Page 214 of Her Reluctant Hero
Like a coffin. Jesus. Her nonchalant tone hid the very real terror the young Peyton must have experienced, and the bravery in her voice reached inside and grabbed him.
“It had a latch on the outside and there was no way I could get it open. I was locked in for an hour before my mother found me.”
Her voice was hollow, like her cries for help must have been inside the cedar coffin, and nausea rolled in his stomach as he imagined her fear. Jesus. What would an experience like that do to a person? The scars didn’t stop at claustrophobia.
But there was something more. She hadn’t thought of climbing into the chest on her own.
“Why did you want to know what it was like to be dead?” He kept his voice controlled, not letting her see the effect her story had on him.
She put her helmet back on. “My sister died. She was hit by a car doing some idiotic trick on her bike. One minute she was there and the next she wasn’t. The rocks are starting to get warm.” Her tone changed from melancholy to matter of fact as she pushed to her feet to avoid any more questions. “We better keep moving.”
Why had she told him all that? Peyton got herself a good foothold and pulled herself up the rock, ahead of him, like he insisted. Her family didn’t discuss her sister’s death. She hadn’t told Dan that story till they’d been married.
Of course, Dan hadn’t seen evidence of her claustrophobia the way Gabe had. She owed Gabe an explanation for freaking out on him back there. Telling him the story was better than him thinking she was a wimp.
Which she was. But with a reason.
That was it. It was the situation, not the man. If only she could keep her mind on her purpose, look for the humanity in the hero, without showing him hers. The sympathy in his eyes when she told him her story unsettled her. She had to protect herself, because right now she was feeling just too damned vulnerable.
The confession had the effect of emptying her mind. Only motor skills remained, putting one foot in front of the other. She couldn’t comprehend her own exhaustion, only that the fire was coming up and the sun was going down.
“We’re not going to be able to see much longer,” Gabe said after what had to be an hour of silence. She didn’t remember ever experiencing such a lengthy silence with another person. Of course, forming words took brainpower and she’d depleted the last of hers. “I’d hoped to reach that ridge before sundown.” He motioned upward, and the place he was pointing to seemed unreachable. “We’ll keep going till the batteries run out.”
“Mine is already winding down.” Even talking took too much energy.
He chuckled. “I mean in the headlamps. The flashlight won’t do us any good since we need our hands.”
“What’ll we do if the batteries run out?” Her words came slow and slurred.
“Stop. Are you going to be okay? Are you hungry?”
She waved her hand at him weakly, too scared to eat. But if she didn’t get food, if they didn’t rest, she couldn’t keep up much longer. Still, she lied. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve got food in your pack, right? You didn’t give it all to those girls?”
“I’ve got food.”
“Then eat.”
She studied him a long moment before plopping down and pulling an MRE out of her pack.
He knew two of her weaknesses and hadn’t revealed one of his. She tore into the pseudobeef. “What about the fire?”
“If it gets close enough, we’ll see it.”
“Very funny. We can’t sleep. The fire could come up on us.” She hated the pathetic tone of her voice but was too tired to muffle it.
“You can sleep. I’ll keep a lookout.”
Good Lord, how could the man think he wasn’t a hero if he was willing to go without sleep so she could rest? He had to be more tired than she was. She couldn’t allow that sacrifice. “I’m not going to sleep if you can’t.”
He rolled his eyes, not hiding his disgust that she was arguing with him. Again. She felt a small twinge of guilt for irritating him, but she needed him to see her as an equal, as he had in the cave.
Of course, if Gabe Cooper had an equal, she wouldn’t be doing this story.
“You’ll sleep if I tell you to.”
“You can’t make me,” she said, realizing too late how childish that sounded.
