LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      The light from Slade’s helmet slashed through the thick silence of the chamber. His eyes widened as he found Cat covered with filth and dust, her hair caked with mud around her pale, translucent face. She lay on her left side, stretched out across the stream of water. Thank God she’d had the foresight to move to the water; all she had to do was turn her face and sip from the shallow stream. His admiration for her survival instincts rose. Next, Rafe came through the six-foot opening, followed by a paramedic with a thin oak body board and a neck brace.

      Slade reached her first, his hand closing protectively over Cat’s shoulder. He leaned over from his kneeling position, his face close to hers. He whispered her name twice before he saw her long dark lashes flutter and barely open.

      Cat saw a lopsided smile pull at Slade’s mouth; his face was tense, his eyes burned out with bone-deep exhaustion. She saw a flame of hope in them, too. She tried to form his name on her parched, cracked lips, but only a hoarse sound issued forth.

      “Shh, sweetheart. Your knights in shining armor have arrived. All I want you to do is lie very still while we get you on this body board and truss you up like a Christmas goose.”

      She wasn’t able to comprehend all that Slade said as he leaned over her. The warmth of his breath coupled with his husky voice flowed like balm across her, filling her with new strength. A small smile tugged at Cat’s mouth. She felt Slade’s long fingers close gently across her shoulder, and she knew he understood.

      An incredible aura of care surrounded Cat during those twenty minutes when the three men worked on her. She was conscious for minutes at a time, lapsing in and out of the arms of darkness. Rafe’s voice or his familiar touch on her hair would draw her back to consciousness. She began to anticipate Slade’s knowing, professional touch as he and the paramedic turned her over, placing her on the body board. She had grown used to the pain in her right side, but the callused pressure of Slade’s fingers as he fitted the brace around her neck brought tears to her eyes.

      The jab of a needle brought her to greater awareness, but once they had her strapped securely to the thin oak board Cat lost consciousness again.

      * * *

      Slade handed Sam Kincaid another cup of coffee as they stood in the waiting room of the surgical floor of the hospital. He wasn’t sure who looked worse: he or Rafe. They were muddy, their hair plastered down from untold hours of sweat. Every muscle in Slade’s body screamed for rest and the luxury of a hot shower. He wrinkled his nose; the brackish odor of the mine and his sour sweat smell surrounded him. He glanced at his watch. An hour ago Cat had been taken to the emergency room, attended by a number of physicians and nurses. None of the family had been allowed to go with her. Why didn’t someone come out and tell them how she was?

      Slade hadn’t tried to hide his own emotions as he’d sat alongside Rafe in the ambulance. Cat had been chalk white; even her freckles had looked washed out. Her once-beautiful sable-brown hair was a stringy mat of mud and blood. There’d been a three-inch gash across her scalp, and she had bled heavily, but he was more worried about the skull beneath her scalp. Just how bad was her concussion? Judging from Cat’s pallor and her prolonged bouts of unconsciousness, it was serious.

      A doctor came through the double swinging doors, his face unreadable. He headed for the elder Kincaid. The entire family, with Millie and Slade, surrounded the doctor before he drew to a stop.

      “Mr. Kincaid?”

      Sam Kincaid nodded. “Doctor? How’s my girl?”

      “I’m Dr. Scott,” he said, extending his hand. “Cathy is in serious condition, Mr. Kincaid. She’s suffered two broken ribs. She’s extremely dehydrated and we’ve got her on two I.V.s to restabilize her.”

      Slade closed his fist. His voice was strained. “And her head injury, Dr. Scott?”

      Scott’s narrow face became impassive. “Severe concussion. She keeps lapsing in and out of consciousness.” His brow furrowed. “Is your name Slade?”

      “Yes. Slade Donovan.”

      “Cathy is asking for you. We need to try and keep her awake. I want to keep her from going into a coma.”

      Inez Kincaid’s thin face grew still. “A coma, doctor?”

      “Yes. If I can keep Slade with her, she might rally enough to fight back and stay awake. We’ve got that portion of her head packed in dry ice to reduce the swelling.” He looked up at Slade. “Let’s get you cleaned up a little, son, and then, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to remain with Cathy for a while.”

      Slade nodded. He followed Dr. Scott down the immaculate hall to a lounge. A nurse gave him a green surgical shirt and a pair of trousers to replace his filthy clothes. Slade took a quick hot shower and fought the deep drowsiness that tried to claim him. It wasn’t yet time to sleep off the past forty-eight hours he’d been awake.

      The nurse, a petite blonde with blue eyes, smiled once he emerged from the lounge. “Now you look like a doctor, Mr. Donovan. Follow me, please.” She took him to the intensive-care unit, where each patient’s room was enclosed on three sides with glass panels. Cathy looked dead. She matched the color of her sheets. Her hair had been washed clean and an ice pack placed carefully against her skull. The sigh of oxygen and the beeps of the cardiac unit made Slade grow wary. So many machines to monitor her fragile hold on life, he thought.

      The nurse drew up a chair alongside Cat’s bed. “You can sit here, Mr. Donovan.”

      Slade thanked her, but moved to the bed. He reached out and slipped his hand across Cat’s limp, cool fingers. They had washed her free of all the filth.

      “You look a little on the thin side, Mr. Donovan. They said you and the Kincaids

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