amy. "Do you mind?"

"No, I'm just a little surprised. You never mentioned that you wanted to read it."

"Back in Caliph's Bay I read the last few pages the night you had that bad dream. I wanted to see if you'd written anything so unsettling that it actually gave you nightmares. But it wasn't your book that was causing the dreams, was it, Amy?"

She sighed and lay back down beside him. "No. If anything Private Demons was a way of trying to work out some of the anxiety. I doubt it was my book that gave you that nightmare, Jed. It was what happened this afternoon in that cave, wasn't it?"

"No, not exactly, although that was probably part of it." He searched quickly for a way of avoiding the discussion. "Remember we agreed once that sometimes it was better not to talk about bad dreams?"

She turned on her side, pillowing her head on her arm. Her gently tangled hair fell in a seductive curve over her shoulders. Jed had made love to her earlier and afterward she had put on her nightgown. He found her taste in night-wear amusing, as well as very appealing. She had a way of doing that, he realized. She was both sweet and s.e.xy, innocent and seductive, gentle and spirited. And she had a woman's strength, the kind of inner strength that a man could depend on. Jed felt his body begin to tighten in a familiar s.e.xual awareness. As usual, he wanted to both protect her and ravish her.

Amy seemed oblivious of the subtle change in him. Her mind was clearly on other things. "I've been thinking about what happened in that cave."

"Don't," he advised.

"I can't help it. You may be able to put certain things out of your mind, but I can't. Tell me the truth, Jed. Was it my fault?"

"The slide?" He turned his head on the pillow and looked into her clear, anxious eyes. "No, it definitely was not your fault. It wasn't my fault, either, as a matter of fact. It was just one of those things that can happen in an underwater cave. It's one of the reasons cave diving is so d.a.m.n hazardous. Whatever you do, don't start blaming yourself for what happened today." He was silent for a moment, then said aloud what he had been thinking most of the afternoon and evening. "You cut it very close, though, Amy."

"You mean when I was swimming through that narrow opening into the pa.s.sage? That's what I was afraid of. I don't think I hit anything or brushed the tank against the wall of the cave, but maybe I did.

Maybe that's what started the slide."

He rolled over, pinning her beneath him and gently cutting off her self-incriminating words with a palm over her mouth. Above his hand her eyes were wide and questioning. "That's not what I meant when I said you cut it close. I meant that you hung around a little too long trying to dig me out. You used up your entire safety margin of air. You were into the third of the supply you were supposed to save for the return trip. Another couple of minutes and you might not have made it back out."

She pushed his hand off her mouth. "I couldn't leave you there," she said simply. "I was afraid you were trapped by the slide. I had no way of knowing whether you could get free to swim back to that ledge."

He stared down at her, reading the truth in her eyes. "Ah, Amy," he muttered thickly, "what have you done to me?"

"Done to you? I haven't done anything to you."

"That's what you think." He bent to brush his mouth against hers. He arched his body, letting her feel his growing arousal.

She smiled tremulously and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I get the impression you want to change the subject."

"How did you guess?"

"A woman's intuition."

"Is that right?" He pressed himself against her again, liking the feel of her soft, warm thigh. "I'm impressed." He kissed her slowly, deepening the caress with a slow intimacy until she willingly parted her lips.

When he heard her faint moan he felt his own excitement and antic.i.p.ation quicken. She was so responsive, Jed marveled, not for the first time. So incredibly responsive. He'd never had a woman respond to him the way Amy did. He was getting addicted to her and he knew it. Sooner or later he was going to have to confront all the ramifications of that addiction.

But right now he just wanted to make love to her, sheathe himself in her clinging warmth, find the sweet peace of mind he always found in the aftermath.

Slowly Jed withdrew from her mouth and began to trail a hot, damp stream of kisses down her throat to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Oh, Jed," Amy whispered, her fingers twisting in his hair as she lifted herself against him. She sighed when he teased the peak of one breast with his tongue and then used his lips to gently tug her nipple erect.

He flattened a hand on her stomach and slid his fingers down through the soft, curling tangle between her legs. "You're getting warm and soft already," he breathed.

"You're not soft." Her voice was filled with gentle, seductive wonder. She ran her palms over the contours of his shoulders and down his back. Then she touched him more intimately. "Not soft at all."

"Not around you," he agreed. Already he was aching with the force of his desire. It was a sweet, hot ache that could be tolerated only because he knew eventually it would be satisfied. In the meantime it left him feeling lightheaded. He trailed the string of nibbling kisses lower, past her cute little navel and down her thigh. Carefully he pried apart her legs with his hand. When he found the exquisitely sensitive center of her excitement with his lips, Amy gasped. Her nails sank into his skin and her legs s.h.i.+fted with a new restlessness.

She tried to draw back slightly from the intimate contact, as if she wasn't certain it was what she wanted.

But Jed felt the instant response of her body and knew she did want it. She just needed a little convincing. He was more than willing to convince. He curved his hands around her lush der-riere and anch.o.r.ed her while he continued to tantalize her in new ways. Amy's slender, supple body tightened and her cry of mounting pleasure was a siren's song in his ears.

"Jed, that feels so... so good. I can't stand it."

"Show me how good it feels, sweetheart." He continued to tease her with his tongue and slowly inserted one finger into the dew-filled channel. Amy went wild beneath him, pleading for a release that he knew was soon going to swamp her senses.

When it came, the tiny convulsions tightening her around his finger, Jed gave up trying to restrain his own raging need. He flowed up along her body, driving himself into her softness just in time to feel the last of her release pull him deeply into her. His own reaction was almost immediate. In another few seconds he was arching savagely against her, calling her name aloud as he found his own satisfaction.

Amy clung to him as he came slowly down to earth. When Jed opened his eyes he found her smiling dreamily up at him.

"You were asking what I do to you," she drawled. "I'd say it's more a question of what you do to me."

He shook his head, too pleasantly exhausted to argue. Reluctantly he withdrew from her warm body and settled himself beside her. "Go back to sleep, honey. We both need the rest. In case you've forgotten, we had a rough day."