Wherever Grace Is Needed (38 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Bass

BOOK: Wherever Grace Is Needed
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She walked ahead.
From behind her, he called out. “Grace, what’s wrong? What did I say?”
She stopped—not that she had much choice. She’d reached the edge of the bluff overlooking the river. “Nothing,” she said, turning. “You didn’t say a thing. I just suspect you wish we weren’t out here doing this.”
A laugh sputtered out of him. “Oh, and you’re thrilled to be here, I can tell.”
“It’s beautiful!” she said. “And yes—I thought we were having a reasonably good time. In spite of being forced together.”
He caught up with her. “I got the impression that you’d rather be out here with anyone else.”
“Me?”
She laughed. “I wasn’t the one who questioned the method of team picking as soon as they were announced.”
He frowned down at her. “No—you were the one who wanted to drag Dominic along the moment you thought you would have to be out here alone with me. Not that I blame you. After last spring.”
“Forget last spring! I wanted to drag him along because he so clearly wanted to come,” she argued.
“Then why did he sign up for pool chess?”
“Can you possibly be this thickheaded?” Grace asked aloud. When he recoiled in surprise, she attempted to enlighten him. “His sisters put him up to it because they didn’t want you out here with Muriel Blainey. In fact, I’m certain this whole setup, if not this entire weekend, was just a way to make sure you spent as little time as possible with Muriel. Surely you can see that.”
He looked genuinely perplexed. “Why would they care?”
“Because they’re so desperate to have you not involved with Muriel that they’re willing to spend the afternoon with her themselves. That’s sacrifice, Ray. They’ve jumped into the volcano, for you.”
“But why? I have no intention of getting involved with Muriel. We’re just neighbors.”
“No—
we’re
just neighbors, Ray. You and Muriel are something else.”
He took a step forward. “You’re as misguided as they are, then. You’ve got it completely backward. Muriel means nothing to me. While
we’re . . .
”
He stopped. Their gazes locked.
She swallowed. “What?”
He reached out and took her arm, tugging him gently toward him. She stumbled a step and found herself against his chest, enveloped in a kiss. It was a surprise, but there was none of the rush of the time before, the furtive kiss stolen on her dad’s porch. This time, his lips explored hers more casually, more forcefully. And she didn’t step away. She couldn’t—not with a forty-foot drop behind her.
He pulled away and pushed a lock of hair behind her ears, then hugged her and kissed the top of her head. “Raw umber.”
“It’s auburn,” she said, burrowing against the soft cotton of his shirt. It felt so good just to stand here, alone, away from their problems. Away from everyone.
“I should never have come along on this trip,” she said, sighing. “I’ll always feel we were set up by Jordan.”
“I would have been miserable if you hadn’t come,” he confessed. “Every time I’ve looked at that damned
FOR SALE
sign, I’ve felt sick, as though I was losing you, even though you weren’t mine to lose. It only felt like you were, because without you I don’t know how I would have survived last year.”
“Oh, Ray.”
“When I see that sign, I want to rip it out of the ground, sabotage the sale . . . anything to keep you from going.”
She smiled. “I’ve wanted to do the same thing myself.”
“But not for the same reason. You’re heartbroken about your father, while I was worried you would leave before I could—”
Something dropped to the rocks. She felt the muscles in his arms tense.
“Ray?”
He groaned.
“What was that?” she asked.
“That was our GPS tracking device.”
She twisted to glimpse over her own shoulder at the drop below. “What do we do now?”
He looked down at her, eyebrows arching above the frames of his glasses. “Forfeit the game and find some other activity to keep us occupied?”
She smiled and settled her arms around him again. “Good plan.”
43
L
OST
T
hings really went downhill when they got to D. They’d been squabbling since they’d left the spa—and this time Jordan swore it was not her fault. Come to find out, put a list and a GPS device in Lily’s hands and the girl morphed into Indiana Jones. She knew exactly where the treasure was, and she wasn’t going to let anyone—especially Muriel Blainey—contradict her.
Until C, Lily’s sense of direction had been right on. After that, they’d ended up circling some stupid pond that smelled very strongly of animal dung and something dead. Then, when they arrived at D, it started to look as if they had chosen the wrong treasure token when they were at B. Against Muriel’s advice, they’d picked the pencil and passed on the kazoo. Now they were halfway through the game and they hadn’t seen another kazoo.
“I told you that’s what we should have picked up at B,” Muriel complained. They were supposed to be moving on to E now, but she apparently wasn’t about to let the kazoo thing drop. “What are the chances that we’re going to run into another kazoo?”
“Why shouldn’t we?” Lily argued. “We’ve run into three shoelaces already, and they aren’t even on our list.”
“Exactly,” Muriel said. “That’s why we keep seeing them. Now we’re going to be out here all the livelong day, and we’re going to lose, to boot. We might as well just go back to the spa.”
Nevertheless, they kept going. Five minutes later, they were back at the stinky pond.
