Solitaire. Lindsay McKenna

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      Tears leaked down her face and she couldn’t trust her voice.

      “The whole family’s coming?”

      He laughed. “Yeah. I’m impressed. Not many families would fly to the rescue.”

      “We’re close.”

      “How are you holding up?”

      “I’ve had better days, Donovan. How are things out there?”

      “We’ve got thirty men on line for you, sweetheart. We’re hauling about a ton of dirt and rock an hour. I’m shoring the shaft up with new post and stull every three feet as we go.”

      Cat nodded, trying to lick her dry lips. “How many tons do you figure is between you and me?”

      Slade’s voice was apologetic. “About fifty tons of material. If we can keep up the pace I’ve set, we’ll have you out of there in roughly fifty hours.”

      Fifty more hours in the damp darkness. It seemed like an eternity. Could she control her fear? It was so black, she couldn’t even see her hand if she held it up in front of her nose. And she was thirsty. Her tongue felt swollen, her throat rough as sandpaper. She would have to crawl the width of the footwall to sip that trickle of life-giving water along the opposite wall.

      “You’re doing a good job, Donovan. I’m going to owe you a lot by the time you get me out of here.”

      “Don’t worry, I intend to collect for my services, lady.”

      Cat smiled, allowing his voice to cover her like a blanket of balm. “Whatever you want, Donovan, within reason.”

      Slade chuckled indulgently. “Don’t worry, the price won’t be so high you won’t want to pay it. Look, I’ll check in on you an hour from now.”

      Panic nibbled at her crumbling control and Cat gripped the radio, dreading the return to silence. “For some reason, I trust you, Donovan. I shouldn’t, but I do.”

      His voice came back, husky but velvet to soothe her shattered composure. “Hold that thought, Cat. I’ll be here for you, that’s a promise.”

      * * *

      Two things happened in the next hour. The entire Kincaid family arrived at the Emerald Lady, and Slade could not raise Cat again on his radio. Rafe Kincaid, the brother, was close to exploding, firing questions faster than Slade could answer them. The tall, strapping Colorado rancher took off his Stetson, rolled up his sleeves, grabbed a hard hat and went into the mine to help in the rescue effort. So did Jim Tremain, Dal’s husband. Slade liked Cat’s family; Sam and Inez Kincaid, Cat’s parents, and Dal Tremain, Cat’s younger sister, helped to set up a place where coffee could be dispensed in the nearby shack and sandwiches could be made for the hardworking rescue crews. Millie, the Kincaid’s housekeeper, who was apparently an integral part of the family, watched Dal’s months-old baby, Alessandra, while Dal worked.

      Within an hour of their arrival, the Kincaid family had organized chow lines for the hungry miners. Meanwhile, Slade had returned to the mine to continue directing the rescue. Slade tried to reassure Rafe that his sister had probably lost consciousness again due to her concussion. Rafe glowered at him, as if it were his fault, but Slade shrugged it off. Let the rancher expend his anger on the pickax he was wielding, instead of blowing up at him.

      * * *

      Cat tasted blood. She lay on her left side, shivering. What time was it? How many hours had passed since she had last lost consciousness? The luminous dials of her watch blurred and she blinked. Her vision was being affected and that frightened her. The radio was pressed protectively to her breast and she shakily turned it on, the red light glowing brightly in the darkness. Almost immediately, Slade’s voice came through, soothing her fragmented nerves.

      “Cat?”

      She heard the anxiety in Slade’s voice and was grateful for his undiminished caring.

      “I’m alive,” she announced, her voice weaker than it had been earlier.

      “Thank God. What happened? You’ve been out ten hours.”

      “I can’t hang on to consciousness, Slade. Keep blacking out.”

      “Don’t worry about it. Let me go get your parents. Your family arrived some time ago. They’re helping in the relief efforts. Rafe and Jim Tremain have been using a pickax and shovel the last ten hours. That’s quite a family you’ve got. Hold on…”

      Tears began to stream down her grimy cheeks when she heard her father’s gruff voice, and then her mother’s. Cat tried not to cry. She tried to sound brave and calm and steady, everything she wasn’t. But when Rafe was put on, her voice cracked, betraying her real emotions. Whether it was the avalanche of tightly withheld feelings or the strain of her entrapment, Cat was barely coherent. There was so much she wanted to say; instead tears flowed in a warm stream down her cheeks, and her voice was wobbly and fragmented.

      “S-Slade…” she choked.

      “He’s done a fine job, Cat,” Rafe came back. “He knows what he’s doing. Look, you just hang on. We’ve got an ambulance and paramedic crew standing by to take you to the closest hospital. Keep your chin up, Baby Sis. We all love you. Just remember all the times you and I dared danger and won. It’ll be the same this time. I promise you.”

      Rafe grimly handed the radio back to Donovan. Neither man looked at the other; if they had, they would have seen tears forming in the corners of their eyes. Slade’s face was slack with exhaustion and streaked with dirt and mud. He took the radio from Rafe.

      “Cat?”

      “Y-yes?”

      “Thirty-five hours to go, sweetheart. You’ve got a passel of people out here who love you. Just remember that.”

      * * *

      Grim, unshaven men, their eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed from too much dust, their hands bruised and bloodied with scrapes and cuts, continued on. Day had turned to night and then day again. The rain had stopped and so had Cat’s infrequent radio exchanges. Yet, the Kincaids’ courage inspired the rescuers, and there wasn’t a man among them who slept more than a few hours between the mandatory six-hour shifts at the end of a shovel, a wheelbarrow or pickax. No one complained, and Slade found that phenomenal.

      Rubbing his bleary eyes, Slade held up his watch. A portable generator provided light in the damp expanse of the mine. Five hours…five hours before they broke through and made contact. Was Cat on the left wall near the stream? No stranger to cave-ins, he worried about her dehydrating. The people who knew of his escapes had said he’d had nine lives. Well, Cat had better have nine lives; she’d need them to survive this one.

      * * *

      Cat wasn’t sure what pulled her from her floating state. Was it the whoosh of fresh air into the staleness of the chamber or the frantic sound of steel-bladed shovels tearing a hole through the last of the wall that held her captive? Or was it actually recognizing Rafe’s hushed voice, and Slade’s? Whatever it was, she pulled on the last of her reserves and turned her head, which was now lying in a trickle of water, toward the men’s urgent voices.

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