Page 39 of Defenseless
Chad glanced over his shoulder at her again. “You had to change your name twice?”
She nodded, though he’d turned back around and couldn’t see. “Right after my mother died, I changed my name to Bella Wright, from Lalibela Houseman, my given name. My sister was born Nalanda but changed her name to Sakara. Her cover hadn’t been compromised, so she’s been able to keep that name.”
“The names sound like they have meaning?”
They reached the bottom of the hill, and Chad hadn’t exactly been truthful when he’d said it was a few minutes up. It was up, but it wasupa staircase so steep that a rope, anchored somewhere above them, lay along its length. It reminded her of the pyramids in Mexico and the ropes designed to give the tourists something to hold onto as they clambered up and down.
“Ready?” he asked.
She eyed the stairs but nodded. “Ready.”
“Ladies first.” He stood aside, picked up the rope, and held it out to her.
“This isn’t one of those things that if I go first, I’m going to be clearing the way of spiders and things like that, is it?” she asked, taking the thick rope in her hand. It was coarse and rough against her palm. She hoped she didn’t need to use it much. Then again, a few blisters here and there wouldn’t kill her.
He chuckled. “After everything you’ve told me, you’re going to run from a few spiders?”
“I don’t mind spiders. It’s when they skitter out of nowhere or land on me that I have a heart attack.”
He chuckled. “If I go first, I won’t be able to help you much if you need a hand. The stairs aren’t wide enough to turn or move around each other.”
She gazed up the tunnel again. She wasn’t a particularly clumsy person, but her luck hadn’t been so hot lately. Giving herself a nod of encouragement, she grabbed the rope and started up. Hopefully, she’d stay on her feet and not go tumbling backward into Chad.
“Tell me about the names,” he prompted as they started to climb.
“Lalibela and Nalanda are archaeological sites that our mother named us after. I went by Bela and my sister by Nala. When we first went into hiding, I officially changed my name to Bella—with twoLs—and Nala changed hers to Sakara.”
“Like the funerary site in Egypt?”
“Exactly, but with aKinstead of twoQs.”
“And Sabina?”
“Sibinacocha is a lake in Peru that holds Inca artifacts. Again, similar in pronunciation to the first part of the word but spelled a little different.” She was starting to huff a little. She’d been so busy getting HICC up and running that she’d been neglecting her runs and workouts. Something she’d have to change once they sorted everything out.
At that thought, she drew to a stop. Then jumped when Chad’s hand landed on the back of her thigh.
“Sorry,” he said when she looked over her shoulder. “You stopped so quickly, I figured it was better to steady myself with my hand than ram your behind with my head.”
Her gaze dropped to the top of his head and his thick dark hair. Inappropriate though it was, the thought of his head anywhere near her upper thighs didn’t sound so bad.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
Shaking herself from those thoughts, she nodded. “I was thinking that I needed to get back to my workouts once we settle everything.”
He smiled. “Your mind has finally made the jump to believing that wewillsort this out?” he asked, picking up on her train of thought.
She smiled back. “I guess so.”
“Good,” he said with a sharp nod. “Now why don’t you lead us the rest of the way out of here and while we climb, you can tell me why you picked the names you did.”
It was a good plan. If only she hadn’t been so out of shape. It wasn’t until they were seated in the cab of a pickup that must have been twenty years old that she caught her breath enough to answer. “There’s not much to say about the names,” she said.
“They have a story, though,” Chad pressed as he turned onto the rural highway that would take them into town. “But even if the names aren’t important in the grand scheme of things, the fact that you are now free to talk about them is,” he added.
He had a point. Several, actually. Shewasfree to talk about her past and prior identities. She didn’t have to hold everything so close to the vest anymore. Perhaps more important, though, was that Chad hadaskedand she could tellhim.
The magnitude of the change that the last several hours had brought to her life unfurled with the subtlety of a tsunami. Every question he’d ever asked she could now answer. She wasn’t fooling herself that everything was magically fine between them, but she’d be damned if she was going to pass up the opportunity to try to make it so.