“Give me that!” Muriel said, grabbing the GPS device out of Lily’s hand. “Are you sure you’re reading this correctly?”
“Of course!” Lily turned in a circle, trying to figure out where they had gone wrong.
Muriel inspected the device and then whacked it against her palm. “Crappy little thing!” she muttered. “You’d think for the money we’re paying at this place, they could give us OnStar.”
“What would be the fun of that?” Lily asked.
Muriel laughed dryly. “What’s the fun of
this?
”
“Uh, guys?” Jordan had to lift her T-shirt collar over her nose in order to breathe without passing out. “Can we go somewhere else to argue about this? Something is seriously putrefying in this pond.”
“Probably the remains of lost guests,” Muriel muttered.
Jordan shuddered. “I think there’s a bug crawling on me.”
“Squash it, then,” Lily said.
“I can’t. It’s on my back.” She twisted uncomfortably. “I can feel its little appendages digging into my flesh.”
“Yes, well, we’ve all got problems,” Muriel grumbled, staring at the screen. “A blood-sucking insect on your back is the least of them, frankly.”
Jordan groaned. “Why did we ever come out here? I’m going to be eaten alive.”
“You’re so whiny!” Lily said. “You spend most of your time trying to prove how tough you are, but you can’t even stand up to two hours of hiking.”
“Because I’m not made for Outward Bound idiocy like this.”
“It was your idea!” Lily said, exasperated.
“Only for Dad’s sake! Not because I wanted to go wandering around some stinky bug-infested hellhole.”
“Would you both just shut up!” Muriel yelled at them.
Jordan and Lily turned toward her. The woman’s face was completely red. Jordan started to wonder if she was going to have a stroke or something.
“What did you mean, you came out here for Ray’s sake?” Muriel asked.
“Just . . .” Lily’s words faltered and her mouth clamped shut.
Muriel looked from one to the other. “This was all to get those two alone together, wasn’t it?”
“Not entirely,” Jordan said.
“Oh, right. You also wanted to keep me away from him. Is that it?”
Neither Jordan or Lily responded.
“Well, fine! Ray is with the sallow neighbor woman,” Muriel said. “Mission accomplished, girls. Well done. But believe me, you don’t need to worry that I’m going to try to get my claws into Daddy. I don’t know where you could have come up with such a ludicrous idea. I don’t need a man—I’m a real estate agent! So you see, there’s no reason for me to be out here with you two squabbling brats!”
She turned and stomped away.
When she was out of sight, the two sisters exchanged a joyous high five.
Jordan let out a long sigh of relief. “Now that Her ’Rhoidness is gone, can we clear out?”
Lily knit her brow. “Would you call Grace sallow?”
“Who cares?” Jordan replied. “Can we just go back before I catch malaria or something?”
Lily bit her lip. “We’ve sort of got a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Muriel took the tracking device with her.”
The news swept through Jordan like a shiver. “I thought
you
had it.”
“I did—but then she took it. Which you would have realized if you had been paying attention instead of whining about bugs.”
“Why did you let her wander off with it?”
“I was just so glad she was gone. I forgot.” Lily let out a long breath. “I screwed up.”
“How are we going to find our way back?”
“It’s not that big a deal,” Lily assured her. “It’ll be a lot easier than finding these stupid caches.”
“You think?”
“Sure. The lodge is on the river. We just need to find the river and walk along it.”
“When was the last time we saw the river?” Jordan asked. “Which way is it?”
Lily pointed to her right. “I think it’s that way.”
“But we could wander that way and get even more lost.”
“Do you have a better suggestion? We can’t just stand here.”
Jordan followed her. If she hadn’t been starting to get hungry, she would almost have hoped they
wouldn’t
find the river. Just to prove Lily wrong.
But of course Lily was right. They came upon the bluff over the river in five minutes.
“How did you know that?” Jordan asked, impressed.
Lily lifted her hands. “It just seemed right.”
“Now we just have to figure out how far we are from the spa.”
“Probably not far. I bet you can look down the canyon and see the buildings from here,” Lily said.
“You do that. I’m not getting close to that edge.” She turned. “I’d rather climb a tree and look out that way, or better yet, just start walking.”
Behind her, Jordan heard a yelp and then a heavy thud farther away. She whirled on her heel to see what had happened and saw—nothing.
“Lily?” She stared at the spot where her sister had just been standing. Nothing but air there now. As the horrible yet probable explanation sank in, tension looped her voice up an octave.
“Lily?”
Jordan sidled up to the edge of the bank and looked over. Approximately fifteen feet below, on a shelf of granite jutting out from the canyon, Lily was sprawled on her back. Her arm was sticking out from her collarbone in a way that made Jordan wince. “Lils? Say something!”
She bent down, straining to hear. She could have sworn she heard a moan, but it might have been the river, or wishful thinking. She yelled her sister’s name again as a feverish heat started to creep into her cheeks.
What am I going to do? Run for help?
But she couldn’t leave Lily lying there. What if she woke up and rolled over? Just a foot and a half and she would topple off the ledge and fall another twenty feet or more.
Jordan groaned. Damn! She hadn’t brought her cell phone, and she was sure Lily hadn’t, either. Who would have thought they’d need one? As cautiously as she could, mindful that her limbs were quivering with nerves, she got down on all fours and edged as far out as she could to peer over again. The rocks were uneven and jagged all the way down to the place where Lily lay. There was a possibility she could get down there to make sure Lily was still alive—and to see if she could help. On the other hand, there was also the possibility that she too would get trapped on the ledge. Or fall.
At some point, her dad and Grace should be coming along this way. But waiting for them would be risky. Maybe they had already passed them while she, Muriel, and Lily were wandering around the stink pond, lost. Or maybe they had given up the game altogether. She couldn’t know. How long would it take them to figure out they were missing and send a search party? Lily needed a doctor as soon as possible.
That is, if she wasn’t . . .
Jordan turned away, ready to run for help. But her feet wouldn’t move. She couldn’t leave Lily on the ledge. She just couldn’t. Not without checking on her first.
Looking down, she visually mapped out a path with foot and handholds, and then, starting on her hands and knees, began to lower herself down. It would have helped if her hands weren’t so sweaty. And if her stupid legs would stop shaking. And if her head would stop saying,
I’ve killed Lily. I told her to look over the ledge, and she fell.
Her foot slipped off its perch and for a moment, a moment that felt like a century, she hung suspended over the cliff, her hands clinging to rock and the root of some plant. Her stomach jumped into her throat until she managed to get her feet back into place.
Calm down, Jordan. Or you’ll both be lost.
She finally made it down to the ledge, although she couldn’t forget that what felt solid beneath her legs was just a few feet of rock jutting out into space. Could it hold the weight of both of them? She edged along the cliff face and then knelt next to Lily. Her face was chalky white. “Lily?” she asked. “Lils—say something!”
Receiving no response, she held her sister’s hand and lowered her ear to Lily’s chest.
“What are you
doing?”
Lily moaned, her eyes fluttering open momentarily.
Jordan could have wept. “Lils! You’re okay.”
“No, I’m not.” She shut her eyes again. But maybe that was just as well.
“I’m afraid to move you, Lils. I’m going to have to get help.” She didn’t have the heart to tell her that she couldn’t have moved her if she’d wanted to. “But you’re going to have to remain perfectly still. Get it? Don’t move!”
“I can’t. My arm! I think it’s gonna fall off.”
That wasn’t possible, was it? Jordan drew back and looked at that arm again, jutting out from her collarbone at a freakish angle. “I think it’s your shoulder.”
“And my head.”
“Yeah, well, you thumped down pretty hard. I’ll be back in a snap. Are you cold?” Jordan took off her jacket and draped it over her sister’s torso. “Here—you can wear my favorite black leather jacket. Now you know I’ll be back.”
Lily’s lips quirked into a smile and she opened her eyes. “I know you’d come back anyway.”
“Yeah, probably,” Jordan agreed. She looked down at her little sister’s head lying back against the dirt and rocks. That couldn’t be comfortable. She pulled her long-sleeved shirt off and wadded it up. “I’m going to lift your head and give you a pillow.”
She raised Lily up a bit and her sister let out a piercing scream.
“It hurts that much?” Jordan asked.
Lily nodded. “But the pillow feels good. Only, you’re half-naked now. Aren’t you cold?”
Jordan looked down at her bra—glad at least that it wasn’t one of her more ratty ones. “I’ll be fine.”
How were they ever going to get Lily out of there?
For that matter, how was she ever going to get back up the cliff face? She leaned into the rocks, sent up a silent prayer to whoever was listening, and started a quick ascent. She tried not to think of the sheer drop below her, or the fact that one loose rock or unstable branch could send her falling to her doom.
When she finally heaved herself back onto level ground, she knew what it was to want to kiss the earth. But there wasn’t time to waste even for that. She got up, dusted herself off, and ran.
Although the hotel was closer than she and Lily had supposed, by the time Jordan had run all the way she’d still managed to work up a sweat. She streaked through the spa’s lobby, glancing quickly around on the off chance that her father was there, but saw only employees and guests gawping at her as if they’d never seen a frantic girl in a bra before. She hurried on, out the back door, down the covered walkway and into the building where their rooms were. She rapped on her dad’s door, and when Dominic opened it she burst in. Her dad and Grace were sitting around a table drinking beers.
“Thank God you’re here!” Jordan panted.
“What’s happened?” her father asked, hurrying to her. “Muriel came by—she was very upset.”
She shook her head, gasping for air. “No time. Call—”
“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” Grace asked.
“Call 911, Dad!”
“Where’s Lily?” Dominic asked.
“She fell! She’s stuck on a ledge!” She sucked in a breath and tried to string together some coherent sentences. “I think she broke her collarbone. Something weird. She can’t move without screaming. I don’t know how they’re going to get her out of there. I didn’t want to leave her, but I didn’t have any way to call for help.”

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